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Forbes on Linux
mvdwege writes "It appears that Forbes is doing a Linux Special. Lots of nice articles showing off the state of the art in Linux development today. It's nice to see Linux get some good mainstream press without hype or FUD. A very objective treatment that might definitely make some people think."
that Open Source developments are a viable option for companies these
How has it showed this?
I'll probably get flamed for this, but where are all the open source Linux companies that are currently truely making a profit (and not just using some creative accounting tricks)?
Or maybe I'm just oblivious to all of the open source success stories....
Casual Games/Downloads
This is definately a first and really a great achievement... and the goal now is to sustain linux rather that develop!
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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The articles were interesting... Linux is becoming a more commmerialized OS. This is a good thing (TM), since I can go to my boss and argue a good case to use linux; since I can get commerial support.
For all those who think its a bad thing (TM), the beauty of open source is that you can create your own homebrew (TM) distro.
Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but where are all the open source Linux companies that are currently truely making a profit (and not just using some creative accounting tricks)?
In my eagerness to get first non-troll post, ambiguity kicked in. I meant that, for clients, open-source software (commercial or otherwise) is a viable alternative to licensed/paid-for/whatever.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Everybody read the part about cost and aggravation savings. Now read it again. Memorize it. Got it? Good. THAT is the angle to use with management. Not "freedom", not "evil empire", not "Windoze sucks". UPTIME + COST SAVINGS = MORE PROFITS. Show 'em the numbers (in Excel if necessary).
Don't be so paranoid!
This series is very good. It takes away part of the fears that executives have of Linux. Especially the article on the retailer going Linux.
The readers will get mixed feeling from this article though: "These programmers are weird, they can't make money from this. But it is free software and it seems to work."
I'm not sure reading about Linux is healthy for executives.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
The Forbes target audience will be very interested in anything that can cut costs for companies.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Of course, we all know that pine is the least linux specific.
And all the apps featured run on at least UNIX....
Moral: Whatever Forbes does, it shouldn't do software reviews.
The word "never" should never be used in a technology news article. Well, maybe if they're referring to OS/2... ;)
It's hard to believe the author of this article has been a technology news writer for at least a decade. "Linux will never be..." "Linux will never gain..." She doesn't mean never. I think she means in the short term (5 yrs maybe), which seems like an eternity in the tech industry. But to say something, especially something new, will never take over a market or will never be used for critical systems is simply rediculous. By this author's writing, some execs, if they're smart enough to read that far into the articles, will think Linux has mostly run its course and found its place in the industry since it'll "never" get beyond certain levels. By her logic, if she wrote an article about Microsoft back in 1985, she'd have said "Windows will never be a serious player in the server market."
This author's writing is incredibly irresponsible.
Developers: We can use your help.
They liked pine.
Wow.
For years everyone has been trying to create the fisherprize OS TM and here the suits favor PINE! Granted I use elm myself since ehm, eh that is the one I grew up with, but the idea is the same.
I guess this puts to rest all those lamers who keep shouting that linux should be more userfriendly. The suits don't want that, they want functionality like apparently powerfull search over eye candy or even buttons.
This has really made my day and I will keep trying to get my company to allow my linux elm to connect to its servers. Thanks forbes
BTW with suits here I mean people who are not technical but who do have a brain, the management who is good at it in other words.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That's a pretty interesting point. I work for one of many IT groups inside a major financial company, supporting mostly NT servers. About 90% of the applications we run here in-house are custom built.
They don't rely on outside vendors for supporting software and creating patches; the entire process takes place internally. This would seem to be the ideal situation for application development on Linux...
Obviously the learning curve for developers used to MS developing environments has to be considered, but next to the potential cost savings of migrating hundreds of servers off of a (relatively) expensive OS to one that is (relatively) free, one could make a pretty good argument that the time and money spent on training for the dev guys would be well spent.
I wonder if any of the developers have thought about that. Pardon me, I think I need to go drop a clue on someone.
-Jeff
I totally agree. In my last project for a large financial services company, I was looking for some third-party libraries for use in our application. After conducting some research, I found an open-source solution which just blew away the alternatives.
I was a little concerned at the beginning of the project that people would be fearful of my recommendation--that they'd be afraid we'd have to reveal all our sources, or that our code would be more prone to exploits because of the open-source library.
I did spend extra time making sure that the licenses matched our corporate policies, which they did. And I was very surprised, just yesterday a guy who was reviewing the project was particularly pleased we had used open-source software--not because he was a zealot, but because he understood the drawbacks of black-box software and nasty licenses.
Linux and Apache are the two best-known systems which have caused people to understand open-source software. Thanks to everyone involved.
P.S. The libraries we used in the project have worked wonders. Seriously, the commercial 'peers' were completely unreliable and hard to use, all for thousands of dollars more!
I think he meant "a viable option for companies to use". My company is looking at using Linux on the file servers... I don't do IT work for them, at least not officially, but... I run Linux, and I help with networking stuff sometimes. I'm going to walk them through setting up a backup file server with the users, groups, etc. and show them how to connect the NT workstations to it. This is certainly possible. Is it viable? I guess that really depends on how much they want to spend on training for the current IT guys. Would that be cheaper than the next Windows liscense? You bet. That's why they're looking at it. Not stability, not for the good of society, not because it's open source. They're just tired of bleeding money on constant windows upgrades. Please note before you flame: I'm not a Linux zealot. It's just my preference. Something else may work fine for you. And, they asked, I didn't suggest it. How many of you are an engineer of the electrical-mechanical-whatever variety who runs your home machines and sites on something other than windows? Does your IT department know that? If they do, don't be surprised if they have questions. I just hope that your department head is as cool as mine is, and willing to loan you out for a day or two to give them a demo.