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FT on Europe's Open Source Option
Anonymous Coward writes "The Financial Times offers a very interesting read about Linux, its possibilities for business, and its threat to Microsoft. Also a second article about "Europe's open-source option"."
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The general concern of large corporations is more or less like this: what if I am an employee of a large corporation and the IT staff used GPL libraries to develop in-house apps? Can I request the source code since I got the binaries? But wouldn't this cause havoc with the internal IT policies, as usually the source code can only be revealed on a need-to-know basis?
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These things are interesting to read, and overall I thought the article was pretty accurate, but it makes it feel very dry doesn't it? All the graphs, figures, and relentlessly the focus on cost, the bottom line. Other benefits like increased flexibility and lack of lockin weren't mentioned. Neither was the fact that the vast majority of people who work on Linux the OS as a whole are not employed by big tech companies.
It's also rather depressing how much the involvement of IBM means to people. IBM has done a hell of a lot of good work, but the "we didn't pay any attention 'till IBM did" line indicates supreme daftness to me - Linux hasn't changed that much. I guess it's just a case of sheeple following whoever is biggest.
Not everyone is a mathmatician, infact (here in the UK atleast) a large number non business people know FT is short for Financial Times.. In fact the main UK stock exchange the FTSE is short for Financial Times Stock Exchange..
That's a part of the model that I don't often see pointed out. It's pretty apparent, when you think about it, but not obvious. Sure, companies can add distinguishing (and proprietary) applications, but the core stays relatively stable.
Not only do others benefit from what is added, they benefit from what isn't added.
It depends if you're interested in running a stable system or selling a patched version. I'd say most of the intended audience of the article aren't interested in selling Linux systems, but rather use it. Then the GPL is good, since it makes patches spread thoughout the community.
IBM's involvement means a great deal. If you're an IT manager following IT trends, you'll have read about Linux in the trade press and shrugged your shoulders with vague interest. When the IBM sales guy turns up to tell you his AIX box can run Linux, or the Sun guy is talking about Linux boxes running your webservers, then you start to take more notice.
Before, the evangelists were totally irrelevant and totally without credibility - in terms of who an IT Manager would take advice from.
"Although Linux has been slower to catch on in Europe, the drive to end dependence on the US for technology is a common but seldom admitted justification in every country exploring the technology."
Perhaps I'm taking the comparison a little too far, but the similarities between the US and the Roman Empire at its height (before it imploded) have been jumping out at me even more lately. Bush's unilateralism, the RIAA's panic response to P2P, and yes, even Microsoft's attempts to hold off Linux strike me as desperate actions of a dominant power failing to keep up with the changing times and thus losing its grip on power.
If India, China, and the EU eventually embrace open source as the new paradigm, that will be just one more crack in the wall.
-mh
I still think that the most striking feature of this market is not so much the spread of Linux now -- after all, it offers obvious benefits -- as the fact that people are finally *stopping* spending huge amounts of money on Unix (read Sun) hardware.
I've occasionally had to do with projects where costs were reduced to 1/8 or so (yes, about what the article says) by replacing Sun with NT hardware. With hardware savings like that, it doesn't matter if you have a whole entire backup system with it's own set of staff.
What the popularity of Linux really means in money terms is that sites that kept spending millions a year on Sun, because of internal opposition to Microsoft, now have a politically correct way to buy cheap Intel hardware.
This is good. It's just a pity so many sites upgraded to ma$$ive Sun-hardware j2ee systems during the boom... it'll take forever to get rid of 'em all!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Big difference between distribution within a company and distributing to anyone who wants to download it. Since corporations are legally treated as an individual person, there is no difference between everyone in a corporation using the modified code (in binary form) and not distributing it at all.
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Whilst this sounds very nice, I feel that I should bring everyone back into the cold harsh reality by pointing about that the UK has a long long way to go before it becomes more open source savvy.
For example, the NHS, possibly the most underfunded thing we have, just coughed up £60 million for Microsoft Licencing.
Money well spent? You decide.
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Stallman doesn't wear a tie. Get over it already.
However, more importantly, The Financial Times and many others seem to intentionally obfuscate or misinform their readers regarding the Freedom part of the GPL. Peddling misinformation does a heavy disservice to any that might be trying to make an informed decision regarding their IT strategies.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
You must consider the context: it's the Financial Times speaking. They are not looking for the public good, they simply talk business to business-minded people.
Why businessmen choose Linux?
1 - Concern about IT spending (at least for SMEs this is the big factor).
2 - Concern about relying on a monopolist, high-price oriented company (Microsoft as much as the old proprietary Unix producers).
3 - Concern about relying on a monopolist, fixed-price oriented, *american* company...
If you read the article, you'll find these and not much more, because the FT reader doesn't want anything other (well, maybe some tits would be appreciated).
-- Let's go Viridian.