Linux has only recently begun to regain credibility in the financial markets since its speculative debut. However, its licensing model, hefty competition, and lack of maturity still worry investors. Companies such as Red Hat, long past its 1999 speculative highs, are slowly gaining ground while other Linux companies, such as Linspire, are planning initial public offerings. Is Linux finally becoming a viable alternative to proprietary operating systems, or is this rise simply a byproduct of a mini-tech bubble?
Commentary: Why the markets still don’t trust Linux
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
First and formest Linux started off as a hobby os so its no wonder companies are and stock investors are warming up to it now. It from a technical point of view is a viable alternative to proprietary OSes but it still needs more time. Its advtanges are too good not to ignore and with major companies like Novell and IBM involved it could be very much a powerful player when it gets more developed.
Then, why isn’t *BSD as successful as Linux?
Why isn’t BSD “much more successful” since it already has a BSD license? I don’t trust you at all.
The arguments are true, if BSD where better than why aren’t BSD OSes more popular? Odds are though their code is probably in more software than Linux but then again the GPL works to Linux’s advtange since the GPL requires derivative works that are distributed to be GPL and for the source to always be open, hence companies cant blatenly rip off the GPL, legally anyway.
The guy is confusing the viability of Linux as an operating system and the viability of Linux as a business model. Two totally different concerns.
Linux is a viable operating system…so that is settled.
Investors are curious as to when stupid investors will think these Linux companies are sexy. Well RH will never be worth a billion dollars in my mind because they don’t have any real assests aside from their client base and their employees. Novell is different, they have software assets (that they can sell for a lot of money)….but then that technically isn’t the Linux business model is it…it’s a prop. software business model.
Well stocks like RH trade on sex appeal (like Yahoo did of old in the 90’s…I bought and sold and banked) so investors have to play like a talent agent a figure out when sex sells and when it doesn’t.
There’s a lot of factors on why Linux is more successful than BSD. The development model, the issues that BSD had with Novell/USL, the hype that Linux got (sorry, but this is true, I know *many* people that got interested in Linux because of that)… There are many points that I am missing but I don’t think that Linux became more popular due to its technical merit or solely due to its licence.
True, but the fact is that the license didn’t hurt it, contradicting the assessment made by “capitalist.”
Also, we can see that a lot of very large and successful businesses use Linux, and it makes them save, therefore increasing profits. Maximizing profit is the cornerstone of capitalism, so the assertion is clearly false.
Anyway, trying to mix in capitalism vs. communism in a discussion about Linux or the GPL is the IT world’s equivalent to Godwin’s Law. It’s just another troll…
Look at a Co. like RH…how much money do they make? What their market cap? So their P/E is like 100 or so…that’s crazy.
Stocks like RH are more of a Future than they are a stock. There is no rythmn or reason to people paying for RH stock with that kind of P/E and yet demand persists…rises and falls…like a future.
Investors ride the IPO wave then cash out and let hot stock chasers get burned on an empty stock.
Today with these types of empty stocks, it’s vegas odds that A) demand will increase tomorrow for some silly reason or none at all, or (B) the company will grow into something that justifies the current stock price and then some.
At the end he mentions that Linspire makes money by seling packages and RH makes money by providing software updates and support. Mandrake does this also with mandrakeclub.
Even with Gentoo and debian you are dependant on someone keeping a mirror of nearly all software.
If it were as easy to install softare on Linux as it is on Windows, would Linux vendors still be in buisness?
The success of corprate Linux right now rides on the very thing that prevents linux from being more popular in the consumer market.
The GPL license is anti-capitalism and thus it can’t be trusted. If linux switched to the BSD it would be much more successful, trust me.
Don’t make me laugh. Sure it would be much more successful for the companies who don’t want to make any public contributions to it.
Now, back before Linux had any commercial backing, FreeBSD was at least as good as Linux for most things (and supposedly far better for many things).
Fast forward to now. FreeBSD still does have quite a lot of companies using their code in proprietary products, but how many are giving back?
Now look at Linux. IBM, SGI, Sony, NEC, Toshiba, Dell, Intel, SuSE, Redhat, Oracle, Sun, to name a few, all have paid employees contribute to Linux. Others do so indirectly, by funding OSDL for example.
the claims that the GPL hurts linux is correct. The reason the BSDs having done so hot is for one they arn’t being pushed by anyone or hyped. Also there is a bigger reason, their isn’t a demand out their for such operating systems. What so many see as such a big thing, Free and Open source, doesn’t really matter to companies, what works does though. For some open source OS’s will be a big thing. But it will never be some massive amount that it will mean much.
I didn’t saw his statement as “it hurted Linux” but rather as “it would have been better”. He isn’t right, yet he isn’t wrong either. It would be easier for corporations to add “value” to Linux if it was BSDed (keyword: easier, not impossible), yet I don’t think the Linux community would be as big as today as many developers would feel that corporations are “stealing” their works instead of collaborating with them.
I think Linux would be more profitable to corportations if it was BSDed. Then again, although I’m not a big fan of the GPL, I don’t think Linux would be that advanced if it wasn’t using it. And I believe capitalism and communism have something to do with that debate… None of these licences are anti-one of them but they both favor one of them.
What you say is only true for corporations that sell software, which represents only a small fraction of the corporate world. The GPL and BSDL are equally profitable for the large majority of corporations who do not derive their income from the sale of software, but who rather use software as tools in their respective businesses. And, since the GPL doesn’t require any changes to be made public if the modified software isn’t redistributed, it can even give a competitive edge over others.
Selling software isn’t the be-all, end-all of computing. Most of the people who criticize the GPL fail to understand this simple fact. They see it as preventing other Microsofts from emerging, as if that was a bad thing.
As far as communism and capitalism, the fact is that these are ideologies that no longer exist in the current marketplace. Ours are all mixed economies (well, save for some U.S. client-states who are forced into “pure” capitalism, something which hasn’t existed in the U.S. itself since 1929). Capitalism and communism are such loaded terms, that mean so many different things for so many people (and rarely are they understood correctly) that to use them in conversations about the GPL is asking for trouble.
The bottom line is that the commoditization of software is good for businesses in general, if not specifically for the “software vendor” sub-market (i.e. Microsoft and a handful of others).
Even with Gentoo and debian you are dependant on someone keeping a mirror of nearly all software.
No, you are not. For instance, have a look at gentoo ebuilds for Opera. The gentoo team only provides the instructions about how the package should be installed. The binary itself is fetched from Opera’s servers. I bevieve that a lot of other software uses the same mechanism – all gentoo provides is the ebuild itself.
If it were as easy to install softare on Linux as it is on Windows, would Linux vendors still be in buisness?
The truth is that installing and upgrading software IS easier on Linux. Windows still lacks an package manager that can upgrade all your packages in one shot – you have to download and install every program manually! It’s quite a dated approach to configuration management.
Indeed but you are assuming that companies are taking a vanilla version of an OS and modify it to suit their needs. How many are doing this, especially in the small/medium businesses market?
I know we have mixed economies but what it has to do with what I said? I said that these two licences seem to favor one or the other. I didn’t said that one was the former and the other the latter.
Commoditization is good but I fail to see how it can be good for software vendors. Well, it’s true that they can do support but they can hardly be called vendors when most of their revenues comes from it… and when they don’t write software at all.
stop fighting over licenses. no matter what licenses linux is under it would be sucessful due to early corporate backing
Might as well call this site “Open Source News” instead of “Operating System News”
Clearly, more pro-linux advocates use this site that will defend the OS to the end……. oddly enough….I think I’m.. growing… horns
then again if you use linux you’d notice all the bsd stuff in there… like crazy..
but anyway……… that off topic…
people arent adopting linux as fast as some of these people want because its a new OS.. newer than bsd or windows or sev7, etc.. hence there are more exploits against the linux and gnu software due to its young age….. just go check the stats..(offtopic again but you just cant say linux is better than bsd) but anyway..yeah
1) Linux is newer, rapid development new implementations and less lengthy testing that leads to exploits
2) If Linux were under the BSD, microsoft would have adopted it as M$, linux, and loads of other OS’s out there borrow stuff from bsd to make them better. Red Hat dosen’t publicize it but they don’t like the GPL. Look what they did to RHEL. Can’t distribute it. found a way by the copyrighted images and documentation and what not. that showed clearly that just selling upgrade services and letting people take advantage of you did not help red hat until they cut it off. Linux Co’s without restrictions like these tend to not do well. Maybe thats apart of the GPL arguement?
3)FUD & anti-corporateness. Alot of linux advocates completely hate corporate software companies. On the GNU site and FSF there are anti commercial software rantings all over it…….why wouldnt a comany shy away from an OS that is represented by some of that….
..there probably many more
No, you are not. For instance, have a look at gentoo ebuilds for Opera. The gentoo team only provides the instructions about how the package should be installed. The binary itself is fetched from Opera’s servers. I bevieve that a lot of other software uses the same mechanism – all gentoo provides is the ebuild itself.
Then you are dependant on the ebuild maintener. If he decides to slack off, a new version comes out and nobody is willing to develop a new ebuild for that version, you’re on your own. I’m still waiting for the newest version of bluefish to enter the Gentoo repository… Of course, I could simply bug the maintener (and that’s probably what I will do someday or another) but it only strenghten my point. I could also modify the current ebuild… but it’s hard to believe that software installation is easier on Linux when you have to do that, don’t you think?
The truth is that installing and upgrading software IS easier on Linux. Windows still lacks an package manager that can upgrade all your packages in one shot – you have to download and install every program manually! It’s quite a dated approach to configuration management.
You’re comparing apples to watermelons (or pumpkins, choose your favorite). It would be impossible for Microsoft to maintain a repository with all the software available for Windows. Even a local database with all the programs you have installed isn’t very realistic as there are 1001 installation programs out there. You would have to force them to follow a standard. Many of them are not even taking care of the Add/Remove Program function… And where that database would take the information on the new updates available, anyway? From a text file on the developer’s website? Not impossible (and some programs are doing it) but what if they don’t have one? What if they change their address?
Linux is doing fine right now with that kind of management but it will need a standard package management system sooner or later.
“It’s quite a dated approach to configuration management.”
You make the sweeping statement that Linux software instalation is easier on a whole because of one advantage?
Even then it takes the system like 2 weeks to download and compile all the code.
You are also missing my point entirely. Gentoo NEVER WAS in buisness.
Why do think it is that RH, Mandrake, and Linspire don’t put in some big server farms and offer all these free packages for free?
Exactly.
Is that good – or is that whack?
I don’t think it matters. What matters to Linux is
1. Good enough technology.
2. Cheaper than alternatives.
3. Trusted support.
I don’t think most non-computer companies care much more about software and hardware than they do about the paper towel dispenser in the washroom. Both need to be there and not out-of-order.
But they do care about support. Most companies are very small, do not have the resources to fix computer problems and are not going to go with Linux with just the GNU org in background for support. They want a real company for that and they’ll pay for it. In fact, they wouldn’t want it any other way because they want capitalism to ensure that the job gets done. There is that word again.
Linux is not what will drive Linux. The support will. And some of it will be GPL’ed and thereby out in the open for others to build on.
Reminds me of the product evolution in the company I work for. A customer wants additional functionality added to the base product and pays for its development while subsequent customers gets that new functionality for free.
So what’s new with this article? Another one of these “Linux ready for….” articles which is written by someone who has to much time about something which is only building hype.
Hasn’t OSNews already covered this article by 100 others just like this one?
Besides, Linux isn’t ready because of the same reasons we’ve stated for the past years….
Then you are dependant on the ebuild maintener. If he decides to slack off, a new version comes out and nobody is willing to develop a new ebuild for that version, you’re on your own.
Well, this technology improvement, just like previous ones, does require some effort to be spent and sometimes maintainers can be slacking. However, gentoo maintainers are doing a good thing as a whole. And yes, you should email bluefish maintainer with a polite reminder if this particular package is that important to you.
You’re comparing apples to watermelons (or pumpkins, choose your favorite). It would be impossible for Microsoft to maintain a repository with all the software available for Windows.
Why not? The database certainly would not be that big, compared to MS userbase. I am certain they can afford it.
Even a local database with all the programs you have installed isn’t very realistic as there are 1001 installation programs out there.
Well, that’s why MS should push a unified installation format.
And where that database would take the information on the new updates available, anyway?
Developer logs in to their account on package database server and files a new release. That’s it.
—–
You make the sweeping statement that Linux software instalation is easier on a whole because of one advantage?
I am stating that on some distributions, installing and upgrading applications is easier then on Windows.
apt-get install apache, swaret –install apache, urpmi apache, emerge apache…. and so on.
Not only does these tools install the software, they also download the latest version. Is this really so much harder that the windows way??
These companies are dependent upon external developers (not employed by the companies themselves) to provide them with improvements and to advance the technologies being sold. Any kind of external reliance is frowned upon by investors – especially when it directly affects the main product being sold.
More linux and related developers need to get on a payroll. You can’t be depending on some guy whose girlfriend just broke up with him and decides to go on a 3-week binger because ‘he can’.
I am a PC user since 1998, and was an Amiga500 user back to that. Would anyone please tell me how easy it is to install software on linux?
I dont think i’m stupid,contrarly i am quite compenent on PC’s. Installing new packages was the reason that kept me away from using linux. I have installed several distro’s(suse,redhat,vector,mandrake), only mandrake was usuable among them. But even that was not good enough for daily use. Would someone please tell me how can a new user discover where to install a new software, would you simply explain me how can a new user figure out which software is for what? most linux software has geeky names..and usually lacking necessary functions. Forexample KDE desktop’s mediaplayer.. well simply you werent able to play your vcd’s.. mpeg on that mediaplayer:) Most distros comes with winamp like player.. but tell me how can a new user discover where it is install when he-she wants to change the skin of the software. You can download gaim, in its description it seems to support msn messanger but how.. it looks as it only supports icq and aim(not many europeans uses aim)
I was devastated when i have figure out,i wasnt able to install from the GUI at first. OK,fair enough.. i tried terminal screen… but where was i suppose to install it,where would i have placed the file and if i didnt like it where was suppose to uninstall it. Each piece of software i downloaded tars,rpms etc, had depenencie issue, when i was installing they were requiering different libs..
where would i find those files missing at a deep ocean like internet, and how would i have find the versions that piece of software was asking? sooo easy isnt it:p
OK, how bout Gentoo..
would u please tell me how many home users have DSL, T1,T3 connection… lets say we all have it, how many can use commands on porter, how many can stand hours and hours to simply update few files 
ıf porter like solutions were good enough or good enough for home user and porter was inspired from the bsds package managers..ports
why didnt apple adopted that sophisticated package manager, instead they prefer the way of mind..
well, i tried.. and linux is not good for me… and not good for people i know around. it is sure good for many things… but i lost my hope for it long time ago
and when distros that are good enough for home users rose, that time they will be pay .. and even more expensive than MS Win..
“apt-get install apache, swaret –install apache, urpmi apache, emerge apache…. and so on.
Not only does these tools install the software, they also download the latest version. Is this really so much harder that the windows way??”
Its easier, quicker, plain simple 1000 times better, but its not what people are used to.
What you say is only true for corporations that sell software, which represents only a small fraction of the corporate world.
That is correct. It is very small fraction- but all those small independent software developers who believe in American dream of starting small and getting big by selling their products. Those are not only American folks.
Get to CompUSA, look at all that software sold there- now imagine it all GPLed, you can get to CompUSA and use in-store CD burner to freely make a copy of CD for the price of a media. Well, may be not in CompUSA but in some kind of FreeUSA computer store selling blank CD disks.
Perfectly legal, but what are these small software developers left with?
The GPL and BSDL are equally profitable for the large majority of corporations who do not derive their income from the sale of software, but who rather use software as tools in their respective businesses.
Right. It leads to centralization and monopolization. Huge corporations with big IT budgets could afford it. Small guys can’t.
Selling software isn’t the be-all, end-all of computing.
Of course not. GNU manifesto is right: software developers will not dissapear.
But, and that is logical conclusion, they’ll be slaves of corporations like IBM which can afford GPL, and slaves of the governements that never had problem investing people’s money into unprofitable projects.
No more independent teams of geeks building new software in their garage and dreaming to make the world happy and get rich in the process. Not if they let it GPL.
Most of the people who criticize the GPL fail to understand this simple fact. They see it as preventing other Microsofts from emerging, as if that was a bad thing.
No, we do understand. How software developers will be paid, according to GNU manifesto? By corporations that produce internal software, and by governments- with a modest software tax applied to citizens.
You should really read manifesto, it is very interesting reading. A guy is not Marx, of course, but he can write too.
As far as communism and capitalism, the fact is that these are ideologies that no longer exist in the current marketplace.
P-h-lease! Salaried employees (software developers) and no free enterprise- that is first step away from capitalism.
In fact, that is what Soviet Union had: no independent software developers, no commercial software. You graduate with degree in CS, you can go work for government owned company and write software for that company. Alternatively, you can apply for job in government offices, and write software for government ogranizations.
Of course, in your free time you can write software for your pleasure, scratch your itch. You can share that software for free, give it to other people with sources if they ask. Selling software for profit was unheard of and could even be illegal (computers were mostly government property then, using them for personal gain could be a no-no).
How these Soviet software developers were paid? Sure bet, by the government and by government owned corporations.
Reminds you of GNU manifesto dreams, doesn’t it? Close enough.
So, with that wonderful software development model, where developers were not working for personal gain but for employer and their personal pleasure, would you please name well known Soviet made software? The one that is freely used on personal computers all over the world, of outstanding quality and very user friendly?
The only one area of software development in Russia and other East European countries that really went well was virus writing. In fact, Bulgarian viruses were graded the best for few yeers.
That is probably not what we would expect from the dream of a better world.
There are a lot of American investors who aren’t convinced that Linux is a trustworthy platform, and I don’t blame them. As the author mentioned, look at the dubious history of Linux plays on the stock market, you have some of the biggest crashes of value on record. You also have allegations of stealing code from Unix that are being argued in US Federal Court, another black eye for Linux. You have companies like Red Hat that have had to alter their business model several times already just to stay alive, and having to publicly ask for donations to their legal fund. Now we’re supposed to believe Novell of all people is some kind of saviour? LOL, more like the kiss of death!
There’s a perception out there that Linux isn’t quite on the up and up, not only for it’s dubious history, but the very anti-capitalistic view of it’s founders such as Richard Stallman and the FSF. They openly admit on their website their “ultimate goal” is the “end of all proprietary softare”. Of course investers are leary, there are dangerous anti-capitalistic views at the heart of the Linux movement. And most importantly, there’ just not 1 single great success story to ever emerge out from under the black cloud, despite the years and years of hype.
> P-h-lease! Salaried employees (software developers) and no
> free enterprise- that is first step away from capitalism.
So capitalism does not promote salaried empolyees?
“The arguments are true, if BSD where better than why aren’t BSD OSes more popular?”
Because using the identication “popularity” in an arguments for “quality” is a fallacy.
If this were to be true, it would be a fact Windows and TRON rock while OpenBSD, OpenVMS, Solaris “obviously” suck.
I think there are many reasons why distributions using the Linux kernel, GNU, and other GPL components are more popular. Wrawrat stated a few, which i agree with in some extend. Another one i can think of is that there’s simply far more GPL software developed which is easier available on Linux distributions (‘cept maybe FreeBSD). The GPL protects the developers work, which is many developers find it attractive, i think. Another reason i can think of is that there are much user-friendly Linux distributions for the desktop available; the BSD’s are less user-friendly for the slightly less technical inclined and desktops are -like it or not- used more in the world by people.
However those all aren’t proven at all; therefore not facts. IMO these, and Wrawrat’s reasons, are at least a better explanation than the popularity argument.
Anyway in some way it is Good Linux isn’t adopted by mass businesses. Especially if you are/work for a competitor. Let them pay that Microsoft tax while you/company you work for are progressing with spending less money, keeping your engineers using standards instead of a weird, artificial standard. It gives you an advantage: you can spend the money on other things, having an easier possibility to raise profit.
Correct me if I’m off base… a Linux OS model might work if the core OS was the open and free and people would actually pay for the apps…
If the OSS Base Desktop and kernal (et al) were the free part… developed for the multitude of hardware available… would people pay for software and actually make Linux a viable business??? It just seems we’re all scwabbling about free this, free that… and you know, developers have to eat too… so, if the core was free, would people pay for the apps? Not today, because we all want it free… free… free…
Why would Adobe or anyother developer want to get into Linux when it’s not economically feasible? Money talks…
“FUD & anti-corporateness. Alot of linux advocates completely hate corporate software companies.”
Yes i take it a lot hate one, huge company in the software industry. Now, the rhetoric question about which you may fantasize is: “WHY?”
“On the GNU site and FSF there are anti commercial software rantings all over it…….why wouldnt a comany shy away from an OS that is represented by some of that….”
First of all, there is adifference between the Free Software camp and the Open Source camp.
The FSF site also clearly states they’re not anti-commercial software. They’re anti-proprietary software. Perhaps you’d like to read the site a lil’ bit better, so you become more enlightened in the Art of trolling next time?
MySQL. A company. Spreading their software under GPL. And a proprietary version with license. Thus dual-licensed. FSF ranting on MySQL? No.
ReiserFS. A company. Spreading their software under GPL. And a proprietary version with license. Thus dual-licensed. FSF ranting on MySQL? No.
Seen any criticism on RedHat, a commercial company? Novell? IBM? I haven’t.
Top Speed: Welcome, i see you’ve found this site back. Enjoying the trolling already?
“The GPL license is anti-capitalism and thus it can’t be trusted. If linux switched to the BSD it would be much more successful, trust me.”
Hardly, the GPL is anti-ripping off what people deserve credit for. The GPL encourages competition in a world full of short term monopolies (patents); the GPL is more pro-capitalism than you seem to comprehend.
I hate it when people call GPL/Gnuers socialists. It’s rediculous to say that someone who encourages competition is.
“If the OSS Base Desktop and kernal (et al) were the free part… developed for the multitude of hardware available… would people pay for software and actually make Linux a viable business??? It just seems we’re all scwabbling about free this, free that… and you know, developers have to eat too…”
With that last sentence it became clear to me you’ve not understood the difference between “Free as in speech” and “free as in beer”.
“so, if the core was free, would people pay for the apps? Not today, because we all want it free… free… free…”
Various models exist.
A common one is:
Company <-> Wants support licenses <-> Company selling support licenses <-> In-house people know internals and develop the software for Free <-> Developers get paid by the company selling the licenses, indirectly by the company who want support <-> Home users get the software for Free and for free as well, but not any support; home users’ computers are not a viable target to sell support to because they don’t have that much money to spend on software or computers (also perhaps a part of the economic age we’re living in).
Another one is the ReiserFS/MySQL way i described above.
Also, please keep in mind that many programmers are hobbyists. It is their choice to not get paid for doing their hobby in their Free time, for F-U-N.
After all, FUN is what lives all about, right? ;^)
Please stop with those ancient GPL-trolls. They are irrelevant and incorrect. First of all, GPL is not about free software as in no money, it’s about free software as in free market. Any company can charge as much money as they want for any (L)GPL’d piece of sotware that exists. Look @ Novell, RHEL, Linspire, Sun, etc. You claim those company’s are anti-capitalistic? Don’t make me laugh!
And what if company’s do provide free software as in free market AND free beer?! What’s anti-capitalistic about that? Capitalism is all about a FREE market, about competition. An anti-capitalistic act would be to restrict the free market, for example by prohibiting company’s that sell GPL’d software to enter this free market. THAT would be an anti-capitalistic act!
So you are saying if Coca Cola sold their formula with a six-pack, it is anti-capitalistic?! WHAHA!!!
“Now we’re supposed to believe Novell of all people is some kind of saviour? LOL, more like the kiss of death!”
Anyway you slice it Novell is in a world of hurt. I would certainly doubt they are in a position to help Linux, and are somewhat more likely to do additional damage to it. Questions in many minds if bankruptcy isn’t part of their longterm business plan.
Quoting:
Novell has had its own troubles. Over the years, it has lost NetWare market share to Microsoft’s Windows NT/2000. Its stock has been trading for under $10 since last fall, and it has lost more than 80 percent of its value since February a year ago when it hit $43.
Source: http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010313S0015
Why do markets still trust windows?
With Free Software there’s no single entity owning the software (FSF does not own all free softwares) : everyone own the software (thanks to the freedoms, and NOT through a State public ownership). It’s far more closer to anarchism than the socialism you describe, and here the difference does matter.
The fact that RMS wrote the GNU Manifsto AND the FSF definition does not mean things about free software work how he thinks.
Sure. Another question sould be: are the markets relevant, do they mean anything at all ? Of course they don’t.
Actually, the GPL is far more capitalist-friendly then the BSD license. Capitalism is all about competition. The GPL encourages fierce competition, because all changes must be made public. Thus, a company can retain an advantage over other companies for only as long as their improvements take to propogate to their competitors — one or two product product cycles at most. The companies that do the best are the ones that can keep improving at a fast pace, not the ones that can just ride on their momentum from past accomplishments. This aspect of the GPL is precisely why companies like SGI have been willing to release stuff like XFS under the GPL. Because of the protections of the GPL license, SGI ensures that a competitor cannot gain a permanent advantage by improving XFS but not releasing any of those improvements.
@Russian guy – you make a lot of good points. Something that these kids in suburban Europe and America that think it’s cool to be a leftist should listen to.
First off. I don’t think that GPL is anti-capitalist or any of that nonsense. Many businesses that are very capitalist can benefit from GPL. The company I worked for _sold_ linux on servers and the embedded space and we profitted greatly from not having to buy microsoft licenses. Now I do have problems with code that is supposed to be used as libraries, but uses something like the GPL instead of LGPL or BSD license. Because there you restrict the freedom of the user. LGPL seems to be a nice license for libraries because the enduser is free to link to it in binary form, but if wants to distribute changes that he’s made to the library he has to give them back. That makes a lot of sense.
About the GNU maifesto –
Richard Stallman is clearly anti-capitalist but will use capitalism to a means to and end. So clearly, he’s a hypocrite too.
Here’s a couple scary quote from the GNU Maifesto
“Don’t programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?”
If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.
So Stallman is saying that programmer should be punished for restricting the use of these programs – which in Stallman speak can only mean that the program is only in binary form.
All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.
Stallman wants everybody that buys a computer to have to pay to a government body that he will head up. And you know that he would love to head up such government body.
@Russian guy
The way GNU Manifesto describes a perfect world where software developers would all be salaried government and corporate employees with no chance to just say “I can do it on my own, let me try”- worries me. I lived in that world. I do not want to go back.
The GNU Maifesto does not say that, but it’s disappointing that it’s hard to make a living doing something like shareware on linux. I hope that will change, because it would be nice for the one man software to be able to make a living without having to be employeed by some corporation or government
Well, this technology improvement, just like previous ones, does require some effort to be spent and sometimes maintainers can be slacking. However, gentoo maintainers are doing a good thing as a whole. And yes, you should email bluefish maintainer with a polite reminder if this particular package is that important to you.
I’ll probably do that this afternoon… but it’s hard to believe that the installation process is easier when you have to do that.
Why not? The database certainly would not be that big, compared to MS userbase. I am certain they can afford it.
I think you are understimating the number of developers… Furthermore, such service would probably not be free for developers, locking out freeware developers and many small ones.
Well, that’s why MS should push a unified installation format.
To be fair, they are already trying to do that with the new MSI format.
Developer logs in to their account on package database server and files a new release. That’s it.
True but, like I said earlier, I don’t believe in a centralised solution for Windows.
I still maintain that Linux is doing fine with the current model but it will have to support standalone packages sooner or later if developers really want to see it mainstream.
The reason businesses don’t trust linux is that they are stupid! C’mon! Here is an open operating system that you can roll on your own in-house. The ability to customize, patch, and support an entire software infrastructure in-house is priceless. All it takes is a handful of experienced programmers. The userbase and developer base of GNU/Linux has reached a critical mass where continued support and development is assured. Hell, I switched to Linux on my desktop and servers because I didn’t want to depend on a single vendor (a convicted monopolist at that).
Increased marketshare is merely a side-effect of a quality product, not an end of itself.
Linux is different because its development is driven by functionality, security, and stability, rather than PROFIT and user friendliness. A linux machine is a dream to admin compared to Windows. Look at this! Software management, what a concept!!! A fully scriptable system environment! A fully modular operating system! So the entire OS isn’t point and click easy, maybe a business will actually have to hire an admin who actually knows what they are doing!
Selling a commodity product isn’t easy, props to RedHat for making a profit and using that money to give back to the community. Advertising and PR are what Linux really needs. Like the Intel ad, “great advertising makes a great product”.
Thus, a company can retain an advantage over other companies for only as long as their improvements take to propogate to their competitors — one or two product product cycles at most.
I doubt that claim. A competitor could just as easily make one or two minor changes and undercut the company, if they were so inclined and had the money. Your example would work in the ideal world, but I doubt it is viable in the real world.
This aspect of the GPL is precisely why companies like SGI have been willing to release stuff like XFS under the GPL. Because of the protections of the GPL license, SGI ensures that a competitor cannot gain a permanent advantage by improving XFS but not releasing any of those improvements.
IMHO I think SGI needed XFS in linux so that it’s customers could easily migrate out of IRIX to thier Itanium boxes running linux. SGI was/is on death row and is using linux and itanium to try to make a comeback into the market or carve out a niche market. There was nothing stopping SGI from releasing XFS with a different license if they were betting the future of thier business on something like say any of the BSDs. I thinl SGI’s choice of the GPL was becuase it was compatible with linux, if anything else.
Not everything in the LINUX community is free. Where there is sometimes a disadvantage to using a specific Open Source software tool you can also find proprietory developers that port their applications/hardware to LINUX. There are companies selling LINUX distros, support services, etc that make money (ie: RedHat, Novell/SUSE, Linspire). There are also propietory software companies that distribute on LINUX and make a profit (ie: Alias, Softimage, SideFX, IFX, Discreet, PIXAR, etc). If LINUX wasn’t profitable then why do hardware companies such as ATI and NVIDIA port both their gaming cards and highend graphics cards to LINUX? Game developers are even now taking an interest in porting to LINUX so that should shift the market control away from companys like Microsoft (Windows/XBOX) and Sony (PS2).
Developers are realizing there is a viable market to make profits with LINUX. The confusion comes from those that toss the word “FREE” around with out truely understanding LINUX and the GNU/GPL. The word “FREE” used in combination with LINUX with out a proper explanation causes some to believe that everything that has to do with LINUX is free which is not true.
Commoditization is good but I fail to see how it can be good for software vendors.
Correction: OS software vendors. Nothing is preventing “app” vendors from releasing their sofware under a different, non-open license.
The commoditization of the OS really only threatens one company, Microsoft.
Auto complete is evil, at times. The subject of my post should have been just @Rayiner Hashem
Correction: OS software vendors. Nothing is preventing “app” vendors from releasing their sofware under a different, non-open license.
RMS and others make a case for open source Java (whatever that means), precisely because it uses a different license. One could argue that Java is an OS because it uses a VM. But for all intents and purposes it is a userland App.
To add to my comment.
It appears there is an implicit clause in the FSF tenet that all applications shipping with a GPL/FSF compatible distribution must also have a FSF compliant license. The whole stink raised by the FSF and open source evangelists is a good indicator of the tolerence of said advocates to anything with a license that is incompatible with their ideology.
Because they are controlled by suits, not techies. They have yet to comprehend the power of open source and still fear the FUD — that it’s ‘anti-american’, ‘communist’, etc.
Whatever RMS and the FSF advocate is, in itself, irrelevant. They have no power to force anyone to open-source their apps, therefore software vendors are free to publish closed-source products for Linux if they want to. I haven’t heard a single Linux user who’s unhappy about Doom 3 being proprietary…
On another note, I think a lot of people here are confusing “businesses” with “markets”. Businesses have no problem using Linux – it’s the stock market that seems wary of buying Linux distro maker stocks. The difference is significant: businesses use Linux to lower their operative costs, while markets are looking for high return on investments – something which distro makers can’t guarantee.
Just as markets themselves are a poor indicator of economic health, lack of market enthusiasm over Linux companies is a poor indicator of Linux’s use within businesses.
That is correct. It is very small fraction- but all those small independent software developers who believe in American dream of starting small and getting big by selling their products. Those are not only American folks.
Then perhaps they should look at other licenses besides the GPL. The fact that Linux itself is distributed under the GPL is irrelevant: software running on top of it can use any licese it wants.
Right. It leads to centralization and monopolization. Huge corporations with big IT budgets could afford it. Small guys can’t.
I’m sorry, but you’re not making any sense. GPLed software can certainly be afforded by small corporations! Again, you’re looking at this solely through software vendors’ eyes. Most businesses do not sell software, so free software is an advantage for them.
It seems to me you’re saying that all other businesses should pay more so that a certain vision of the software industry should survive. Well, let me tell you, no one has any obligation to maintain a failing business model. And that’s textbook capitalism.
P-h-lease! Salaried employees (software developers) and no free enterprise- that is first step away from capitalism.
Funny, I work for a free enterprise that produces software and I’m a salaried employee. In fact, the overwhelming majority of people working for ISVs are salaried employees. Let me go a step further: 99% of people working for free enterprises are salaried employees.
You should think a bit about your arguments before you write them. Right now you’re not making any sense.
So, with that wonderful software development model, where developers were not working for personal gain but for employer and their personal pleasure, would you please name well known Soviet made software? The one that is freely used on personal computers all over the world, of outstanding quality and very user friendly?
Well, that’s easy: Tetris.
Meanwhile, your parralels between the GPL and Russian-style totalitarianism are as idiotic as ever: GPL software can be sold for personal profit; independent developers always have to option to choose another license; they are not being told what to write by their superiors; and they always remain the sole copyright owners.
Your personal anti-GPL agenda doesn’t make these dubious analogies true. The ideal world of the GNU manifesto is a libertarian one, completely at the opposite of Soviet totalitarianism. In fact, the Microsoft vision, with a single company as sole provider of OS and most major apps, is a lot closer to what you’re describing: low-level MS employees are salaried; they no longer personally profit from the sale of Windows and Office; they can’t work on other (personal) software projects and they certainly can’t sell them for personal profit while they work for the company; and if they publicly criticize MS, the corporate vision or Bill Gates they’ll lose their job.
Following your logic, working for MS is not much different from working for the Soviet government back in the days…
Patents exists to “close” IP that is not closed by nature.
The GPL exists to “open” IP that is not open by nature.
But patents are temporary – they expire. Why? I don’t know. I guess society has determined that capitalism eventually must give way for progress – now it cannot have both.
Why should closed source software be treated any different? Asis, it can remain closed forever and is quite unique in that respect.
I’d be fine with replacing the GPL with patents. But whatever – even closed source software should eventually be opened – just like all patented IP – for the benefit of progress – even if it comes at the expense of capitalism.
“The reason businesses don’t trust linux is that they are stupid! C’mon! Here is an open operating system that you can roll on your own in-house. The ability to customize, patch, and support an entire software infrastructure in-house is priceless. All it takes is a handful of experienced programmers. The userbase and developer base of GNU/Linux has reached a critical mass where continued support and development is assured.”
You just showed why companies don’t want to bother with linux. Thats a lot of work, maybe not to bad if your business allready involves programming. But Companies don’t want to do as you say, the last thing they want to do is roll their own. They want what the world runs. They want to pick up the phone and call a company and have what they want delivered to them. They don’t want support from volunter people, they want to have support from a solid company with a signed contract for the support. This isn’t hard to understand. You go start your own company (let it be anytype of company) you have clients that depend on you. You have to be sure everything inside your company works, and when it doesn’t their is someone to set your sites on and kick in the ass. I don’t think those who go and say “companies are stupid for not using open source” are fools and have not run their own major company. It’s easy to say such things when it’s not your lively hood and the lively hood of your employees and even clients riding on your actions.
A BSD based OS is very sucessful…
it’s called OSX
By the way, BSD is widely used and respected in the securty world.
well, thats only partialy true. the heart of OSX is the Mach Micro-kernel. Then the stuff around that is various BSD bits, then the apple bits on top of that. I’m not sure you can say OSX is BSD based, but it does use a lot of BSD. I belive they have said that in the long run osx will use freebsd 5.x underneath, but even then it will still have mach in there.
I thought about this and the main reason WHY it is not taking off is real applications. One might say look at OpenOffice, Evolution and the rest. I have and they are NO where near the functionality of MS based software.
The MOST important point, is that Linux users do NOT want to pay for software… That is why NO vendors like Adobe and the rest are is going to waste R&D money when they know it will NOT sell. They want it for ‘free’ so in turn the investment community does not see a big pay off in this.
Lastly, investors lost tons of money in Linux stocks after companies like Redhat went from over $150 down to $5… Anyone with commonsense would say to themselves, uh no thanks…
Any evidence to back up your claims?
if BSD where better than why aren’t BSD OSes more popular?
if Linux where better than Windows, then why aren’t Linux OSes more popular?
;p
LOL! That’s funny!
Okay, first, understand that you will NOT appear more credible by CAPITALIZING words to put EMPHASIS. There’s a reason why italics exist…
About OpenOffice and Evolution, I totally disagree. Both of these software lack only a few of the features found in MS equivalents, and as such they are more than adequate for 90% of users.
It is also untrue that Linux users do not want to pay for software. I’m a Linux user, and I pay for software. Sometimes I pay for free software that I find particularly useful. If Adobe made Photoshop or Premiere for Linux, you can bet Linux users would buy them. It’s not the willingness of Linux users to pay or not which is at issue, but the overall size of the market.
Saying that Linux users do not want to pay for software is an old and busted cliché.
Finally, that has nothing to do with the rise and fall of Linux stock market prices. The fact of the matter is that the whole tech industry was caught in a speculative bubble, not just Linux companies.
Who needs investors when there are so many gamblers out there. I only know two investors out of about a hundred people, one of them invested in real estate, the other runs a business. The other 98 are gamblers.
…but only 10 of them realize it.
one example: i can’t have the mwa agent on my linux boxes.
this is not a great support from hp.
“The MOST important point, is that Linux users do NOT want to pay for software… That is why NO vendors like Adobe and the rest are is going to waste R&D money when they know it will NOT sell.”
If points based on cognitive distortions were so important in this world, i’d agree this is one of the most important points made.
You see, your logic was already flawed when you started to generalize to make your point more strong. How can you actually claim Linux users do not wish to pay for software; wouldn’t that result in all commercial Linux distribution vendors to go bankrupt? They wouldn’t sell any software, given no Linux user wants to pay for software…
I don’t understand why you say “like” Adobe. Can you name a dozen of companies “like” Adobe who don’t do the disco either? Because as a matter of fact, there are quite some graphics and 3D companies who *do* support Linux as supporting platform.
One big one i can name which doesn’t, is indeed Adobe. Adobe’s flagship, Adobe Photoshop, is almost perfectly supported by WINE. Enough to be used in production environments.
Given Adobe’s Photoshop, Acrobat, and Illustrator ran on IRIX, i the applications were portable at that time, with these versions. Wether they still are i do not know, but i’d assume so.
However, you haven’t stated nor backupped with either logic or facts why Adobe doesn’t support the Linux platform. Without that, together with not stating what you mean with “like Adobe”, you do not make sense with leaving such important elements out! How can you name yourself “IT Analyst”, which implies you’re a professional one, while you forget such important ingredients in your analysis?
“They want it for ‘free’ so in turn the investment community does not see a big pay off in this.”
Yet another individual who doesn’t understand the difference between Freedom and gratis…
I have a simple question:
Imagine a software company developing some app for linux:
– it has great functionality (enough to cover 95%) of user’s needs.
– it is quite stable and secure.
– It is also very user-friendly.
now i ask, how can this company make a proffit without selling it?
now imagine a free app suddenly appears with basicly the same attributes, there goes the proffit.
its a great risk for such a small user-base (proffit)
Why woundn’t they be selling it, just because it runs on Linux?
A little hard question: Do you understand the difference between free as is free speech and free as in free beer? Free software does not refere to prize but too freedom.
Also Open Source != Free Software
Linux might be GPL, but that doesn’t mean that commercial apps can’t run on it without being GPL, be commercial apps read both open & closed source.
Is ICC “Intel C++ Compiler” not selling to the linux-platform just becource of GCC?
What about Oracle when we have MySQL, which be the way is also partly commercial og Open Source or for that matter postgresql?
It’s called competition, it’s healthy, it promotes evolution og strength, look it up 🙂
As we say in Denmark: “Stop tudefjæs og gør noget ved det”
Closed Source and Open Source can and IMO should indeed co-exist.
——
Always remember there ain’t nothing like a Dane
Also, consider that the company could be making the app a cross-platform one as well, using Qt, in order to maximize the profit opportunities.
If closed-source can’t compete with open-source, then it means that there is a problem with the closed-source model. Are you saying that Adobe and others are admitting that they can’t compete?
Why do the markets still trust windows? Really, a os with more holes than a sponge, 100+ bugs reported this year already, & Mac OS X has had 2 trojens in 3 years. How does MS get away with it? I have Win2k Pro, for games that is all, oh & others in the house use it. looks like the MS guys who code the OSs were sick when they talked about security in programing class at coledge. It realy has nothing to do with User-friendliness, look at Mac OS X, just 2 trogens in 3 years & 3 years is all it has been out. Yes, I admit that progrming for 1 COU type is easier than coding 1 os for many types, but still MS has no excuse for their trajedy of a secure os.
” 100+ bugs reported this year already.”
Wow, you should check out the list of bugs on any app. If there were less than 1,000 bugs in Windows I would imagine we’d ALL use Windows.
Maybe you meant 100+ fatal bugs?
I found that most I.T people like me found that linux is to buggie to use and the issues can be just to much. But I think linux is getting better. Like What starting to turn our head’s at work is fedora as I found it really good and easy to fix and write programs for. I think it’s Linux like SUSE that give linux an bad name. I install SUSE 9 and I have none thing but issues with it. after reinstall it 2 times. It’s hard to get programs for and it’s updates are buggie. but YAST is good. I have dell laptop that need to load on patch use X loading the patch in SUSE was an nightmare after nightmare. It took 2 reinstall of SUSE 1 reinstall of X and 6 hours of time trying to get X to work. If this was our main server can you think of issue this would cause.
Easier? What?
Linux installers what are they? in about all linuxes other then Fedora Linux it’s really hard to install software because even if it easy one like rpm or deb you still have to download the lib files for that program and then hope you have right files for our linux. in lot of software you have to make it up your self from the code. what is just dumb with windows or mac it only matter of follow the windows.
Anthony, I think it’s been a while since you tried out Linux distros. Now, with software like Mandrake’s urpmi, whenever you want to install software, the lib files and all other files needed are automatically downloaded and installed as well. It just works.
Also you might want to take a look at autopackage.org. It’s not widely used yet (because advanced package managers such as urpmi work so well), but it’s very promising.
It seems to me that your perceptions of Linux are outdated.
“I found that most I.T people like me found that linux is to buggie to use and the issues can be just to much.”
That’s funny, because out of date and buggy don’t combine well. Debian GNU/Linux Woody for example can be defined as out of date. Fine, but it is also rock solid and widely used in the area of professional servers.
Now if you’d say Debian GNU/Linux Sid was out of date, that would be mostly bull though one might find some out of date packages, of which some are in the Experimental branch. However when you’d say it is buggy, yes, it could very well be true that there’s some bugs in some software packages. Some are also known, see bugzilla. That’s also a reason why it isn’t smart to use this on a professional server.
Why would you want the newest on the newest when stability is much more important? Which is the case on a serious server.
The desktop is a more complex story because then you’d most likely wish to reside to ie. Sarge (in the example of Debian) which is a mix of slightly out of date and slightly buggy. IMO okay for on the desktop.
Guess what commercial, Debian-based desktop distributions for home end users use as base? I’ve observed it is mostly Sarge. Occasionally Sid.
I find Debian a good example, but ofcourse there’s other distributions as well.