J_K9 @ Linux

Linux and Windows: Can They Coexist In Harmony?

November 3, 2006 on 5:10 pm | In Linux, Hyperactive |

Linux users are well aware of the complexities associated with multi-platform environments, particularly in cases where one tries to connect a Microsoft product to a Linux distribution or service in one way or another. Windows has no native filesystem drivers for anything other than FAT16/32 and NTFS - that is, Linux’s main filesystems (ext3, ReiserFS, and ext2 to a certain extent) are not recognised by Windows, so third party drivers have to be used to access Linux partitions from Windows. This is just one example of how difficult Microsoft have made it to use Linux on the same system for the use, or even as another platform on the network.

However, Microsoft and Novell (the company which owns the rights to and develops SUSE Linux - one of the most prominent Linux enterprises, in fact, for those of you who may never have heard of them) appear to have been collaborating over the past few months, and have released a joint letter proposing the end of Windows-Linux warfare as we know it.

Microsoft is coming to terms with Linux. I wasn’t too ready to believe this until I read the article (and the joint letter), and we shall have to wait and see what becomes of this.

In the letter, it is written that “for the first time, Microsoft is collaborating directly with a Linux and Open Source software vendor. With this news, Microsoft is saying that Linux is an important part of the IT infrastructure.” Microsoft is recognising Linux as an important part of the IT infrastructure? I don’t know about you, but I never thought I would hear that, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a welcome surprise.

Microsoft also announced that “it will not assert its patents against individual, non-commercial developers” - this will allow the developers of many open source projects to continue coding without worrying about possible patent lawsuits. Great news! This is an ”irrevocable promise from Microsoft,” so I don’t think they will be going back on their word any time soon.

There are other results to this collaboration which will improve the coexistance of these two operating systems, and you can read about them in the letter.

A round of applause for Linux, anyone?

10 Comments »

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Seriously, I am not sure where this is heading.

Perhaps we need to give some time and see the results.

Comment by E@zyVG — November 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0 on SuSE Linux
Neither am I.. But, as usual, I’m hoping for the best

[edit] Looks like you beat me to it! Hehe. I was going to post this as a comment on your blog, but one of the many things this school disallows is HTTPS access to sites which are not on their (short) whitelist

Comment by J_K9 — November 3, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
You should get Portable Firefox for school. It’s what I do to get around the tyranny of IE.

Comment by Gunny — November 4, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP
It’s a fairly long story - I could get Firefox, Flock and most other browsers to work on this network, but in order to do so I would have to join the domain and by restricted by their GPOs, which I don’t really approve of…

Comment by J_K9 — November 4, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
GPOs?

Comment by Gunny — November 7, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP
The only Microsoft-related meaning of the acronym there is

Group Policy Object.

Comment by J_K9 — November 7, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
[…] We could see full AD integration of linux clients in the enterprise environment. We could see improvements to Evolution that allow full interoperability with Exchange. Full support for Microsoft Office file formats in OpenOffice… maybe even an effective, non-command line method of working with Access databases. I see Virtual PC for Linux, WMP for Linux and maybe even IE for Linux… Is this what the agreement outlines? Not in the least but it’s all possible now… more possible than it was a month ago. I’d rather take an optimistic outlook on this… I was also happy to see that I wasn’t the only one with a positive take on all of this, a buddy of mine, J_K9, blogged regarding this previously. […]

Pingback by .:Computer Defense:. » — November 9, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.0.2
Need to know more, interesting.

Comment by Mattg — January 13, 2007 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4613711577.html

Comment by J_K9 — January 13, 2007 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
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