[PLUG] Linux Envy: Another Perspective

[Aaron Burt]

On Sat, Jun 18, 2005 at 07:06:06AM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   The Register has a very interesting article on Theo's Ballmeresque bashing
> of linux. Makes sense to me.
>      <http://www.theregister.com/2005/06/17/de_raadt_channels_ballmer/>

Theo's not wrong, but he does miss the point.  Everyone's using Linux
because it works with most anything, it's easy to install and it's
widely available in a variety of forms.  Linux's loose and open
development model gives someone who wants to hack on it a serious
chance of payoff, i.e.  getting a patch accepted.

The licensing makes a difference, too.  Linux is GPL, so private
companies' improvements go into the public codebase and get built on,
while the BSD license allows companies to keep improvements private.

Combine that with the BSDs' professional* management, and you get much
slower growth than Linux.  Slow growth is good IMHO, but it doesn't
sell consluting and hardware, which is what HP and IBM want to do.


* XFree86 has suffered from "professional" management for quite a few
years.  Hence the XOrg fork.