[ILUG] Is Linux Dying?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting david jamison (david.jamison1 at ntlworld.com):

> Maybe this should read Is Linux becomming a victim of its own success? 
> Or perhaps how is Linux maturing?

Forgive me, but are you new to Linux?  We in the Linux community did to
death the whole open-source business models thing, about a decade ago.
You might want to read back-post archives of the FSB (free software
business) mailing list.

> When the Open source movement was concieved like so many other things 
> did anyone expect software development to proceed down a route where 
> software would be essentially FREE?

Miconception.  Software is never completely gratis:  There are always
costs.  Otherwise, most certainly the founders were entirely aware of
the concept of a software ecology without specific monetary charges for
acquisition and use.  For one thing, it wasn't a new concept:  It had
been done all the way back to mainframe days.  To the contrary, the
notion of software as product was the newcomer notion.  

> Invent a world beating product - the next big thing - AND GIVE IT
> AWAY?

The notion of open source being "giving away" the copyrighted materials
is a time-honoured basic error.  If you want to find out for yourself,
try grabbing a copy of GNU emacs, use it in fashion contrary to its
licence, and lob an e-mail boasting about that fact to FSF.  You'll find
out very quickly -- through contact with their legal staff -- that they
still very much own the rights to it.

The mere fact that most journalists can never seem to get this point right
doesn't mean you shouldn't.

> The delemma for Sun et al is that if the company invests resources in 
> development that it then has to give away essentially to the opposition 
> where does the leverage, and thus profit, come from.

Traditional basic answers:

o  selective copylefting (which reserves many proprietary rights to the
   copyright owner, uniquely)
o  trademark-based branding, optionally tied to support
o  inclusion of some key components under proprietary licences

There are others.  See the FSB archives.

> An entirely new business model I think.

No.  Worked out in considerable detail many years ago.

-- 
Cheers,             The shortest distance between two puns is a straightline.
Rick Moen
rick at linuxmafia.com