Microsoft executive Edmund Muth confirmed this week that the infamous "Halloween Document," which seems to be an official assessment of Linux written by a Microsoft employee, is real. The document, which was authored by Microsoft's Vinod Valloppillil, explains that the Open Source software movement is a threat to Windows NT. Muth says that Valloppillil is "a close friend," and that he agrees with most aspects of his analysis.
Open Source guru Eric Raymond, who posted the intriguing memo on his Web site, was startled to discover that many people in the Windows community thought he wrote the memo himself.
"As you peruse your \[newspaper Tuesday\], the distant noise you hear will be me--laughing my butt off at the people who leapt to accuse me of having been hoaxed, or even of perpetrating the hoax myself," he said.
