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Businessweek Covers Linuxworld
MadFarmAnimalz writes "BusinessWeek has coverage of Linuxworld up, and it makes interesting reading in places. Amongst things touched upon are the open-source business model, how vendors will be tempted into locking in customers into their offerings, and other things." I'll be out there tomorrow for the Golden Penguin Bowl, as well as judging exhibitors. Busy day.
ABC, Fox News, NBC... etc. Its time for some REAL tech in everyday coverage.
LinuxWorld was a huge success!
Bob Young gave out 23 free red velvet fedoras. He commented that he would have liked to have given out more but being that RedHat only made $300K last year "times were rough".
Across the hall, 6 gentlemen from the RepoDepot were clearing out the Mandrakesoft booth.
VA Software had a good showing, several dozen slashdot fans shared pizza with Cowboy Neal and CommanderTaco was demoing a beta version of his GPL spelling software.
Trolling is a art,
how vendors will be tempted into locking in customers into their offerings, and other things."
Vendors need more temptation to try to lock customers into offerings. They just aren't aggressive enough.
Hey, that's a CNET story re-run on Business Week. Duh
Apple chose BSD over Linux
LNUX is worth a few pennies and in danger of being de-listed off the NASDAQ stock exchange
MCSEs are getting more jobs than Linux sysadmins these days
Apple chose Trolltech/KDE over the Gecko/Linux renderer
OS X already won. Any geek or scientist worth their salt who wants a UNIX home computer already has an iBook or a G4.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Computerworld
Cnet
Internetnews
Infoworld
And, of course, Microsoft Watch.
I just don't see how you can have a profitable buissness solely on open source software. The only thing you can actually make money on is either documentation or support. But how are you supporting your development team?
www.1001InsomniacNights.com
"# LNUX is worth a few pennies and in danger of being de-listed off the NASDAQ stock exchange"
."
/. is going down the toilet.
this should be funny, right? "silly, Linux isn't a company, you must be jesting?" should be going through the moderators head not, "interesting . .
ah, forget it,
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I see an issue here that is similar to all of the problem people have with Windows.
IMO, there are 3 distinct pieces to a computer. The Hardware, OS and Software. We all hate M$ because they Have crappy software that only runs on Windows and they force good companies to develop software for there OS, which alot of people don't like. That would be fine if there was an alternative OS to use with the same software.
Similarly If you use Linux/Unix software you can only use it on Linux/Unix.
What I see as the next revolution is some sort of Stanard Interface between OS and Software. This would allow for new companies to startup that create OS's by the handful allowing for more competetion, profit and cheaper prices which all fuel innovation.
This is similar to Java, but Jave fixed this with a compiler solutions.
Maybe some sort of OS/Software interface Object can be created to make the connection. That way you choose the best OS and the best software you want.
www.fotoforay.com
I hear they got Angelina Jolie (dressed as her character from Hackers) to sing the National Anthem, and MIT Marching Band for the half-time show.
When you try to access the wrong thing, YOU will not be found!
Amongst things touched upon are the open-source business model, how vendors will be tempted into locking in customers into their offerings, and other things.
Not until there is agreement and cooperation between the gnome & KDE contest -- and not until Star/OpenOffice begins a concerted campaign to replace MS Office (e.g. marketing, money, superbowl advertising) -- not until those things happen will Linux win fealty.
--- have you healed your church website?
It's pretty clear that Big Corp is gonna take over the business implementations of Linux. May as well rename it Clinux for the Fortune 500 flavor.
Amongst things touched upon are the open-source business model, how vendors will be tempted into locking in customers into their offerings, and other things
Part of the good nature of the open source community is the sense of freeness and sharing. Locking people into certain 'offerings' and related things is completely against these values. All the hassle of open source without the benefits of the community that surrounds you - rather pointless if you ask me.
IBM doesn't seem to be having a problem with their open source solutions.
These guys have to figure out how they're going to generate some money
What Red Hat and SuSE have to do is create an annuity revenue stream
These seem like the kind of things these companies either already know to do or already know how to do. It seems like these analysts aren't really providing any new insight. Obviously Red Hat and SuSE have to make money... After being in business for years, surely these guys know a thing or two about how to stay afloat.
"I've got to stop masturbating! It makes me too lazy! Stop it, Albert. Stop it." -- Albert Einstein
Do you know what the MS in MSNBC means? MSNBC is partnered, joined, together, as one.. with M$.
I'm just suprised that the other networks don't attack their competitors by giving LINUX better coverage.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
From the article:
These guys have to figure out how they're going to generate some money," said Aberdeen analyst Bill Claybrook. "If Red Hat Advanced Server is part of a deal with Oracle (9i database software) on a cluster of four Dell machines, each of which has four CPUs, Oracle gets $60,000 a CPU, or $960,000, Dell gets $150,000 or so for the hardware, and Red Hat will get $10,000.
The dollar figures are totally meaningless here without a context for what the costs were going in. How much does it cost Dell in time, resources, personnel, etc, to build that server? How much did it cost Oracl in developer hours to get their product out the door?
The thing is that, revenue numbers can be a hell of a lot lower for an open source driven business and still be profitable because their outlays are substantially less. Sure RedHat pays for some development work on Linux, but it's not nearly the amount they'd have to pay in if they were a proprietary software vendor.
RedHat probably has lower margins than Oracle, but does it really matter? As long as they make profit sufficient enough to maintain the business over the long term, it's irrelevant. Sure, RedHat may never be as big as Oracle or Dell, but maybe that's a positive sign of change in the industry. Less people working at software companies, and more people doing real work with the software that is now cheaper and higher quality.
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The problem with this is that there are not many people who (even if they are programmers) are up to speed with the Mozilla code and can fix bugs. This mostly rules out do it yourself. That also means that it is probably rather expensive to hire one of these people for the time it takes to fix some bug. I'm thinking $200 to $5000 depending on the amount of work it would take (especially for some of the more far reaching feature requests.)
How hard would it be to add a distributed "pay for development of feature" option to open source projects? The idea is that if 1000 people want a bug fixed and each can pledge $1 to the person that fixes it (and contributes the open source to the project), you might be able to get a lot of bugs fixed and have some revenue stream for developers.
The first hurdle is setting up the pledge system. I don't if Paypal or another mircopayment system could be rigged for "pledge mode".
After the pledge system is in place, you would have to decide who can say if a bug is "fixed". It can't be the person that gets the money. It could possibly be a vote of the people paying, or it could be some designated third party.
People contributing money would probably also want a time limit on their pledges. "I'll pledge $10 if this gets fixed in the next three months", but not "I'll give $10 whenever this gets fixed".
Does anybody here have any insight as to how this could be implemented?
While the heart of Linux itself legally must be available for free, nearly every major computing company is trying to find ways to profit from it.
Okay, I understand it's a business publication, but they should really know the difference between libre and gratis.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
the Golden Penguin Bowl? On second thought, don't tell me....
1) Linus Torvalds is one hunky piece of gourmet man-candy.
2) Richard M Stallman cannot say "GNU/Linux World" three times fast.
3) This year will feature the first shooting spree in Linux World history.
4) As a result, next year's Linux World will be devoted to the memory of Bill Claybrook of the Aberdeen Group, gunned down while interposing his body between the shooter and the visiting school children from Greater Houlton Christian Academy.
5) This will cause all Linux users to be branded as terrorists, even though the shooter is a disgruntled BSD user, because the authorities don't even know the difference.
6) When MS memos surface planning a publicity stunt / shooting spree at one of their own trade shows, no one will even care.
7) MS has secretly rented a theatre to showcase their line of Linux apps, including a Windows/GUI that runs on top of the Linux kernel.
8) No such products exist. Those entering the theatre will be brainwashed.
9) The Society of Women Engineers is sponsoring a special recruitment event for high school aged future women engineers in my hotel room; any woman aged 15-19 with an interest in pursuing a four year degree in engineering or the applied sciences is welcome to attend. Dress should be informal and not too complicated as I intend to be blasted.
10) Despite the best efforts of the conference organizers, funding was unavailable to spike the drinking water in the hotel with acid. Your generous donations could help make next year's Linux World that much more surreal.
11) Spinal Tap will play a free concert in front of the Expo on the last day. Yes, the volume will be turned all the way up to 11.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Boy, attendance and interest in linux sure is down from the heydays for 2 or 3 years ago. It's a good thing BSD is picking up the free software banner and carrying it forward into the future.
Yah, must suck to be Taco. Damn, glad I don't get to go to all the shows for free, am not just married, etc, etc.
Maybe I'm just being negative, and "Busy day." Is intended to be positive. But seldom does anyone say "busy day" and mean it amelioratively. Perhaps "Finally, a day where I do something other than sit on my fat ass, not correct misspellings, and double post old stories!!!" would have been more clear.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
Well, aside from the fact that SuSE has bundled Crossover - you can now get OpenExchange to manage "enterprise" email in a format that is compatible with MS Outlook and apparantly PDA's as well. Does anyone know if this really works? It claims to be "open" but I'm wondering what that means exactly.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
The best part of Apple/BSD/Linux is dead headlines is that you can recycle. Pick a headline, and insert Apple, BSD, or Linux as appropriate. The best source of headlines is the Apple archives. They've been dying since 1984, longer than anybody.
RedHat probably has lower margins than Oracle, but does it really matter?
You're right, it doesn't really matter. Margins are nice and they might indicate that you are in a strong bargaining position but they are not an indicator of financial success by themselves.
For example Walmart has margins that are really quite low but is anyone going to argue that they are not a very successful company? Of course not. Because their business model is actually predicated on having lower costs than their competition. If it costs less to operate, then they can drive prices down to a point where the competition cannot match them. This means that their margins aren't going to be great, but they don't depend on having large margins anyway for success.
Red Hat has the potential at least (all other things being equal - which they aren't) to do the same thing. Given equal products for a given customer need, Oracle cannot compete with Red Hat on price. And since not all users need all the extras Oracle provides, that puts Red Hat in a good position to undercut Oracle. This doesn't mean Oracle is going to go out of business, but it means that there is room for someone like a Red Hat.
From the article:
... will announce customers including ASP Futuro Bolivia, which uses Linux and Oracle 9i RAC using four, four-processor HP servers to manage the pensions of about half the retirees in Bolivia."
"HP
An interesting point here is that once you've paid for an Oracle 4 proc license, the cost of adding a proprietry Unix likely won't even change your second-most-significant digit in the price. This means these people believe Linux is better than proprietry, independent of the free/gratis factor.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I mean, if you replace your NT+ISS server with a Linux+Apache server simply so that you won't have as many security and reliability problems, then you probably don't care about the GPL. You just want to get "hacked" less often. The guy who sells you this Linux system may still find a way to lock you in, and it's still not really "pointless" from your point of view.
There are some media passes printed out for the fickle beasts. No-one wanted to come, and then suddenly word gets out that Linus is coming.. and oh, guess what.. there's hundreds of people calling up wanting tickets.
;)
Official word.. there are door sales. About 50 of them.. First come, first served. Flying in next-day from Auckland doesn't count. This conference was announced months ago.
Of course, you would be well advised to get there within the next hour if you wanted to get in and hadn't registered already
Read their history, man is this troll is really making mods and replyers look really stupid today.
If you have read that you would have noticed that they have been modded out of existance several times, but morons with mod points have modded them back into existance several times today. Heck they even managed to do this several times in one story without anyone catching on.
Wasn't Taos supposed to be just what you're talking about, or was that mainly hardware (not OS) independent program execution?
Open Source software is so buggy that the fear of an unscrupulous developer inserting bugs purposefully is just unfounded. Thats like fearing some farmer would add fertilizer to the farmlands around the nile river. That farmland is some of the most fertile in the world. Its just not something you need to do.
I'm pretty sure a developer could make more than enough money to buy a ridiculous amount of Bently's and Jaguars from just fixing the inherent bugs in OSS and suppliment that income by adding missing features that have existed in proprietary software for decades now.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
All their life consists of is sitting in their parent's basement spending all their time trolling slashdot, posting as much crap as they can in each /. story, constantly hitting refrest, jerking off to goatse, buying the latest penis enlarger and falling for 419 scams.
What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go around the sun. If we went
around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.
-- Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet"
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