From: wayne@backbone.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) Subject: Re: Is this becoming comp.linux.advocacy? Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1993 20:38:25 GMT
In article <CBCGxz.4I8@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>
> [ much ranting deleted ... ]
>
> Commercial vendors looking at the market will develop for those
> environments in which they can make a buck. It's reasonable for them to
> assume that people who want their Unix for free aren't likely to spend
> even $100 on an X server for accelerated cards -- so even if Linux is on
> their porting list, it's on the bottom.
>
> No matter how big the Linux installed base gets, its users will be
> perceived as those who aren't interested in paying for software, and
> resist software supplied without source. So commercial vendors will
> have little interest in these users, no matter what their numbers.
Well, _you_ may think it is reasonable to assume that people who use
Linux (or 386bsd) may not be willing to pay for software, but there
are companies out there who disagree. Just look at the number of
different companies that _sell_ Linux on floppies and CD-ROMS. Also,
I hear that the Motif package is selling briskly.
> For someone whose interest in Unix doesn't include commercial software,
> Linux is a fantasic environment.
Linux is also good if the commercial software runs in it's DOS
emulator. In 6 months to a year, I am sure you will also be able to
use ELF and MS Windows software. Maybe not all of it, and not all the
important stuff, but reaching a supply of commercial software seems to
be an active area of development.
> But don't go spreading the manure that suggests Linux will ever be taken
> seriously by any significant number of commercial application or driver
> vendors. There's absolutely no basis for anyone to believe this except
> evangelical fervor.
Linux has come a long way in the last 6 months to a year, but it still
has a long way to go. The number of commercial companies supporting
Linux at this early stage seems to imply that in the future, more
companies will be interested.
For all practical purposes, DOS is "free" and there are is no shortage
of commercial software for it. If there is a large install base, the
commercial apps will follow, or at least they have for every other OS,
and there is no reason to believe that this wont be true for Linux
also, when/if it has a large install base.
There really hasn't ever been a phenomenon like Linux before, so I
can't see how you can be so certain as to what the outcome will be.
Go back and read the postings again. _No_one_ has said that we should
all drop our SVR4's for Linux, or that Linux is better than SVR4 in
all areas. What has been said is:
* Source code to the operating system is a very useful feature that
lets you find (and fix) bugs easier.
* The fact that Linux can be acquired cheaply is a very large plus.
* Linux _is_ stable enough to replace commercial operating systems in
some areas, and in fact, Linux has selected over commercial
operating systems in a few cases. Linux is becoming more stable all
the time, both in terms of bugs and frequencies of releases. The
SLS package in particular has skipped several releases of the OS and
tries to be a "stable system for the masses".
* Linux has a reasonably large, and quickly growing install base.
This grow has come despite the fact that it doesn't support many
commercial apps, it hasn't been written about much in magazines,
and there has been little advertising by the companies that have
products available for Linux.
* Linux is changing and addressing it's weaknesses. There is every
reason to believe that Linux will be able to overcome it's
weaknesses before SVR4 can match Linux's strengths. (I.e., you
won't see a complete SVR4 available for under $100, with source code
any time in the near future, if ever.)
There is still lots of time and opportunity for the Linux community to
self destruct (the 386BSD community has come close to that), but until
it does, anyone running a business would be a fool to count Linux out
in the long run.
-wayne
--
The Average Person's Axioms of First Order Predicate Logic:
(A => B) => (B => A)
(There exists) x A(x) => (For all) x A(x)
(A => C) & (B => C) => (A => B) --Warren Vonroeschlaub