I’m not advocating a new dish for the family, just mashing up the American holiday with comments on Microsoft’s latest attempt to sink The Penguin, otherwise known as Linux. Perhaps Steve Ballmer loves the campy Batman TV show from the 1960s, and sees himself as Adam West as Batman versus Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, aka Linux, the Rogue Operating System. Hmm.
First, the holiday. Have a good one. If you’re not in the US, be thankful anyway. Tell the people who matter to you that you’re thinking of them in a good way.
Second, Microsoft using Novell to hammer Linux. I wrote briefly about this earlier, and the initial tepid approval now seems down the drain as people realize Microsoft’s Machiavellian maneuvering throws legal confusion about patents onto Linux, not legal agreements with Novell and SuSE Linux.
Initially I was unhappy with Novell getting duped so easily, and cheaply, by Microsoft. If the new Novell management had any balls, they would have demanded hundreds of millions of dollars more to turn their backs on the Linux world and help Microsoft threaten every Linux-using company in the US, but they settled for peanuts. Now I’m unhappy because the press reports took so long to see that Microsoft was using this deal to make all non-Novell Linux appear to be illegal, and to tie it to the SCO versus Linux patent cases. You remember, the ones funded under the table by Microsoft (according to BayStar executives).
As much as I like penguins (both Distorted Penguins and the new Happy Feet movie), we need a new image for Linux. How about Robin Hood?
Imagine Gates and Ballmer as the two-headed Sheriff of Nottingham, chasing Linus Torvalds, aka Robin Hood, who has been taking computing features previously found in expensive systems and making them available to the people for free or darn close. Doesn’t that seem more like the real situation? The status quo always hates change, and Linux and the Open Source Software movement is about market-shaking changes in many areas. But who plays Maid Marian?
