Summary: rPath does a disservice to itself and to many others by assisting the company which openly attacks GNU/Linux, on which rPath's business is based

WE are generally supportive of rPath, which we sometimes view as the company which Novell is 'ripping off' (there are others too) to take some of its business 'Astrum style'.

Well, rPath appears to have lost sight of the importance of independence as it now serves a non-Free platform to which users -- not just rPath -- have no access and no permission. To quote the press release:

rPath, an innovator in automating system deployment and maintenance, today announced that it will support the Microsoft Windows operating system with a new solution for automated deployment of applications built using the Microsoft .NET Framework. This announcement extends the reach of rPath’s next-generation system automation solutions beyond the enterprise Linux market.

The GNU/Linux market is growing fast (in terms of installed units, not necessarily money alone). Why waste time and effort making the company which actively attacks GNU/Linux even stronger? rPath might be acting to serve its own interests here, but bloggers like Dana Gardner [1, 2] neglect to say that this has a downside. They treat Microsoft like it's just another company and probably forget its relationship to GNU/Linux, which is rPath's core business. ⬆

"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO