Microsoft Buys Open Source ReactOS For $12.3 Billion

I've fallen for my share of April fool's stunts, but this ain't one of them. If they had replaced billion with million, I might have thought twice.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing.

That doesn't mean that Microsoft couldn't deal with the "competition" by simply buying them, but so far MS has seemed more likely to pay their lawyers to try to crush the competition.

I'm with Ken, I spotted this farce a mile a way...

Besides, depending on the license, someone could have always forked it, anyway...

A $12B LAWSUIT might have been believeable...

Marcel submitted this and I thought it was funny so I figured why not post it. I'm not used to giving MS free press though..lol.

Scott. I wouldn't put this past MS...

Remember the guy who was instrumental in finding and blowing the whistle on the Sony Rootkit? Mark Russinovich? A year later he also found a rootkit within the Symantec anti-virus products.

I'm no longer programming and I haven't been in the same room with a compiler for years, but you would spend a lot of time trying to convince me that these rootkits were installed into Microsoft systems without some consultations with Microsoft engineers or management.

I find it strange that after Russinovich stirred the pot this many times, Microsoft simply purchased his company SysInternals and made him an employee.

I figure MS had two choices, hire him and make him sign a bunch of agreements not to do any whistle-blowing or maybe Mark would have a terrible accident...

After reading excerpts from Paul Allen's autobiography, http://slashdot.org/story/11/03/31/0127227/Paul-Allen-Rips-B... I don't think the second choice is really a stretch of the imagination.

Purchasing ReactOS would not have been a surprise either, but not for billions...

Thanks for posting this, Scott. I have to admit that I've felt a troubling combination of evil joy and extreme guilt for most of the day. For every person that 'got it' another thought it was for real. I'm starting to feel like I'm going to have to apologize to several people over this one.

Or not. [ insert appropriate smiley here ]

-- Marcel (Writer and Free Thinker at Large) Gagné Note: This massagee wos nat speel or gramer-checkered.

Marcel, don't apologize. If they don't get it, they deserve the consternation.

Just remember the great User Friendly prank of 1999. A legendary standard by which all other online April Fools' pranks should be measured.