What Aaron described as "bits of math from ecological science", might also be justified in the following way:
Open Source is a political movement much more than a technology movement. By "political movement", I don't mean as extreme as RMS might have it. But it is kept alive and driven by individuals (and companies), who want at least "freedom of choice". (I would offer this as an addition to the often quoted beer and speech). This basic desire, which is leading many of us to abandon the path of least resistance (M$ and before that IBM in the early 80's, even Novell for a while in the late 80's, early 90's on the LAN), and even, if we are not developers, but just users, we often go through extra pain with Open Source to maintain that special sense of freedom.
The very political movement, which brought Open Source this far, will ensure, that single player domination (extreme vendor lock-in) does not occur. The L/GPL (eternal credit to RMS, regardless of his future relevance) is an expression of that spirit (doesn't matter, if it got tested in court), and that spirit remains at the core .
While the collective stupidity of the large corporate towers might just trade the M$ oven for a Novell frying pan, the life blood of Open Source is not derived from the corporate towers, but from individuals and small groups. Many of them even work for large corporates, but instead of having become drones, they are "subversive" influences, slowly getting their way to create a hopefully better world (sorry, that sounds corny, but I don't know of a better way to say it).
So on this particular topic, my tinfoil hat stays off, and I'm looking forward to a rather more bright future for diversity in Open Source.
</rant>
:)
...Niels
Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
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On January 23, 2004 09:57, Marcel Lecker wrote:
http://www.techuser.net/index.php?content=36
Nice read.
finally got around to reading this and what can i say besides... bullocks.
Q. what has changed more in the process of monetizing Free Software: Open Source dynamics, or corporates that are betting on Open Source products?
corporates.
Q. when Red Hat had ~60% of the distribution market (and growing), did other distros continue to shrink, or was there a self-balancing mechanism that kicked in to restore parity to the market?
the market self-balanced and we see more diversity in the distribution vendor market today compared to 24 months ago. less than 5 years ago, perhaps, but with more large distros that have better individual futures.
(i'll bet we could even find a few bits of math from ecological science that would describe this proliferation-domination-reduction-proliferation-etc cycle that seems to be approaching a limit of equilibrium.)
Q. who is successfully shipping sizeable #s of Linux desktops?
Mandrake, Lindows, Sun*, SUSE, Xandros, Red Hat.
* Sun's actual desktop shipments are far, far fewer (by orders of magnitude) than their PR claims (millions in China, a million in the UK in just one deal, etc), but they are being deployed, even here in Canada.
Q. what company controls the majority of Open Source software development?
none.
Q. what products does Novell have that are Open Source and will remain that way?
primarily stuff in the SUSE product line, along with Evolution and some other scraps of stuff from the Ximian purchase. but the lion's share comes from SUSE, which is remaining rather independant as a business unit (unlike Ximian, btw).
ok, so... summing up ..... the article poses a possible future where Novell is the king of Linux by purchasing Red Hat and having the backing via investments of the Big 5 PC vendors.
this is a tidy and neat summing up of the game, but one that follows directly from a simplistic connect-the-dots-in-my-preferred-world-view sort of manner.
corporate interests are what are changing, yet the article claims that it will be the Open Source world that changes most. bzzt.
the article claims that $ alone can impose arbitrary artificial order upon the Free Software market. bzzt.
the article claims the big players are Red Hat and Novel, despite the reality of many other major distribution players. so again, bzzt.
the article ignores the effects of OSDL, Sun (well, they are perhaps ignorable), and a HUGE host of non-distribution players (from the SAPs and Oracles to the Codeweavers and MySQL ABs of the world). the author instead is happy to play as a child with marbles in his room with some very simple objects that he has plucked out of the complex reality for whatever reasons: IBM, Novell and Red Hat.
furthermore, the author's "calm down" justifications for his Unified Under Novel theory are totally naive. the idea that because you have a bunch of investors in a company, you can't do stupid things is quite wrong. the more investors you have, the less likely you have to listen to any one of them; and to be honest, a modern corporation does not fare well when run by external committee (which is what he is suggesting).
and this is all predicated on the idea that companies will invest in Novel to maintain leverage, but they would only do so if Novel is successful, which will raise the price of that investment and make Novel hesitant to enter into any such agreements (since Novel won't need them; remember, Novel is in it for themselves, not for the betterment of mankind or IBM). investments are accepted when a company is in trouble, not successful (which is why IBM popped into the Novell kitty: to ensure they could survive and afford SUSE at the same time; IBM was more interested in SUSE than Novel). at the point Dell would wish to get their greasy fingers on Novel's decision making process, it would be too late.
so, yes, having a single entity be THE Linux company is a bad idea. there are no "calm down" justifications that are realistic.
here's my bet: the author is a rah-rah Novelite (Novel fans often are often only a step or three down from Apple fanatics in their rah-rah-ism) and would love to see Novel conquer all. to fit his ideal, he is constructing a safe, naive and happy world in which it could occur without it being a bad thing to everyone else.
his understanding of the seeming anti-MS push (punishment?) and desktop needs (one desktop == good for Linux desktop) only further the embarrassment that is his article.
- -- Aaron J. Seigo
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