From: warmerda@pci.on.ca (Frank Warmerdam) Subject: Re: Is this becoming comp.linux.advocacy? Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 23:31:42 GMT
In article <WAYNE.93Aug7143825@backbone.uucp> wayne@backbone.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) writes:
>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.
Many Unix software houses are getting good at supporting many flavours
of Unix, PCI amoung them. One of PCI's customers (a European University)
recently asked if we could provide our software on a Linux platform, and
we might have complied if they had not settled for RS/6000 AIX.
The point being, that some customers are demanding commerical software for
Linux, and companies like PCI are willing to comply. It doesn't hurt that
I have already done most of the port at home on my Linux system. :-)
Substantial amounts of PCI development are now done at home under Linux.
-- =============================================================================== Frank Warmerdam | Who can give them back their lives | warmerda@pci.on.ca Software Artist | and all those wasted years? - Rush |