Microsoft Approaches Novell

[Midas]

Wall Street Journal
The Boston Globe

"Come into my lair, said the spider to the fly"...

Interesting, assuming Microsoft don't make intentional attempts to break things I can see this as possibly having a largely good outcome. Microsoft aren't really threatened by Linux in the home market yet (I'm sorry, but IMHO it's sheer fanboyism to claim otherwise). There are a few iffy things, but I think that it's also in Microsoft's interest to keep some healthy competition going. Sheer stagnation (which is already something Microsoft suffers from, to a varying extent, due to the size of the code and userbase) isn't good for any market.

That said, I haven't thought much about it... anyone got some rather better considered ideas?

[TheQuux]

At the end of the Globe article, there was a quote:

"Microsoft is willing to cooperate with Novell, especially if it takes Red Hat down a couple of pegs," said Laura DiDio , a senior analyst for Yankee Group in Boston.

Something tells me that they're attempting to fragment Linux.

OTOH, they can't manage to make the problem any worse than it already is... with Suse users backstabbing RedHat, Gentoo users attacking Mandrake, and Ubuntu taking over the world