Technowaves

I came across this post from Linuxhaxor I thought it was funny and wanted to post it here for others to see and read.

1. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… you actually enjoy paying for an operating system that is so mired with bugs and issues that it shouldn’t even released as an alpha build. What recession?
2. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… change is always scary. Look at Obama, he scares the shit out of me. I voted for him but he always talks about change and change is always scary even if that change will make things better.
3. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… the only thing you use your computer for is to play games. I mean people still use computers for things other than games?
4. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… You love to dedicate one whole day of your week just for scanning purposes. Anti-virus scan – Spyware Scan – Defragmentation scan – Registry Scan & defrag. What Fun!
5. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… You love to pay for Anti-virus/spyware (with yearly subscription renewal) for protection that the OS should provide you with in the first place. Even though Windows Defender does a fabulous job, its just not there yet.
6. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… most people use Windows. If most people use windows it must be good!
7. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… you realize that nothing lasts forever. Eventually your windows will succumb to a BSOD, while Linux has its version of kernel panic, you might have to wait a couple of years to experience it, if at all.
8. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… you LOVE Internet Explorer and you can only use the latest version of Internet explorer on windows. Imagine going online without IE.
9. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… you have to be a geek to use Linux and we all know that geeks don’t have girlfriends.
10. Last but not least. You shouldn’t switch to Linux because… you don’t want to be a conformist and do what everyone tells you to do. You want to be unique, which is why you want to use windows. Oh wait…

You may have already heard, but the unthinkable has happened. That’s right, Microsoft, the self-proclaimed enemy of Linux and free software, has announced that they will be submitting some 20,000 lines of code to the Linux kernel. Come again? Yes, Microsoft wants to get its code into the Linux kernel. You read that right!

It is important to note that this code has not yet been included into the official Linux kernel. The code has also not yet been thoroughly scrutinized by the wider community to see what the code actually consists of. Is it all code, or does it rely on binary blobs? Will the quality of the code make the grade, or will the community be expected to clean it up and maintain it?

When approached by Linux Magazine as to whether he has even looked at the code, Linus Torvalds (the father of Linux) replied:

“I haven’t. Mainly because I’m not personally all that interested in driver code (it doesn’t affect anything else), especially when I wouldn’t use it myself.

So for things like that, I just trust the maintainers. I tend to look at code when bugs happen, or when it crosses multiple subsystems, or when it’s one of the core subsystems that I’m actively involved in (ie things like VM, core device resource handling, basic kernel code etc).

I’ll likely look at it when the code is actually submitted to me by the maintainers (Greg [Kroah-Hartman], in this case), just out of morbid curiosity.”

So why the patch? Well, it contains three drivers which will enhance the performance of Linux when virtualized as a guest under Microsoft’s virtualization product, Hyper-V. Ahh, now the truth starts to emerge. The purpose of the code has nothing to do with being generous, but rather it is to ensure that Linux will run well under their own virtualization technology. Microsoft has well realized that the world is moving towards free software and that users are implementing Linux in their infrastructure.

Even though the motivation is a purely selfish one, is there anything wrong with that? Microsoft certainly plans to “outsmart open source” and this move should be seen in that light, but at the end of the day they are doing the unthinkable - contributing to free software - and that’s a win.

source