>There is still the impression that "where do you get support from
Linux if no one owns it?" type of thing. As I point out there are
>heaps of Linux savvy people and companies around that can support
it. Trouble is Linux is unheard of by the "IT steering
>committees". They have only heard about Exchange and Notes. Linux
needs to get some credibility with the committees and bean
>counters before it has a serious look in. How do you do that?
an interesting point i've often wondered myself. I think it often
comes down to the mentality of "if this goes bottom up then we need someone
to sue". If you pay Microsoft or Novell $X for their mail solution, and
they don't provide, I guess this is a breach of a legal contract, so you can
take them to court. But as said in the "cathedral and the bazaar" when you
buy software are you looking for a software solution, or a law suit?
if the software has some incredible fault that stops things working
the way they should, then even if you pay a C programmer $100 hour for two
weeks to fix it to be perfect for you, I'd wager this is still cheaper than
any law suit.
these "steering committees" don't understand the feedback loop that
is linux in particular and free software in general. i fix this, you add
that, together we have something even better. we don't have to do things
the old fashioned way any more, locked into vendors with proprietary
solutions. the whole world is connected together now, why not use it?
i think that in the future, corporations as we know it will
disappear. there is some research around that talks about "virtual
enterprise" where people come together, via the internet, to form a
"corporation" to solve a particular problem. this might stay together, this
might not -- it doesn't matter because everything is dynamic. sort of like
blobs that float around and make bigger or smaller blobs. the internet is
the first step in this. software obviously underlies this vision, and this
software is going to have to be as amorphous as the structure ontop of it.
only free software can perform this role.
anyway, back to lunch
-i
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