Linux can be made profitable and it can be made so without going the enterprise route or by relying on the traditional services an support model– as long as technology companies are willing to sell the operating system on their own highly optimized and performance enhanced proprietary hardware.
Note 1: All opinions are of course my own, OSNews.com is simply doing me the favor of allowing me to share my thoughts. Thanks given to the OS Emulation Forums at Delphi for their help and feedback, any mistakes are of course my own.
Note 2: At all times the word ‘free’ in this editorial is to mean freedom unless specifically stated otherwise in the text.
Consider for the moment, the example set by Apple. True their Operating System is a proprietary fork of BSD and the MACH kernel, and not Linux, but consider the untold ramifications of their example purely from their position as a POSIX compliant *nix-like Operating System. I highly doubt that in the beginning Apple anticipated the wellspring of open-source and ‘free’ applications that have since flooded the Macintosh platform thanks to Apple’s OS X. The head CEOs may have expected a few universities to port their favorite *nix utilities here and there, may even have anticipated that a few oddball *BSD loyalists would port over a few text editors or some disk utilities; certainly they likely imagined any such port to be command line only. The current reality today with the Macintosh being able to run just about any *BSD\’Linux’ applications you could name (and most of these as GUI applications that run seamlessly blended into the background with Apple’s native applications) would likely have floored them had they known.
Granted, Apple’s Macintoshes are running these applications in a *nix-like operating system, so it should not be so surprising that these programs run on OS X, which is POSIX compliant. Granted this operating system is a proprietary fork of *BSD and the MACH kernel and as such Apple is free to drop and even lock out POSIX compliance should they wish. Granted even that this is all running on Apple’s own proprietary hardware running its exclusive version of the Power PC processor in an undocumented chipset.(Efforts of reverse engineers managing to make booting Linux on these chipsets possible notwithstanding, they are considered undocumented by Apple itself.) Accepting also the fact that Apple is primarily a hardware company and that these desktop computers are running a proprietary Desktop Environment– Granting all these things and many more besides, one fact remains. . .
Apple is ‘selling’ free and open-source applications to the world on their proprietary hardware, and if their quarterlies to date can be believed making a nice profit at it besides.
Now, let’s look at another company making a nice profit from selling open-source software on proprietary hardware, Sharp with its Linux Zarus platform. In comparing the Macintosh and the Zarus platforms, we find them to be alike in many ways. Similar in many ways, but as I’ll explain not quite the same in one important way.
To start with, while its true that the Zarus is also running a *nix-like operating system with POSIX compliance, its kernel and much of its operating system is non-proprietary. Also, while its Desktop Environment IS semi-proprietary and from another company altogether (Qtopia), it runs a customized stripped down kernel optimized for the Zarus device by a team of Sharp engineers who likely know their hardware just as well as Apple’s team knows theirs — if not better due to the PDA’s innate lack of various upgrade hardware cards. Wireless modems and other such accessories notwithstanding, as these are all external to the main hardware of the device itself. Just as Apple has its own applications bundled with each OS X Macintosh, so does Sharp also have a few applications bundled with their Zarus systems. To be sure the types of applications and the capabilities of each system vary, but that is due to the targeted nature of these computers more than anything else. The Zarus has been a widely reported success in its native Japan, each new release garnering multitudes of early adopters. Likely the device, especially in its newest configuration, could be a major success for Sharp in other parts of the world as well if only it were released with competitive pricing and perhaps larger storage ability to show off its impressive capabilities.
Yet, for all their similarities, despite even the fact that both systems can conceivably run the same applications, there is a key difference that will forever set them apart. Apple need not ever worry that someone could one day release without their approval a modified version of OS X to compete with them on the Macintosh, while Sharp must already contend with competition from a distro of Linux called ‘Open Zarus’. To many this seems to be the fatal flaw in comparing Linux systems to *BSD and in the case of ordinary distros I’d agree–that need not be the case here as I’ll try to explain.
If I may digress momentarily, take Lindows for a perfect example. If Lindows makes changes to Linux or to any GNU\open-source software in its distro, then depending upon the license of that particular bit of code and what it may or may not link to, the changes MUST be available upon request, so as to be of benefit to all users. That is commonly understood to mean that if (for example) a Lindows engineer was playing with a bit of code and managed to tweak out a modified library for XMS or some other media player that somehow improved mp3 playing, then later it is released in Lindows version 5.12. When the next version of Xandros, say version 2.2.3 or perhaps a version of Fedora labeled release 1.113 arrives on the scene it will likely also have the modified library, something that results in an improvement to these other distros with little or no investment on part of their engineers. In such a case it is seen that Lindows ‘loses’ even though the improvement they made is now available for the benefit of all Linux users, because the work they did cannot be used to further their brand identity. Even if they could in fact do the same to the others if say Xandros made a release with an updated version of Konqueror that combined the filemanager in XPDE to make an improved Linux eXPerience for newbies or switchers from Microsoft’s Windows Operating Systems. From a purely business standpoint Lindows has ‘lost’ because they put out time and effort for an improvement or feature that loses its exclusiveness before the company can benefit (monetarily) from it.
However in a case where the hardware itself is proprietary on a *nix-like operating system BOTH the company and its users can benefit…
Returning to our two main examples, the Sharp Zarus and the Apple Macintosh running OS X, say that Apple releases the specs of their Quartz Extreme or perhaps their Altivec optimizations and some bright engineer at Yellow Dog Linux notices an outstanding bug here or there, fixes them and submits the patch to Apple before going ahead and improving the performance of Yellow Dog on Apple’s hardware. Perhaps a better example would be someone toiling away at the Darwin core to OS X submitted by Apple to the open-source community who discovers a performance enhancing tweak or fixes an error to file I/O and submits this to the community and Apple picks up on it resulting in an impressive boost to overall OS X performance. Who benefits? Certainly in the first example the various Linux distros on Apple hardware and perhaps Linux would benefit in the second example too. The Open Darwin Project would certainly be boosted by such an event in the second example, since they would be the first to get the improvements to system performance–but within a few days or weeks a service pack would definitely be released to OS X. In the end regardless of which operating system the machine is running Apple benefits as does its customers.. Best of all, despite the Linux and or open-source communities benefiting from these hypothetical developments, Apple doesn’t ‘lose’ anything or sacrifice their brand identity because they have already made their profits selling the machine to their customers and any updates become enhancements that further the value of their brand.
In Sharp’s example what if their Zarus engineers were tinkering around with the source code and discovered a line or two that dramatically boosted the display of embedded Linux as it interacted with the processors used in their devices. They fix the bug or make the improvements and then due to this being in relation to the kernel send their patches to Linus Torvalds, thus the code makes its way into Linux 3.2. Of course it won’t take long before the Open Zarus distro managers find the patch and they have it also. This still doesn’t cost Sharp anything, since they’ve already sold the customer their Zarus hardware. Whether the customer runs Sharp’s own version of Linux or the freely available ‘Open Zarus’ version of Linux hardly makes a difference. Sharp might lose out on a chance to sell operating system updates to a customer who might choose instead to opt for the ‘Open Zarus’ distro since it’s free, but since Sharp has already made its investment from the sale of the device itself such an event would not be seen as harmful to its long term profitability as if Sharp were in the business of making its Zarus Linux for X86 computers. . .
However, by looking at Sharp’s Zarus as example of open-source, free software on vendor specific hardware and projecting Apple’s desktop strategy as a possible model, I think we can see where the future of Linux will be. The X86 desktop is increasingly viewed as an albatross by even its progenitors, even as the ‘standards’ get changed and rewritten at leisure by hardware manufacturers who seem not to care if their hardware works with any platform other than that of Microsoft’s Windows operating system–if even that! Modems and network cards that are hostile to alternative operating systems, fake RAID, and multiple audio\video problems caused by bad or lacking support from manufacturers are all issues forced on us by the X86 architecture. Given things as they are, its a minor miracle in itself that Microsoft has been able to make Windows work as well as it does! In a world that is increasingly shifting its gaze to a 64-bit future, why chain ourselves to a dying architecture? Why not jump ship early and get to work preparing for that 64-bit future? There is no reason why a vendor choosing to create a computer literally made to run Linux, able to run open-source and free applications, and capable of doing it well should be unable to turn a profit.
It will be a brave Linux vendor who first takes a final hard long look at the future and announces their decision to develop their future distro releases exclusively on their own hardware. They will likely in the short term at least lose many of their customers. Or at least likely some who have never bought from them or likely ever booted their distro claim– but if that company is able to stay the course and get past the inevitable missteps along the way they will see that the benefits well outweigh the risks, that their hardships endured and slanders persevered make well the reward worthwhile. As long as they can provide a well performing desktop or other computing device that can run the variously available open-source\shareware (visit Zarus’ online software store for an idea of what is possible!) an do so at a reasonable price they’ll have no problem at all getting customers.
To this end the recent moves by some Linux vendors seem prophetic. Lindows with their email\webstation device. Lycoris with its Linux Tablet device. Both are baby steps towards a profitable future. Shaky and somewhat uncertain, but as the time goes on we’ll be seeing more and more moves like these. Vendors will be providing specific hardware with which to run their Linux distros and open-source software, us better performing computing devices and the companies themselves will have a more profitable Linux.
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It will be a brave Linux vendor who first takes a final hard long look at the future and announces their decision to develop their future distro releases exclusively on their own hardware.
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Such a vendor would not only be brave, but massively stupid as well. Those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it.
This is like one of those free-market economies where you still can’t vote. It might look like a free country but it just isn’t.
This model doesn’t make any sense, there are a lot of non-free options as good or better than BSD/Linux if you want to go the proprietary road.
Isn’t this what most expect IBM is going to try to do?
-b
This is a classic arguement for proprietary nits and bits within a larger commodity hardware landscape. Think of xbox — there MSFT has a platform that can only run the modified version of Windows from MSFT due to a special ‘security’ chip. The apple ROM is another example of this. These approaches and the lesser version based on video display tech or code optimizations do not form a advantageous business strategy because they it’s always too easy to find a work around back to commodity hardware. Commodity hardware is where the market goes unless innovation (ala Apple) is so compelling that a vendor can charge above commodity prices.
No, the market is going away from proprietary technology in both code and hardware and the primary driver is cost. Think five years from now where open source has solved the current problems with 3d video drivers and perhaps as a new window environment more like Apples. Can an Apple then continue to expect to charge a premium for hardware? No.
That’s where things are headed. The nice combinations of open and closed sofwtare on things like the Zaurus and Mac are signs of a industry in transition, not a sign that we’ve arrived.
Paul
In the history of computers a totalitarin position was taken by a convicted monoplist. They used brute force to take advantge and destroy their enemies. Their new enemies can not be bought out, under priced through illegal means. Yes a new hardware vendor finally has a legitment chance at becoming the next apple. Controlling everything in a vertical market. I am almost surprisd IBM has not started to do just what this articail has said .
Everyone easily forgets microsoft did not get by making the best product, but by the best lawyers drafting contracts. If you Take away that advantage, BEOS, Amiga, and the others might of survived, and computers as we know them woud be completely different.
The author makes a good observation about the success of Both Apple and Sharp. However it is not enough to just be proprietary. To be successful a product must have a reason for existence.
Apple for years now, Apple has been attacking specific markets with the Macintosh. These include; video editing, home user, audio/music, engineering/number-crunching, and its traditional graphics market. For each market they identified what features are need to sell into the market, and then made sure the Mac had those features.
A new company looking to make money off of Linux running on a proprietary hardware product must find a market for that product. It would not be enough to build a proprietary 64 bit Linux box for the general PC market. Such a move would fail.
If you tweak the source to suit your hardware and you have to release that source to comply with the GPL aren’t you going to give away gobs of trade secrets by basically providing technical documentation to the competiton in the form of Source Code?
Maybe this could work with FreeBSD but never on Linux. That is unless the big guys like IBM can afford to give that information away and keep ahead of the pack with better manufacturing.
It will be a brave Linux vendor who first takes a final hard long look at the future and announces their decision to develop their future distro releases exclusively on their own hardware.
Yellow Dog Linux, anyone?
I think Yellow Dog has found itself between a rock and a hard place, considering the degree of PPC support which Fedora is supposed to offer. But of course, Yellow Dog is just a RedHat fork to begin with.
I don’t think we’ll see the players of any major distribution locking themselves to a particular architecture. I think in the case of high performance proprietary hardware (namely Altix systems) we’ll see the hardware vendor take an existing major distribution and optimize it for their hardware as much as possible.
I am going to agree with first comment completely. We’ve already been there. The health and vitality of Linux and it’s interactive community continues to produce results that speak for themselves. Their growth and development are still following the basic tenet.”Show me the code”. It continues to grow irrespective of mine or anyone else’s commentary. Hoping that Linux will submit to marketing abstractionism (you’re a consumer not a person) is a dull, boring, agravating, and futile endeavor.
It already works fine. Will continue to do so. Will find its own way into new implementations with real world apps. Relax and enjoy the journey.
> In such a case it is seen that Lindows ‘loses’ even though the improvement they made is now available for the benefit of all Linux users, because the work they did cannot be used to further their brand identity.
Step back a bit. Did the writer of the (GPL’ed / free) software / library ‘lose’ because someone else made money out of it and not him / her? Everyone contributes, everyone ‘wins’.
Face it – a general purpose OS is a *commodity* (NOTE: I’m not including stuff like real time OS’s here). Vendors have to ‘sell’ support and services. That is you Unique Selling Proposition if you’re a vendor.
Propreitary hardware will get you nowhere. Consider IBM PC and x86 vs. let’s say SPARC. Consider boxen with vector processors vs. clusters made from off the shelf hardware.
There *is* a market for propreitary h/w, look at Cray for example. But it’s small. Do you have a Cray T3E in your backyard?
Summary: the article takes facts, feeds them into a frobnicator and ends up with wrong conclusions.
“Modems and network cards that are hostile to alternative operating systems, fake RAID, and multiple audiovideo problems caused by bad or lacking support from manufacturers are all issues forced on us by the X86 architecture.”
Unfortunately, it’s possible to do this on any architecture. It’s economics rather than any technical reason that has led to the slew of crap semiware (spongeware?) which relies on software drivers to supplant features removed for cost reasons from real hardware.
What is the difference between a dedicated computer running Linux, and one that just autodetects what hardware I already own?
Linux’s strength is that it is portable.. What is to stop someone, after you have spent years developing your propriatory computer, simply porting the lot back to x86, and getting the benefit of all the existing hardware that works?
Making the “best” product is never a guarantee of market dominance, or even profit. Definitions of “best” depend on your objective. If your objective is to make software that is “best” from a technical point of view, then you will take certain decisions. If your objective is to make software that is commercially successful, then you will take another set of decisions.
In no way will I make excuses for Microsoft, but I think it was inevitable that a single company would come to dominate the PC software market. From the market’s point of view, the differences between all the commercially available PC operating systems have never been enough to make more than one viable. (Remember, Apple is a hardware vendor.) Why lose compatibility and familiarity in return for Just Another GUI? (I know you will claim that there’s more to it than that. There is, but the market doesn’t care about those differences enough to bear the cost of switching.)
In other words, even if Microsoft had been squeaky clean, odds are the world would still be running on Windows.
cmon man…..what are you suggesting?
that we have VARIOUS proprietary hardware platform? look at apple …and you look at x86…..compare the number.
If only Apple has succeeded, the number is not like now.
The fact that we have to deal with many many many hardware platform is not logical at all. Currently, i have never touched anything besides x86. I would forsee that i might be touching apple. So forget about other platform.
cmon man….get real….. u want the world having many many platform?
Your example about lindows beeing losing if they share the code does not account for the bigger picture. I remember in current state, not only lindows do bug fixing, but many others including volunteer. So why should lindows be losing? We might as well say lindows ‘lose’ by shareing the patch, and at the same time gain by getting patch from others. So, could we say impasse?
Btw, why dont linux vendors contribute a few engineer to form the sole world linux bug fixing team. (of course there could be volunteer) I thought with those team existance, we at least assured that if there is bug, then there will be someone to fix it.
I see what redhat has done, by commercialicing entirely its redhat line, while at the same time still supporting fedora. Hmmmm i thouhg it’s a great idea. Why not…
any comment?
So let me go out on a limb here and say that I agree with the article and see a bright and prosperous future for proprietary distros.
If you say that I can take your free software and modify it, but then I must re-distribute my modifications, then you are essentailly placing rules on what I can do with it.
All that needs to be done with propreitary software is to put some kind of checks and balances in place to make sure that certain greedy companies don’t abuse the system – I’m not so sure that telling companies they simply have to give away their IP is the best solution.
Making everything open source might solve the problem of killing off the Microsoft’s in the world, but it’s also going to do harm to a lot of shareware authors making shrink-wrapped apps who are just trying to make an honest buck.
Linux: Open source…Open to Change.
That is why it has become so successful. The value of Linux, the profit that can be derived from it, is not in trade secrets. Linux is valuable for business because it is a high quality free product. Money can be spent on hardware and support, where it had once gone to the Microsoft Tax. The future of IT, more specifically, the profit, is in services. Technology is fast becoming a commodity, whether it be a hardware commodity or software commodity. Expertise will always be a rarity, and valuable.
what the hell are you guys talking about, that proprietary hardware has no future?
do you use a Playstation 2? Then you use proprietary hardware
do you use a gameboy? Then you use proprietary hardware
do you use a microwave? Then you use proprietary hardware
do you use a cellphone? Then you use proprietary hardware
do you use a washing machine? Then you use proprietary hardware.
I am the designer of proprietary fire alarm control/security systems. All the hardware is proprietary, so is the code (not in my power to change.)
Hardware is unique in that, even if it is “open sourced,” you still have to buy the parts to assemble it and spend money on the labor to assemble it & test it.
The only “open” future of hardware lies in ASICs with EEPROMs or FPGA’s where “software” is used to design custom processors. Open IP COREs is a good resource for this (though I don’t use them.)
Software is intangible and costs virtually nothing to transmit. Same goes for schematics of circuits. However, compiling software make take some time, but building hardware takes A LOT of time.
Thousands of people wrote code to make it free. They agreed to it being free went they gave it to the public. Seems like fancy way of stealing public property. Why not go to some school and steal the tables and chairs and resell them.
>that proprietary hardware has no future?
We are talking about personal computers or servers, not microwaves. And regarding this, just read our Novell interview just 2 stories down to our current front page, where Novell explains why it has no future.
Whenever there has been a nned for somthing, there has been an open source program being developed.
What propietary system do I need? Maybe a couple of drivers or something. I’m doing everything that I need with “free” software. While Apple may be doing OK, soon Linux will be passing Apple in user base….
In certain areas, there may be a temporary rise in propietary, but soon after there will be an open source option coming, because “we” will there working on an open source alternative. And the the propietary vendors will be forced to compete.
Even if my contribution is only contributing to Mandrake club and burning CDs…
The linux people I know, are using propietary solutions, but only until an Open Source Solution is available…
Now, if propietary was soo good for Apple, they wouldn’t have turned from an 100% propietary OS to one that is based open source.
Open office is gaining, slowly, along with open source databases… And so on and so on…
MarkP
You probably should say GPL software not free software. Free software encompasses many classes of software encluding GPL software and BSD-type-license software. The latter carries the freedom you are talking about.
That aside, I would still disagree about GPL’d software. I don’t think free has a requisite of zero conditions. Use the analogies of governments. If there were a hands off libertarian style gov’t, you would generally call it free. People may do as they please, so long as respecting the same rights to others. Someone could come along and say that a region of true anarchy is ‘free-er’ since there are no rules against anything, including killing. Without arguing about which is better, let’s just say there would be arguments on both sides as to which is more free.
You might not like the GPL restrictions, but it’s free, especially to end users. If you want to go redistribute there are restrictions.
I’m always amazed at people who gripe about the GPL. It’s the _PRICE_ of the software! Just like proprietary. If you don’t like that MS Office costs hundreds of bucks, don’t buy it. If you want software that you can sell without the source, don’t use GPL software! Since you like proprietary software and licenses, I’ll argue on that turf, that the authors will is superior. Given that… you have no right to the Linux kernel. It’s the property of Linus and every other person who has contributed. You can get it from them, in exchange for promising not to redistribute as a closed source product. Don’t like it? Move along. You’re _free_ to write/buy your own kernel.
-b
I’m usually really annoyed by the GPL and the whole ‘Free’ thing. But I really respect your comment. If everyone advertised the GPL like this, I don’t think I’d have any problem with the GPL.
You hit the nail on the head, it’s free in some ways, but has a sort of price on it in other ways. It’s a license, not the end all be all of human morality (as some seem to think). People should realise this and choose what they use accordingly.
Good post.
Thousands of people wrote code to make it free. They agreed to it being free went they gave it to the public. Seems like fancy way of stealing public property. Why not go to some school and steal the tables and chairs and resell them.
I think those thousands of people wrote that code in hopes of seeing it used.
The companies who are modifying Linux to improve its performance on their systems are, as obligated by the GPL, releasing those changes back to the public.
See ftp://oss.sgi.com
The author should have looked up his facts before writing the article:
“Consider for the moment, the example set by Apple. True their Operating System is a proprietary fork of BSD and the MACH kernel”
Their OS is an amalgamation of various technologies. The fork of (Free)BSD+mach is under a non-proprietary open-source lincence, although they could have made it could have made it proprietary if they wanted to (BSD licence allows that). From this snafu on, the article falls apart. The reason APPLE made this part of their os Free (DARWIN) is exactly because they wanted the advantage of easy portability of free software (not only some command line utilities). Besides, this way, they can draw on the developer base of these software technologies (if they made it closed source, they would be on their own). Hence the GPL vs. BSD licence argument is pointless. Big + for BSD: you can close it up. Big – if you do so: fewer developers. Example: Panther is based (partly) on FreeBSD 5.x – and draws upon the enchancments made there.
About the conclusion: bet on the wrong horse? The free part of OS X (DARWIN) runs both on ppc and x86 architectures. A big + of the article: good imagination 😉
The death of the x86 architecture is predicted to happen every few years, really. The hardware we run on uses highly licensed, heavily developed technology from the heatsinks right down to the bare silicon. It takes massive amounts of money and effort on the parts of both fab plants and design firms to crank out the advancements we’ve seen on x86 hardware. This is allowed to happen because of the cross polination between vendors of different, similar solutions rather than a “go it alone” attitude. This would be why Apple is slowly being eroded (or maybe it bottomed and is gaining slightly, I wouldn’t know) and x86, the albatross that will soon be dead, is being sold somewhere in the 90 percentile range of cases. And in any case, Apple uses much of the same hardware as other vendors. Just IBM chips riding on it. It’s no more “proprietary” than my x86 machine, just a little less popular.
“All that needs to be done with propreitary software is to put some kind of checks and balances in place to make sure that certain greedy companies don’t abuse the system – I’m not so sure that telling companies they simply have to give away their IP is the best solution. ”
That’s the point of GPL, it is “free”, BUT if you use it, you have to give back. The ‘greedy Company’ can just steal BSD code and make it proprietary.
Stop thinking that GPL code will “infect” all software and make you have to release your code. It only will if YOU start with using someone’s GPL’d code. Use another license, you have no problem, end of story.
Just remember you can’t have it both ways with the GPL, if you want to use someone else’s GPL code, you have to give back too. I just call that fair.
Interesting, basically I agree with the presentation
where current situation is strikingly close to a
Civitas Sine Suffragio. Although most
gens like Novell and IBM will probably be happy with
their lot, some will definitely go against it.
Boy this article was way off. The future is anything but proprietary. Linux will make even the type of cpu unimportant. Look for China, Korea to release new cpu’s, and Intel, AMD, IBM, Sun, SGI all compete in the same market.
“If you say that I can take your free software and modify it, but then I must re-distribute my modifications, then you are essentailly placing rules on what I can do with it.”
You don’t understand the GPL. You can take Free GPL software modify it, do ANYTHING you want to it, and distribute it to your entire company. At this point you are under NO Obligation to re-distribute ANYTHING! This is exactly what companies like Cisco and Google do, legally.
Only if your distributing out in the open for anyone to use or commerically do you have to distribute anything. This makes perfect sense in that if your going to redistribute to the world you need to keep code Free and open if its based on Free and Open code.
If you want to take advantage of Free GPL code, well then you have to give back. Tit for Tat. The people who wrote the GPL code in the first place wrote it so that everyone could benefit and the code could stay Free and evolve.
The goal of all this is to lead to better software for EVERYONE. That’s why the GPL is so great. It’s an ecosystem where everything is in the open, only the best code survives and we all benefit in the end.
If you want to benefit and not give back or see you code live on or be improved on, just use BSD software. That’s what its there for. Personally BSD software holds no appeal for me since I consider it dead-end softwaer. But if you want your code to always remain Truely Free, GPL is the way to go.
this is where the argument of some gpl advocates falls apart:
“if you dont like it use something else”
when people are discussing different licenses and why they prefer a different one..
you’re saying that to someone who already is using something else… and making their argument as to why they are.
btw
If you think companies can’t take GPL software and also make money from it without letting out their “secrets”, one word.
Tivo.
There are a ton of other vendors using GPL software in the products and making money from them as well. To name a few, Linksys Routers, the Sharp Zaurus etc.
If you don’t like GPL software because you can’t just take a pre existing product and slap you name on it and sell it for a huge profit, well what can I tell ya.
You are of course fully Free to write some cool shareware GTK program and then charge for it. You don’t Have to give away your actual creative code. If Adobe was to port Photoshop to Linux and Gnome they certainly wouldn’t have to give way their valuable code.
Sometimes I think people not understanding Free software and its benefits is still one of the biggest things holding it back.
i own a DreamCast, and it uses SuperH. superh offers good power at low power consumption so why not make linux around superh?
i would mate superh with a via or nvidia or sis x86 chipset through, superh will allow good performance and super-quiet operation.
it’s my understanding linux has already been ported to the DC.
i do not know which RISC is best, powerpc, mips, alpha, sparc, superH, etc., but superH offers high mips/power consumption ration.
i envision an all-in-one pc built right into the LCD, with superH, USB, HD, modem and ethernet, etc. to surf web and word process and even play 3-d games a la 3d processor like powervr (which is what the DC used)
If the concern is for the success of linux then the focus should be to prevent the fragmentation of the OS(joe shmoes better linux distro). Islands of percieved saftey put forth by the major distro’s Redhat and Suse in particular is what i think the future of linux is. What i mean is once linux gets to the point where future revisions consist of minor tweaks/updates rather then huge code and functionality changes between kernel releases. Then companies/consumers can be relatively assured that investments in hardware and software developments can have a predictable life span and ROI. i.e. Commercial OS’es.
In world where computer hardware technology is increasingly becoming more complicated it is becoming way to expensive for companies to use the go it alone proprietry methode of production. It is happening in the Aerospace industries, the Auto industries and it has happened in the Personal Computer industry.
No one company is able to solely develop and produce high technology and market themselves. In infantile markets like game consoles you will see a variation of technology until one becomes the dominant player through market determination, then the technology will be licensed out to other manufacturers and the components will become standards very much like VCR’s
Apple is itself using much more standardised technology in their latest desktop offerings with AGP for the graphics utilising either Nvidia or ATI based Vid cards, Hyper Transport for the underlying system bus and DDR Ram for Memory. Same stuff you can get for x86 systems but they have integrated it for the IBM PPC CPU.
Sun itself is moving away from proprietry SPARC hardware and utilising AMD 64 technology on their systems. Even Novel is moving away from proprietry systems. With GPL OS there is even less chance for hardware technology to be the sole domain of one company because everyone can see what the hardware does through the source code. Even if they keep drivers closed alla Nvidia it is still upto the market to decide if that is what is wanted and the hardware company could find itself squeezed out especially if they lock down all of the computers components.
If you don’t like GPL software because you can’t just take a pre existing product and slap you name on it and sell it for a huge profit, well what can I tell ya.
I’m not saying it would be ethical to take somebody else’s code and sell it for a huge profit, but if *I* write a program and it’s useful to a lot of people, I want to sell *my own* code and sell it for a huge profit, and with the GPL license, I don’t understand how I’m supposed to do that if I hand you the source code and you can go and upload it to some website so that everybody could then have it for free.
Sure, if I *did* release the source, somebody could possibly fix bugs, add features, and generally improve it for everybody else. But, me being the greedy capitalist that I am, I don’t give a shit because you released the source code and now I’m not getting paid
Personally, I’m going to give you the source code for something I write, you’re going to give me a LOT of money for it!!
Yes, I understand the benefits of GPL, but have always been puzzled why people think I am under some ‘moral obligation’ to hand out source code for any binaries I distribute. My feeling is that if you want to GPL your code, great. If you don’t, then that is certainly your right now to and nobody should give you hell about it.
If you want something, then get a job and obtain it by paying for it. In the future there will be very few ‘Technology’ based jobs in the United States. Thanks to the new Global Economy, America is quickly becomming a country of ‘Service’ jobs.
The logic behind the open source movement thinking you can make money off ‘Service’ in the United States is quickly disappearing. IBM is OFFSHORING about 40,000 IT jobs and they will never return. Why should they pay a person who has certifications in Linux here, when they can pay a person in India $10,000 a year working tons of hours.
It is already happening, look around if you do not believe this then you are living in fantasy land.
The base will remain open. With propriatary software on top.
Meaning: Linus (or someone of his chosing) will continue to progress the core of Linux. And distributions will continue to put proprietary software on top.
There are great IT jobs to be had. A year ago i took a job here in Kuwait(sucks) but soon i will transfering to Germany(WOO HOO). My brother also in IT took a job in Hong Kong. American IT workers need to start thinking Globally too if they seek to maintain their lifestyle.
Here is the plans of IBM read this link on Forbes. It does NOT include having very many IT jobs in the United States. So therefore it does not include jobs for people with Linux skills or developers.
http://www.forbes.com/work/newswire/2003/12/30/rtr1194285.html
Read the article above.
I’ve never seen so many wrong asumptions and conclusions in one article. Truly moronic.
The article must have been written as a school paper by a 5 year old living somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where electricity generators get switched off at 9 pm after the cows came home.
Just look at Apple’s market share (what? about 2% or so) compared to x86 hardware.
Lindows never lost anything, they gained just about everything they have for free from freely available code. If Lindows programer writes a bit of code, that’s the least they can do to give back for the millions of lines of code they are using for free to sucker ignorant newbies to buy their Lindows crap.
And why does Linux have to made profitable? Linux is exactly for the main reason to provide free software for people and to fight the profit greedy companies like Microsoft, Sun, and Apple.
Just like I wouldn’t buy propriatory hardware, I wouldn’t pay for propriatory Linux.
Unless the Linux distro comes as a free download, with source code and no strings attached I will not even look at it. If I like what I downloaded and use it, then I’ll support the work of the distro by monetary donation or some other contribution like code, bug reports, website maintenance, new user assistance etc.
There are people who code for free and those who dont code for free, and those who code for free who get contributions now and then 😉 I have nothing against proprietary stuff because its usually packaged nicer and has cool “extras” (excluding windows, in which the only thing you get is the darn os.)
Take the Mandrake version PowerPack. Its essence is free but the paid version gets you some cds, a box, a manual and some things that make life convient like cross over office. Then theres free. Mandrakes free version, is well free and under the GPL. Theres nothing wrong with that either. I see advantages and disadvantages to both in terms of performance, security, developers(come on you have to agree ms has a lot of them, so open source != more developers nescarily). Support etc…
Now there are some turn offs to proprietary stuff and thats when they start enforcing their technological patents such as well um SCO. In fact I think sometimes Patents are the worst. I think copyright is good but patents on the other hand bring a whole world of trouble. Also, I cant really Trust this “trusted computing thing” since well for the reason that they are closed. As far as apple is concerned they are only a niche player. They had the chance to take down MS but they didnt. Thats their choice.
Who would dare steal Linux and not give it back per the GPL?
My guess is a U.S. company in connection with a very large Asian government to hide behind.
Who is to say this isn’t already happening?
It’s one thing to attempt to sue a company for stealing what is considered open source code, it will be another story entirely to attempt to sue North Korea, China, or any of a dozen other possible players.
The open source community loves to hear about large governments switching to Linux and open source alternatives, but this may very well be a wolf in sheeps clothing.
In case you wanna make it priority, what’s wrong with going BSD from the start and spare all problems GPL will give you which restricts freedom…
I am getting cranky. I did not RTFA because I stopped when it became clear the author could not correctly spell Zaurus. Zaurus Zaurus Zaurus. If you want to have your opinion about something taken seriously, at least spell the major terms correctly. Typoes are freebies and Eugenia gets some slack because she is a non-native English speaker but the rest of youse should either spell check your articles or use variant spellings only for (intentional) effect.
This thread is filled with so much wrongs, I do not know where to begin…
1. OSS != GPL, GPL is a license. GPL was created for the benefit of FREE(as in speech) software if all you want is open/shared source there are other licenses you can adopt, or create your own…
2. You can not be foreced to GPL your code! If you use code under the GPL license and do not comply the only thing that can happen is that you get convicted for copyright infringement.
You would have to remove the GPL’ed code and probably pay a fine.
3. If you write a large pice of code, and this code is availible as GPL you are still part of it. The expertice gained writing it and the knowledge of the code can be worth money to anyone wanting to add_to/change the code.
In no way should GPL’ed code be compared to a FREE(as in beer) binaries… it’s worth so much more.
It’s not a “Sharp Zarus”. The machine you’re talking about is a “Sharp Zaurus”. A nice PDA with an ARM of 206 mHz (at least the SL5500, other models might differ) plus ie. 64 or 128 CF and WLAN.
Then there’s an alternative for this Zaurus. It’s called OpenZaurus. As GUI it has Opie, a fork of Qtopia. Though one can chose a different one if one wants, ie. PicoGUI. It has various advantages and disadvantages which are all pointed out on the site. However, my point is, is that it was build on the ground. Even when this nice PDA (believe me, it _is_ nice, check the site) would come with ie. a stripped down MS XP that would not have stopped volunteers to make “OZ” as a grassroot project. This fundametely breaks your point.
http://www.openzaurus.org
You don’t _have_ to run Linux on ARM so i take it it isn’t Linux only.
You then continue about the succes of the Zarus in Japan. Which model? It has been quite succesful here too. However the tablet-like Zaurus (6xx series) is NOT for sale in Europe or USA as of yet. Though one who visits eBay can meet a warm welcome. Anyway, therefore you could likely be referencing to this model instead of the PDA like.
About a few points you’re trying to make:
“Apple need not ever worry that someone could one day release without their approval a modified version of OS X to compete with them on the Macintosh”
1) I.e. Linux runs on PlayStation. No worry for them for it worked on PS when it wasn’t “hot” anymore. Linux runs on XBox. Various reasons why MS would not like including: it was “hot” at that time, psychological effect, lock-in broken, games played without lock-in, etc. Note what i said about the games. This situation is not the case with the Sharp PDA or Tablet. The _only_ purpose of Sharp is to sell the PDA. What you do with it is not of their concern.
2) Ofcourse, it is basically true that if that Mac has a PPC it can run some other OS, for example Linux. Then some GUI can be ported/coded and voila, there goes Apple too. So i think this is generally BS.
3) These situations wouldn’t stop commercial or proprietary software. If someone would like to buy such a thing for their PDA/Tablet then that is possible and in the case there’s a port i don’t actually see the problem. If the OS/distribution is somehow known commercial/proprietary vendors can do the porting and both parties will be happy. In a very fractured (ie. 30 different populair OSes) it would be a bit of a drama for the company but that’s not the case. Not with Zaurus either, not with PS, not with XBox.
Right so after that you start with a classic example of how sharing knowledge (code in your example) is bad for a company. If done properly, it is not. Neither is it true that all software for the Linux kernel has to be FLOSS. If one user has on the Tablet PC a port of GIMP, is not satisfied with it, and decides to buy a Photoshop port then what exactly is the problem? Course i’d better see him/her donate to GIMP but that’s a different story. Back to the sharing. There’s various techniques. Consulting. You coded it. You know the code very good thus also know what can go ie. wrong or different. You get a free audit of your code too. You get feedback of your code. You are the first one to implement it (!!!) and while in the case you code something others benefit, the opposite is also true (which point you _completely_ ignore).
However like i stated earlier this doesn’t even matter for the slightest bit for the Zaurus. OZ and original Sharp ROM don’t even compete for money or customers. Sharp wants to sell the _hardware_!
Perhaps you can now imagine why some companies like SGI likes FLOSS very much too. In the end the sharing is highly in their benefit (and mine too for i can run IRIX with FLOSS).
Honestly i stopped reading your article after paragraph 1 page 2 because i found the quality (or rather, the lack thereof) disturbing. No offense intended.
One last thing: you din’t mean XMMS, did you?
But I have a slightly different take on it.
Look at it this way. A company wants to make a new computer device…they can now do what ever they want, use what ever platform they can get Linux to run on without doing all the work to reengineer an OS or pay huge license fees. They can make all the hacks needed to make their system go, but at the end of the day, the key to selling anything computer related is Apps! So they have to at least leave the OSS door open…for a matter of fact it’s necessary…and the job to actually have their engineers do all that work is just too big. But if they leave the door open for the OSS community to port the apps then they get brownie points..and perhaps customers.
Unlike code which is just ideas, hardware cost money and resources to make every single device…it can never be free. But the cost of running apps on the device can be nearly free now allowing more creativity in device designs…and it’s too much work to try to lock every one out. so good businesses will sell devices and let Linux compatibility be a feature…Look at iPod for unintended concequences [not that it’s linux, but it’s hackable]…customers like that, it makes them feel like their getting a better deal too!
“Sometimes I think people not understanding Free software and its benefits is still one of the biggest things holding it back.”
Bingo, I think you just hit the nail on the head with a precision hammer
The Sharp ZAURUS is not a zarus. Is the zarus a new PDA that sharp is coming out with? Come IF you knew what you were talking about you would know how to spell the name of the device!
How do you keep proprietary hardware proprietary when the software that makes it run is open source? It’s not hard to figure out, if you have the sourcecode.
Quoted:
How do you keep proprietary hardware proprietary when the software that makes it run is open source? It’s not hard to figure out, if you have the sourcecode.
While it may take little to figure out, it may prove to be a real pain in the butt to purchase the hardware it was created for.
If you think for a second your going to buy a proprietary chip for .75 cents at Radio Shack; ya got another thing coming…..
“CJD is characterized by rapidly progressive dementia.”
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/pubs/creutzfeldt-jakob_…
No wonder the world is so fucked up. Someone cannot accept freedom to the extent that they make up some whacked theories about how something free must be controlled by proprietary vendors to survive.
Send the author to the doctor for a brain scan. And then put him in a cage for 20 years to see if it helps his understanding.
I am almost surprisd IBM has not started to do just what this articail has said .
They can probably still remember the disaster that happened the last time they tried to re-proprietrise the PC platform.
Everyone easily forgets microsoft did not get by making the best product, but by the best lawyers drafting contracts.
Probably because it isn’t true.
Microsoft got where they were by sewing up the business market and expanding from there. Microsoft got where they are today over a decade ago. It was Windows *3.0* and *DOS* that sealed the deal. Windows 95 wasn’t even a gleam in Bill Gates’ eye at the time – heck, NT hadn’t even been released.
The only realistic alternative to Windows in the early to mid 90s was OS/2. Even ignoring IBM’s “anti-marketing” of the product for much of its lifetime, it suffered from a lack of software because of developer disinterest (again, largely IBM’s fault), relatively high hardware requirements (until Windows 95) and a higher cost.
Other platforms were not an option mainly because of obscurity and familarity. Most people were using an IBM compatible PC at work, so they bought an IBM compatible PC for home.
Macs were largely not an option because of price – both initial and ongoing. You think Macs are expensive and proprietry now ? They’ve never been cheaper or more open.
If you Take away that advantage, BEOS, Amiga, and the others might of survived, and computers as we know them woud be completely different.
Highly unlikely. BeOS was condemned the day Apple chose NeXT and Commodore killed Amiga. Heck, Amiga wasn’t even x86 (come to think of it, neither was BeOS for quite a while), so I’m not sure why you think Microsoft had anything to do with it’s death.
I’m constantly amazed people seriously believe BeOS could have been more than a niche product today “if only it weren’t for Microsoft”. *If* BeOS had survived to be a niche product (on the desktop) today – like Linux is – then *maybe* by near the end of the decade it would be making a noticable impact into Windows’ market. But that’s only assuming Microsoft didn’t do anything at all to Windows before then – a clearly ridiculous condition.
There are *way* too many variables to try and claim any particular “what if” scenario is more likely than the other. About the only thing I’d feel confident of asserting is that if it wasn’t Microsoft, it would have been someone else – probably Apple (in which case we’d probably still be using MacOS Classic 10.5, and Rhapsody would still be due “next year”).
Apparently i meant the 7xx series. It’s also a PDA, not a tablet. But it has a different look that the 55xx series and also it’s technically superiour regarding hardware.
Here’s a few of ’em on eBay
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3069384200&catego…
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3069377616&catego…
Since Sharp only engineered the hardware and 90% of kernel hacking is done by lineo.
Moreover, if you take a close look at the patch they wrote to make linux work on their hardware, you’ll easily understand that it is an ugly hack that can’t be easily backported to, let’s say 2.6.x series…
”
I’m constantly amazed people seriously believe BeOS could have been more than a niche product today “if only it weren’t for Microsoft”. *If* BeOS had survived to be a niche product (on the desktop) today – like Linux is – then *maybe* by near the end of the decade it would be making a noticable impact into Windows’ market. But that’s only assuming Microsoft didn’t do anything at all to Windows before then – a clearly ridiculous condition.”
BeOS had gotten to the point where venders were prepairing to sell BeOS bundled in with their machines, they were at the breaking point that would have seen them go from niche to an industry recognised product. Microsoft did affect it as their contracts made it impossible to sell anything other then windows without being seriously hurt when M$ cut the subsidies that exclusivity gave you.
That threat singlehandedly stopped BeOS and pretty much left it dead in the water, and continues to stop linux getting the marketshare that it would otherwise have gotten with a level playing field…
Would BeOS have become a major player? Maybe, who knows what would have happened had BeOS become available pre installed on compaqs or Dells, it could be that they would be in the same situation that Apple currently faces, big in so much as people on the street know about it, but the hardware it runs on is too expensive (due to Be not writing many drivers for entry level equipment etc etc).
A million and one things could have happened and 50% of the possibilities suggest that Be would have made it (albeit to varying degrees of success) except for Microsoft having locked Venders into selling their stuff with windows and only windows or face drastic hikes in licence fees.
To say that Microsoft had nothing to do with Be’s downfall is not only laughable, its historically innacurate
A variation on this theme can be found in this blog:
http://www.manageability.org/blog/archive/20030217%23an_alterna…
Basically, the discussion there talks of using hardware as a “packaging” scheme for software (possibly open source).
More to the point though, I think the author is on the right track but stops short. The point isn’t so much “proprietary” or “open” and maybe not even hardware or software…but value. Stay with me here.
There is some value to be provided by someone that provides you “the whole widget”…this is what Apple does (and more). HOW they provide the widget may not really be important. Tak a look at iPod for example. Many “Spec whores” are concerned about many things in iPod that the average buyer of iPod is concerned little about. iPod is not really proprietary hardware (in the sense that NO one else can make such a thing), but it is proprietary in its sum total. Many people won’t care. They want it.
This is what I call the “appliance” strategy for open source, or also the “secret sauce” strategy. In this model, open source used in whole or in part to create some “value solution” for some customer base. It may (probably) in a “box” that is in whole or in part “proprietary” or “open”. TiVO is another example here.
This is where I think ONE kind of profitably lies with “open source” software. But see it isn’t (as a previous poster already pointed out) about “being proprietary”…it’s about providing some value to the point where the customer doesn’t really care. iPod customers don’t care what’s in the box…as long as it works and it is fun! TiVO customers don’t care what’s in the box (semi-proprietary PowerPC hardware and Linux and some proprietary software)…they just want it to capture “CSI” for them.
I’d agree with you on that…in addition the internet has “fixed” many of the compatiblity problems by itself.
Everybody wants to use the web for stuff…as long as there are enough alternate browing devices, the web will stay to lowest common denominator…in other words we have the ideal situation going on. Data and formats are open and impossible to tie up simply due to the installed base…while the OS is just another tool to make the data useable by the machine. Right now programming falls somewhere in the middle…Stuff like XML, HTML, and Java really fall into the “data” catagory, they are designed to be manipulated on multiple systems…Even .net is designed to be “data” seperately decoupled from individual hardware. OSS has been instrumental in the pushing of more and more “programming” into the data catagory…as long as certian companies don’t get their way any time soon in the name of money.
Linux and Unix has always been based on opensource. It allows users to enhance the software to what they need and redistribute it. There will be plenty of bussiness in the selling of the operating system itself, but the source will always be open. The GNU licence prevents a Linux operating system from being sold proprietory.
By Paul Nowak (IP: —.plyntv01.mi.comcast.net)
unless innovation (ala Apple) is so compelling that a vendor can charge above commodity prices.
Think five years from now where open source has solved the current problems with 3d video drivers and perhaps as a new window environment more like Apples. Can an Apple then continue to expect to charge a premium for hardware? No.
By Paul Nowak (IP: —.plyntv01.mi.comcast.net)
unless innovation (ala Apple) is so compelling that a vendor can charge above commodity prices.
You said it all, Paul. you even managed to contradict your self
BeOS had gotten to the point where venders were prepairing to sell BeOS bundled in with their machines, they were at the breaking point that would have seen them go from niche to an industry recognised product. Microsoft did affect it as their contracts made it impossible to sell anything other then windows without being seriously hurt when M$ cut the subsidies that exclusivity gave you.
If it took that little to stop BeOS being preinstalled, then clearly the OEMs didn’t consider it a very compelling product that was going to generate enough new revenue to cover the costs.
Even if it *was* preinstalled, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a niche product. Linux is a niche product, and many name-brand vendors will preinstall it.
As I said, *if* BeOS had managed to get preinstalled on some relatively well known hardware then it would still be a niche product today. It certainly didn’t offer any compelling advantages over Windows likely to spark a mass migration.
That threat singlehandedly stopped BeOS and pretty much left it dead in the water, and continues to stop linux getting the marketshare that it would otherwise have gotten with a level playing field…
Ignoring for a second the simple fact that many name brand sellers will preinstall Linux, the reason many don’t – or don’t do it across all their product lines – is because in the markets they’re targeting they’ve decided Linux isn’t a competitive alternative. The same thing would happen to BeOS. This is not Microsoft’s fault.
Linux isn’t getting marketshare because it’s not offering an alternative competitive enough to cover the costs, and no amount of whinging is going to change that. From a vendor perspective, it’s just a touch more complicated than whipping up a hard disk image to mass-install and throwing a few CDs into the computer box.
Nice as BeOS was, it didn’t offer any features over Windows that were compelling to the mass market, it was an obscure product basically unknown outside a few specific sections of the industry and its hardware and software support were minimal.
Would BeOS have become a major player?
By now ? No way. Maybe five years from now, if everything had gone exactly right, but definitely not by today.
Heck, even Apple can’t be described as a “major player” in terms of marketshare, but most people who known what a computer is have heard of them. At best, Be might have made it to “minor player” stage by now like, say, Redhat.
More likely, Windows would have had certain areas of its development accelerated to nullify – or at least minimise – the few technical advantages BeOS had and BeOS’s spiral might have been drawn out for another year or two.
Try as I might, I can’t think of any realistic scenario that would make Be a major player today. Even with something completely outrageous like Microsoft going bankrupt.
Maybe, who knows what would have happened had BeOS become available pre installed on compaqs or Dells, it could be that they would be in the same situation that Apple currently faces, big in so much as people on the street know about it, but the hardware it runs on is too expensive (due to Be not writing many drivers for entry level equipment etc etc).
BeOS’s hardware support wasn’t huge, but it certainly supported “entry level equipment”.
Dell hardware is not expensive. Even their “expensive” stuff is, comparatively, pretty cheap.
To say BeOS would ever be in the same position Apple is – well known but expensive and “exclusive” – is just silly because it was an x86 OS. Even very expensive x86 hardware is, at worst, no more expensive than Apple.
A million and one things could have happened and 50% of the possibilities suggest that Be would have made it (albeit to varying degrees of success) except for Microsoft having locked Venders into selling their stuff with windows and only windows or face drastic hikes in licence fees.
50% is pure, pie-in-the-sky hyperbole. Please, at least keep it reasonable. OS/2 had a better chance of “coming back” than BeOS did.
Personally, as I’ve said, I thought BeOS was dead when Apple chose NeXT. Undoubtedly some people who are more optimistic than I am believed it could carve out a niche in the multimedia market – and I can certainly see why they might have thought that – but to try and say it would have done any more is ridiculous. It just wasn’t better enough to trigger any mass migrations.
To say that Microsoft had nothing to do with Be’s downfall is not only laughable, its historically innacurate
To say that Be would be anything more than a minor player today *even if everything had gone perfectly* is just silly. BeOS was a nice desktop/client-side OS with some excellent technical features, but that’s about it.
Think about it. *Linux* has barely started making inroads – and even then it’s taking most of it’s market away from proprietry unix – and from a market penetration perspective, it’s got a hell of a lot more going for it than BeOS ever did.
Nice as BeOS was, it didn’t offer any features over Windows that were compelling to the mass market, it was an obscure product basically unknown outside a few specific sections of the industry and its hardware and software support were minimal.
You have to remember that at the time windows 98/ME was what the consumers had. Compared to that, BeOS was a dream. As a matter of fact most of my friends who tried it wanted to switch right away, if it hadn’t been for the lack of software they would have. But applications doesn’t come without a userbase, and BeOS couldn’t get a userbase cause practically no one knew about it. Preinstalling it along with windows on a bunch of desktop systems(which was the deal) would probably open up a few eyes.
Even though MacOS has a larger application support, it’s still pretty close to none existant compared to windows. And the same goes for linux.
So would you say that these to systems has nothing to offer a large mass of consumers?
You have to remember that at the time windows 98/ME was what the consumers had. Compared to that, BeOS was a dream.
Not really. More stable – but as the success of Windows 3.x and MacOS over platforms like OS/2 show, stability has never been an especially strong selling point. SMP ? Hardly relevant to the typical desktop Windows user.
As a matter of fact most of my friends who tried it wanted to switch right away, if it hadn’t been for the lack of software they would have.
Precisely my point. Most people’s enthusiasm dims when faced with the reality of having to replace and relearn all their sosftware. Not to mention things like incompatibilities (documents, web browsers) and some massively deficient software genres (like games).
But applications doesn’t come without a userbase, and BeOS couldn’t get a userbase cause practically no one knew about it. Preinstalling it along with windows on a bunch of desktop systems(which was the deal) would probably open up a few eyes.
Not really, because the person still had to choose it over Windows – and given that choice, what do you think they’ll go with, the same OS they use at work and read about in pretty much all computer-related media or one they’ve never even heard of ?
If Be *really* wanted to try and take on Windows, they should have started in the business world, where platforms and software are chosen by decree and not natural selection. As an unknown entrant into the ignorant[0] home user market for operating systems with no existing product or company name to leverage was never going to be successful – even for “free”.
[0] Ignorant used here in the literal, non-negative sense.
Even though MacOS has a larger application support, it’s still pretty close to none existant compared to windows. And the same goes for linux.
Indeed, and both of them are streets ahead of BeOS, even in its heyday.
So would you say that these to systems has nothing to offer a large mass of consumers?
No, I would say neither of them have anything compelling to offer a large mass of consumers over “going with the flow” and using Windows. While Macs have more (and better) software support than Linux and – with Expose – a superior GUI to Windows they’re expensive (and a very elitist existing user community). Linux has relatively poor software support and a signficant community of users who can’t understand people who want a computer that “just works” without having to worry about what’s happening behind the scenes.
Apple have no interest whatsoever in displacing Windows and lack the manufacturing capability to do so even if they did. Linux vendors still have aways to go before they have a product as polished, simple and easy as OS X or Windows.
What has been forgotten by the article is that the companies gained the right to use an ALREADY developed operating system/Product to sell with their hardware. By placing their modifications back into the community they are ensuring their product will be supported by the huge number of developers in the future.
Do they actually lose? I don’t think so because the cost and time required to develop an operating system would mean the product never develops.
this article did not address perople using binary driver modules where, the explanation by the hardware vendor is ‘it will keep the chinese and taiwanese from quickly copying how our hardware works’.
so you buy hardware and can not bug fix nor performance improve it either for the software it comes with or other linux distros you want to run on it.
I’m almost certain that Jobs et al. not only knew that a ton of Unix apps would be ported to the MacOS if it was Unix based, they BANKED on it. This was totally planned from the beginning and was, I am sure, the total reason to go BSD/Mach rather than BeOS which was the only other possibility open at the time.
And look how it’s paying off!
Yours sincerely,
John Davis