At 09:37 PM 9/9/98 -0500, Doug Yowza wrote: I recently saw a web site with dozens of fake press releases like this one about TeX. Some were funny, many were not. I forget where it was, and my bookmarks aren't telling. Sell out? To me, the more interesting prospect is that there's no reason to buy him out, or anyone else out. For that matter, he may have already sold out; see below. I've been cultivating a pet theory lately regarding the assimilation of Linux by Microsoft. I believe it would be possible to refine a layer of compatibility into WinNT that would allow more and more Linux software to be recompiled to run under WinNT as-is (or someday, even running the executables directly.) I like tossing this idea on the table at programmer lunches just to see the reactions it provokes. Because of the freeware nature of Linux, as long as Microsoft abides by the rules of releasing the *relevant* source code, they'd be free to assimilate as many freeware tools as they like. Today they'll ship you a service pack CD for $9.95; tomorrow they might ship a $9.95 Linux compatibility CD, or even give it away as a promotion. The average Linux-head has a hypocritical hatred of Microsoft when considered in the light of their devotion to portable, run-everywhere source code. Why shouldn't Linux freeware run under NT, too? Of course, Linux is many different components. The bulk of it, as Richard Stallman tries hard to remind us, is based on GNU tools. Linus made the kernel, and hordes of programmers have refined the drivers and many other parts. For a while, there's been a project to make a Unix compatibility layer for GNU tools, at <http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/>. Steve Chamberlain &lt;sac(a)transmeta.com&gt; was the original author of this CygWin32 software. Note the e-mail address - Transmeta, Silicon Valley's mystery company of the moment. Oh, that's where Linus works now, too. Speculation about Transmeta includes the development of graphics chips and emulator chips that mimic various CPUs and OSes. When I present this possibility to Linux-heads, their first reaction is a fearful "But why would Microsoft want to do that?" I respond, "To run all that great Linux application software," a double-whammy that underscores the lack of anything truly comparable to Microsoft Office in the Linux market. To ask why Microsoft would assimilate Linux forces one to consider which Linux apps are most useful to anyone but the most nerdy. Do we really need to reproduce the kernel? WinNT already has a microkernel architecture that, in theory, allows different OSes to be placed on top - that's how Win32, OS/2, POSIX and DOS/Win16 live there. See <http://www.sysinternals.com/ntdll.htm> and other pages there for a nice discussion of this. Implement a layer of HAL that talks to Unix-style device drivers, add an X Window server to the top layers, expand the present POSIX support, enhance the GNU Win32 effort, make a more Unix-like shell, and presto, Microsoft assimilates a great deal of Linux. All the Linux programmers are working for Microsoft, unless they explicitly do something to prevent it. Think I can sell the idea to Uncle Bill, or do you think he's already Microserfs working on it? And perhaps even Ballmer is thinking about it: <http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,3441,2134010,00.ht ml> Freedows is an interesting effort to run Windows apps under Linux: <http://www.freedows.org/english/high/index.html>. As for the ten-year-rule, I think the assimilation of Linux into WinNT will be good for emulators in general, making it possible to download old Apple II executables and double-click on them and automagically start the right emulator. - John