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发信人: linuxrat (叫我老鼠错不了), 信区: Linux
标  题: RedHat to by Be? [Forward]
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Thu Dec 30 17:53:32 1999)

呵呵, 今天是跟Be OS干上了. 要不是没有中文, 我有可能现在就在那里先
爬一会SMTH了. 只是可惜啊....希望下个世纪就没有了遗憾的说...
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   Posted 17/12/99 11:15am by Tony Smith

   Red Hat to buy Be?

   Even as rumours that Red Hat is about to buy Corel are moving back
   onto the Linux watcher's radar screen, so has a further item of
   tittle-tattle that the best-known open source operation is about to
   buy alternative OS vendor Be.
   Indeed, Be's shares rose 49 per cent yesterday, to $37.56, apparently
   on the back of the rumour. Neither company has yet commented on the
   claim.
   One analyst, Charles Payne of Wall Street Strategies, cited by
   Bloomberg, said Be's software would add applications that Red Hat's
   software doesn't offer -- neglecting to realise that the two operating
   systems, while structurally similar (kernel, shell, graphical UI)
   aren't compatible, and BeOS is no less proprietary than Windows 2000.
   That said, those very structural similarities would make BeOS a
   candidate for a move into the open source world. Strip out the
   existing (and handily Unix-like) kernel and slide in a modified
   version of the Linux kernel with BeOS' rather fine journaling file
   system tacked-on, and you've got a version of Linux with an series of
   media-oriented API and a top-notch GUI light years ahead of KDE and
   Gnome.
   Sounds an interesting plan, but the Linuxisation of BeOS would be
   tantamount to an admission of failure on Be's part, a confession that
   it can't after all compete with the open source OS. Be itself is doing
   reasonably well an OS vendor, with a small but solid band of
   supporters, and is pushing hard to make it big in the information
   appliance market.
   From that perspective, it doesn't need Red Hat. So unless Jean-Louis
   Gassee wants to cash in his shares or swap them for more valuable Red
   Hat ones (assuming some kind of share-for-shares acquisition), he's
   little reason to shake hands with Bob Young, Matthew Szulik and co.
   Red Hat, on the other hand, needs Be rather more. Getting Be's
   technology and putting it into the Linux domain would give its
   distribution a major lead in functionality. But such is the open
   source philosophy, Red Hat would have hand it over to everyone else,
   and any advantage would soon be lost.
   Of course, Red Hat could offer the Be shell, GUI and APIs separately
   under its own, non-GNU licence, but that would surely nuke the
   company's open source credibility. The alternative is to offer BeOS as
   an operating system in its own right, but again that presents a
   conflict with Red Hat's open source roots and would surely lead to a
   blurring of Red Hat's message: is it a Linux company or not?
   All of which would suggest the details of the rumour are incorrect,
   and that the two companies have probably been talking about Red Hat
   taking investing in Be, licensing some of its technology or both. The
   latter course would involve a shift by Be towards the open source
   model, but Gassee's a shrewd enough guy to see the advantages of
   moving that way without going the whole hog -- just as his alma mater,
   Apple, has done with its Darwin open source project.
   One thing does seem clear: the guys at Be and Red Hat have probably
   been chatting. Whether anything comes of their conversation -- apart
   from a small lift to Be's share price -- we'll just have to wait and
   see. (more here? rat doesn't know. It just show me end there. :( )

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| 以无法为有法，      |  拳本无法，有法也空；  |  我爱GNU/Linux,    |
|   以无限为有限       |    一法不立，无法不容。|     因为我爱自由！ |
|                      |                        |                    |
|   截拳道宗师-李小龙  |        意拳宗师-王芗斋 |     土人  Linuxrat |
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