[ILUG] Is Linux dying?

[Steven Satelle]

Or not dying, being smothered? Having seen the announcement by aib  that
they were going  to move to linux, with sun java desktop as their
platform of choice I decided to grab a download of it to see what it is
like, being in a current mode of trying all the distro's (in the last 2
weeks I've gone from deb to mandrake to fc2) I thought I'd try out SJD
before switching back to debian. I went to sun.com and lo and behold I
cant download it I can only buy it. But I dont want to buy, I only want
to try. Yes I can hear the arguments, companies need to make their
money, but what happened to the FSF argument of making your money from
support, documentation and extras?
I wouldnt be worried about this move if sun were the only company doing
it, but Redhat, Xandros and Others are all doing this. What about giving
back to the community? What happened to the core of opensource
development to release often?
I feel that the sun's of the world just dont understand the opensource
model, they only see it as a quick way to make a buck, as the latest
trend to follow, before it is cast aside and returning back to core
values of separating you from your money. At least redhat for their
credit have given some excellent software back, stuff like rpm or kudzu.
So my concern is that the opensource community will be forgotten in the
rush to make money by these companies. Has anyone else seen these trends
and been concerned by them, Or any just a very strange person?