@ Doug 3 Re: They have hired top Linux people before
"Since Windows is their cash cow....."
Actually Doug 3 it isn't. They rake in way more with Office and increasingly their cloud products than they do with their OS. Windows itself is of importance to them as a strategic product but not in any huge direct degree as a financial product - hence their "free" strategy (including the continuous upgrade badgering). Nadella appears to have realised that the only strategy as far as open source/Linux is concerned is to apply the old saw (as Dr Syntax points out) "if you can't beat them, join them". After all both Gates and Ballmer tried the "beat them" tactic and we all know how successful that was. Redmond's ambitions in the cloud are impossible to realise without a complete rethink of their former attitudes towards Linux specifically and open source in general. It would appear that "SatNat" may have taken this on board. Certainly if they do not then their ambitions with regard to "mobile and cloud" are, in the medium to long term, unrealisable and frankly speaking, risible.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
