Microsoft To Distribute Their Own Version of BSD/Linux
Paw Prints: Writings of the maddog
NEW YORK — April 1, 2010 — Today, CEO Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft would be releasing their own version of the Linux operating system in twelve months.
After years of calling the Free Software movement “communists”, threatening them with patent suits, deprecating Free Software and coercing foreign governments to ship useless, broken Microsoft software packages with hardware programs aimed at helping poor people get access to the Internet, Ballmer actually used a copy of GNU/Linux and said, “Hey, Free Software is really pretty darn good, I think Microsoft could really make a lot of money with it.”
Ballmer was particularly impressed by the ease of use of emacs, and said that its power and flexibility reminded him of Excel. "These are the only two software products I have found where you can make a complete simulator of a CPU or solve the Towers of Hanoi without leaving the program," said Ballmer.
Based on the Linux kernel, the Microsoft operating system will have user-level code taken from the BSD distributions so Microsoft will not have to ship any sources other than for the kernel. “This will allow our hardware partners to do all the work of writing device drivers and porting the Linux kernel, yet still allow Microsoft to put in the useless extensions, changes and bloat-ware to the system that will force people to pay Microsoft obscenely large amounts of money for breaking standards,” said Ballmer.
Ballmer acknowledged that this had been a successful Microsoft strategy in the past, and pointed to Microsoft's successes to corrupting Kerberos, JAVA and Internet Explorer. “Well, two out of three successes is not bad,” said Ballmer, reflecting on Internet Explorer's shrinking share of the browser market.
When asked if his competitors would be able to take advantage of Microsoft being forced to make the sources for the kernel available, Ballmer shrugged and said “Who cares about the kernel? If people wanted a fast, stable, scalable operating system they would not have been buying Microsoft products for years.”
Microsoft has not made any statements about final pricing and availability, but they said that they were thinking of a multi-tiered pricing model that charged per user, per CPU core, per Gigabyte of memory, per disk drive and somehow also considered a customer's religion and sexual orientation. Microsoft product management complained that they needed an eight-dimensional model to fully describe their pricing structure, and their staff was having problems with the origami needed to represent this model.
When asked why it would take almost a year to put together this new product, Ballmer pointed out that Microsoft's one software engineer had been really busy patching Internet Explorer lately, and they had to allow him a week of rest before starting this new, major project.
Recognizing that Free Software people like cute, fuzzy or feathered animals (and blowfish), Ballmer announced the adoption of the African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus) as the distribution's official mascot, and the donation of a billion dollars of Microsoft VISA licenses to the penguin habitat to protect them from viruses.
“I felt that the African Penguin represents the essence of Microsoft, and I feel a personal relationship with this bird,” he said.
Reporters noted that the unofficial name for the penguin is “Jackass”, because of their call which sounds like a donkey braying.
Comments
comments powered by DisqusSubscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.
-
DebConf24 to be Held in South Korea
Busan will be the location of the latest DebConf running July 28 through August 4
Nice!
Boring jokes
Yes, it is an April Fool's joke
http://www.networkworld.com...nlt_daily_am_2010-04-01#slide1
md
April 1st's Joke
It's just a April 1st's Joke isn't it?
Imagine, Microsoft lauching a Linux distro, porting their M$ Office other top-softwares...just in our sweetest dreams!!!
It would be nice...but unfortunatelly, it was just the best joke today!
Here in Brazil we would say "Maddog é um Fanfarrão" (something like Maddog is a Big Joker). Very very very funny, indeed!
Well...as I said, it was funny...good to begin a tough day here in Brazil.
My best regards, Mr. Maddog!
FabioTux®