Article 81688 of alt.folklore.computers: Path: winternet.com!solon.com!not-for-mail From: seebs@solutions.solon.com (Peter Seebach) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,gnu.announce,alt.folklore.computers Subject: FSF, Microsoft announce merger Date: 1 Apr 1996 22:05:45 -0600 Organization: Usenet Fact Police (Undercover) Lines: 28 Approved: you betcha! Message-ID: <4jq92p$c9g@solutions.solon.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: solutions.solon.com Xref: winternet.com gnu.misc.discuss:13011 gnu.announce:239 alt.folklore.computers:81688 In what is likely to be hailed as a landmark of the computer industry, Richard Stallman, of the Free Software Foundation, and Bill Gates, of Microsoft, announced that they would be concluding a merger within a year, setting a target date of April 1st, 1997. "It's all been a horrible misunderstanding", says Stallman, a long time advocate of free software. "It's really just a semantic thing", says Gates. "We call software free when the vendor has to bundle it with the machine and swallow the expense, or they don't get sales. Stallman calls it free when the vendor can't bundle it with the machine and pass the expenses on to you. It really comes down to the same thing, and that's market share." The first visible products of this merger will be "Hurd '97", to be released by 3Q1998, and "Hello '96", which will be a replacement product for Windows For Workgroups. Gates comments, "the mail reader is brilliant; I wish we'd had these people with us all along." The two met inside Westminster Cathedral, where they embraced, and called each other "anathema", the Latin for "brother". -s -- Peter Seebach - seebs@solon.com - Copyright 1996 Peter Seebach. C/Unix wizard -- C/Unix questions? Send mail for help. No, really! FUCK the communications decency act. Goddamned government. [literally.] The *other* C FAQ - http://www.solon.com/~seebs/c/c-iaq.html