Torvalds is underplaying virtualization, but for good reason; his OS doesn't need it as much as the windows world.
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You may be right
Virtualization per-se in a Linux environment has only marginal benefits. Many of those benefits can already be achieved in other ways, and it looks like from examining the road maps for Linux Kernel development that most, if not all, of those features will be available for Linux-on-Linux 'virtualization' in the near term.
I'd go so far as to say it is going to be pretty hard to even draw a line and say 'this setup is virtualized' and 'this setup isn't'. You COULD draw the line at a 'container' maintaining its own supervisor level address space, but frankly if the host and guest are the same OS what exactly is the advantage of that in the 1st place? It really isn't much different than running some microkernel based architecture. Worse really.
Empty Threats
I'm not much of a legal buff, but it seems to me that Microsoft's patent claim possibly have a negative effect on companies' switch to Linux, therefore some open source legal team should sue Microsoft for throwing around such claims without any proof behind. This all seems to be blackmail, which as far as I know is not a legal way of doing business.
A two way street
What I don't get about all this patent stuff is the fact that nobody knows if Microsoft is infringing on someone elses patented code because alot of their code is hidden. And furthermore no one really can be bothered to check it because it would be a daunting task to go through it all...so until Microsoft rolls the ball that will tick off people enough to star a patent war, things will just stay as they are because Microsoft does not need such problems. Besides, Steve's allways shooting off his mouth for nothing.. He rambles alot so what. He's a bit nuts anyways...
Not just one way
Dear Anonymous, code in itself can not be patented but, unfortunately, the method can. Now, assuming you mean methods, yes, MS and probably everyone else writing any complex systems is infringing patents. It is unavoidable how the patent system is today. It doesn't matter what you, me and a couple of others think, it is the current law.
For me it is almost hilarious seeing some patents describing the ideas I found in operating systems over 30 years ago, not open source but source available. And if people think that applications are more complex today than a long time ago they shouldn't be in this business. Yes, there is more stuff, but most of the basic ideas did exist even before computers. How you can patent them today, I don't know. Maybe just putting the word Internet in patent? Or token? Or network or trust or changing sticks and stones to bits and bytes?
That was OT - Linus is great, not that he is or wants to be any more than a very good system designer and a real programmer, and we should give all the credit for that. He has done and is doing a great job. Now, I also think that he is sometimes a little shortsighted as we all. Virtualization is not the most important thing and it is old but there are cases where it really is very beneficial. One small part is for us, developers, I can and do run XP and Linux versions under OSX in laptop, I run Windows and other Linux versions under VM (in Linux) in a little more powerful systems. Even this is old, many large installations had VM systems for development and testing a long, long time ago, a big way! For a normal end user it may not be so obvious, they don't know nor care if anything is running in virtual, they want it to work.
The only thing is, as they
The only thing is, as they cant fight foss they decided to make money from it.
Is Microsoft bluffing on patents?
We all know that Microsoft's patents claim against Linux is "a marketing thing," as recently stated by Linus Torvalds. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have teeth. If Microsoft can use its deep pockets to scare young technology upstarts into signing licensing agreements -- simply to avoid having their cash being sucked up in litigation (even if that litigation is a marketing ploy), then Microsoft wins. The ploy may not scare corporate users from deploying Linux. But it might add a hefty barrier to creators of Linux distros or other cool Linux-based technologies. (It can be argued that Linspire and Xandros are cases in point.)
Everyone knows it's all a marketing gimmick...
Everyone knows it's all a marketing gimmick. But I guess Linus should be suing Microsoft for stealing code. Microsoft obviously copies from open source. Concept of tabbed browsing copied from firefox. No wonder they don't have brainy people just maniacs in the organization. But well open source people are not interesting in suing and causing useless media attention.
So be happy microsoft
Desktop & M$
Linus is off the ball on this one. Linux is a good desktop and is just waiting for more apps.
If it's too good to be true, it probably is... M$ has always been about FUD and has always managed to delay lawsuits till the other side went broke and/or issue became irrelevant. Believe M$ when they threaten and bully, because they will. When they suggest they are going to cooperate with open software, I don't believe them. It's a trick.