No end to Linux.

[Michael]

True, but they could stay in business even if they dropped those support
people. They might lose some customers for doing so but the majority would
probably forgive them if there was an obvious reason for the problem.
Overall opensource companies SHOULD be able to float on almost nothing.
The ones that have been dying are ones that let themselves owe money and
other classic mistakes. Eazel for example COULD have let go all their
developers and quietly kept producing as much as they could and living off
the opensources community's help but they shut down. It really doesn't
make sense to me to do so. Eventually the money will flow back towards
tech and the companies that have lived will be respected more.

> 99% may be a bit of an exaggeration, because they provide a lot of
> service and support to registered and subscription users that is not
> provided by kernel developers, but that is one of the reasons why I OWN
> stock in RedHat.
>
> (I am also closing out the 401k position in a mutual fund that has more
> than 5% of fund assets in M$.  Image my dismay when I saw THAT in the
> most recent annual statement!!!)