Andreas Ramos wrote:
> It's very nice that Linux is free. But I wonder how Wall Street analysts
> will evaluate Oracle, Sun, and other UNIX-based companies. If these
> companies are based on volunteer-based, free, public domain software that is
> basically a fad of people who have a deep personal hatred of Bill Gates,
> then the stock of these companies will be rather worthless.
Nope. They are based on software that runs on all platforms. Linux is
one of those.
The reason their stock will go up, and not down, is simple:
If a user hasn't spent $500++ on the OS, they have $500++ more to spend
on Oracle, Netscape and Sun.
MS *has* to give away it's servers, browsers, ftp and other stuff free .
. . by the time you buy the OS and licenses, you're broke.
A better question is going to be, what will MS stock be worth when there
is a viable OS alternative, and all of their other products generate
minimal income?
> The same with Linux: if it's free, there's not much basis for running a
> business on it. Red Hat can't exist in an environment where they are
> competing against free.
I don't see this. What do you mean? They aren't competing against
free. They bundle the same free product, and charge only for support
and documentation, and nominal packaging improvements.
> At some point, volunteers will get tired of developing something for free
> and they'll go on to other things. Linux will be abandoned.
True indeed. Just as Korn went on to Lucent after doing the Korn shell,
and Cerf went to MCI after inventing TCP/IP, etc. The projects live on,
though . . . because they are "free", new generations of users cut their
teeth on them on their way to improving them later ;) Ironically,
those same "free" software systems on which the net was built even found
a new generation to kludge them over to NT. ;)
> >Y'see, Unix has been given this "hard to use" label for nearly 20
> >years now.
>
> Just set your mama down in front of a UNIX machine and see if she can figure
> it out. Forget it.
Do the same with NT ;)
> Anyone who has done training knows that one can put a total newbie in front
> of a Mac or a Win95 machine and in ten minutes, they can open programs,
> write files, save, and print.
I can put a total newbie in front of Applixware or WP Linux and achieve
the same. You're talking about user interfaces now, not OS's. If you
haven't opened an X-window install lately, might wanna try . . . I have
one running that looks and functions just like Win95 (except it runs for
weeks at a time).
> I can't imagine that any sysadmin would seriously convert an
> office of 100 users from Win95 or Mac to UNIX. The training, support, and
> trouble-shooting would be phenomenal.
Not yet . . . but you will within 5 years.
:)
Brett
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