That should read, "FUD-suit" »

Whenever MS is in an innovation bind (as in, they need something they have not been able to produce in-house in order to create "product") they buy a company. Front Page, anyone? Visio? Whenever MS wants to remind the little guys that licensing their technologies is an important thing, they typically file a FUD-suite against some company. What I see in this current situation is a serendipitous meeting of both of those items...make a point _and_ buy a company at fire sale pricing. Nothing more, nothing less. »

This appears to suffer from a bit of putting the cart in front of the bulldozer...er, horse... Certainly, open specs and standards are beneficial to everyone (Linux, and every other OS). I can even see some "trickle-down" drivers arriving through all of this. What I am having trouble envisioning is how AC'97 audio drivers will be improved by adding either an abstraction layer (software or hardware) or by genericizing drivers to perform the lowest common denominator of hardware operations. I do not run Linux from within vmware, and to do so would (1) increase my administrative load, (2) increase my hardware requirements, and (3) remove any real benefits that Linux offers as an operating system. I believe that the best title for this article would be: "Can VMware end CORPORATE Linux hardware compatibility problems?" »