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Forbes Ventures Bold Predictions For IT, Linux
LinuxThis writes "Everyone's favorite, Daniel Lyons and other Forbes journalists have made some bold predictions about IT in 2004. Interesting quotes include 'Microsoft warms up to open source, and tries to make a buck off it', and the best, from our main man Daniel Lyons himself: 'The end of 'free'. Free didn't work for dotcom pet food stores, yet much of the rhetoric around technologies like Linux and voiceover-IP still involves this crazy notion that companies can make money by giving things away. They can't.' Even better, he suggests: 'SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.' This is interesting considering his previous observations about OSS.."
...to anyone, technie or luddite alike, that IBM has a vested interest in seeing this lawsuit through to the end and making sure SCO is crushed into a fine-grained dust.
Yes, it would probably be cheaper for them to stop short. But that's kind of like negotiating with people who take hostages - you do it once, and it encourages others. Which is why this one is going all the way to the end, and IBM will not settle for anything less than complete victory.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It is possible to make money giving stuff away for free, but you have to be very precise about how you do it. You just need to give out enough of your product to make the public want the stuff you need to pay for. A good example of this is the IRL company 'Primerica'. They're a financial managment service that gives out financial evaluations for free. That is, they will take what you make, how much you want to retire off of, how much debt you have, etc and figure out a way to make everything managable and possible. However, they make money off debt consolidation so you can pay off your bills faster, insurance, etc. You go in, get everything sorted for free, and then hopefully you'll get your loans and such from them. They're making a very large profit from this strategy, from what I can tell. Another good example is a band who releases low-bitrate MP3s for download off their website. You get the songs and can tell if you like them or not. However, if you want the versions that don't sound poor with all the case artwork and such then you'll buy the CD.(This is what got me to buy both of Rilo Kiley's CDs.) I've noticed that the reason a lot of these companies fail at selling stuff by giving other stuff away is because they give out the wrong stuff for free. It's like crack - give them just enough to give them the need for your product and you're set. Kinda like Google's expert search. Can search google for free, but if you need help finding that one obscure thing then you can pay to have others with a lot more experience do it for you. I'm rambling. Damn, do I love coffee.
Why is everyone so afraid of the concept of anything being 'free'? Is it that radical of a proposition that a broad-based community can create and support an infrastructure without the need for it to turn into a for-profit corporation? Community WLANs, VoIP, Open Source projects....aren't these things all technologically and socially proven by now? All of these analysts and experts can't be that shackled to the bottom line, can they? Paradigm shift, anyone....
No need to be a wizard to see that time for overpriced and underperformed (and unreliable) hardware (and OS) in internet-related business is finished. Today I can quicker deploy several (even dozens) of Lintel boxen running all needed application services distributed, then I did it before with a big 15K or few E4500s. With Lintel I save money in all aspects (cost of deployment, TCO) and I keep speed and quality not less (often even better) than with Sparc. SUN's customer base is collapsing to those who *do* need a *really* big iron. Just like SGI's one did.
Less is more !
Come on, magazines like Forbes are just low-level MBA entertainment.
Real buisness people don't read articles how this or that develops: they just getting their work done right first time.
No real entrepreneur cares about Forbes etc.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
The end of "free," huh? So, the way I read this, just because someone failed to make money off of an untenable business model, the people who make and use Linux, who weren't doing it for money in the first place, are going to fold up their tents and head off into the desert?
The more I read pieces like this, the more I think that people like Lyons are just plain incapable of "getting it." Their world view just doesn't allow for people doing a large-scale project like Linux because they enjoy it, and doing such a good job of it while they're at it. So, they try to map what the FOSS community does onto their world view, and it's hardly surprising that the mapping looks pretty strange to us.
Ah well, the FOSS community will continue to do what it's been doing all along, irrespective of what people like Dan Lyons thinks of it. Happy New Year.
Someone you trust is one of us.
IBM could hardly care less about SCO's fate. What is at issue here to IBM is the far more important issue of their software systems' legitimacy in the eyes of the market. SCO has done far more damage to that reputation than anything Microsoft could ever dream of, given their position as a clear competitor to both IBM and SCO. Since SCO/Caldera was very much a Linux company, their FUD rumors have had a tremendous chilling effect.
Now, there is no way to undo that damage with a settlement, as far as I or anyone I've read on Groklaw can tell. Even if SCO admits egregious errors in public, without a clear ruling from a judge and/or jury on the issues of IBM's rightful ownership of their e.g. AIX code, all of IBM's competitors will forever be able to twist the knife in their back. It no longer matters what SCO says or does, because their credibility is only intact with their own investors at this point. IBM, on the other hand, needs to clear their name.
Air is free, yet people make money from scenting it, compressing it or incorporating it into other products like balloons or ice cream, and selling the result.
Water is free, yet people make money from purifying it, bottling it or flavoring it, and selling the result.
Linux is free, yet people make money from packaging it, enhancing it and supporting it and selling the result.
Linux, like air and water, is free for all, yet through effort and ingenuity one can still profit from it.
Someone you trust is one of us.
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/falsean.htm
It's really a shame you lead with a fallacy because it highlights your bias and obstinance.
By its very definition, "Open Source" must remain free. Perhaps you mean you that will cease to exist? Well, perhaps. But if it does then it's because it's unable to keep pace with the innovations from the non-Open Source development programmes. That's possible, but not likely.
1. Lisa DiCarlio: More cash-rich tech companies start to pay dividends. Microsoft continues to struggle to make its software secure, which means another great year in 2004 for Symantec. The complexities of integrating Legato and Documentum weigh down EMC. HP's stock doubles. IBM buys SCO to shut it up.
These don't look too far-fetched except for the last one. If anything I've seen on groklaw has any connection to reality at all, IBM will fight to the end in this particular battle. Score 0.7 tempered by a -1, Unlikely...
3. Daniel Lyons SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.
IBM vs SCO as before, IBM will not stop at anything less than full victory. And IBM as the new enemy? Whatever would have happened to Microsoft then? He might be seeing something I do not see of course, it just seems too unlikely. Score 0.2
4. Victoria Murphy: Microsoft warms up to open source, and tries to make a buck off it.
Much as I'd think that would be a smart move on MS' part, I am not sure if they can leave their current closedness behind in time. To them it would be a big change. Maybe this explains what happens to MS in the previous prediction. Score 0.6, I Wish it Were True.
What does concern me is that some managers may read all of this and not realize it is all matters of opinion.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
Yes, he is. It's getting to the point that he's starting to sound like one of those "Apple is dying, Apple doesn't have a future, Apple can't compete, Apple is dying" drones that go on year after year.
He seems to be trying to start that tradition now with Linux/Free/Open source software, even though it's going strong now for 10+ years and getting stronger and stronger.
The guy is a joke. And it's obvious no one who reads Forbes takes him seriously, as Linux still makes huge inroads to business.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
"PlayStation Portable will fail to make significant inroads against Nintendo's Game Boy. The handheld gaming market is huge--the Game Boy Advance outsells all consoles combined"
Then:
"In 2004, Nintendo will have followed Sega's lead by exiting the console business"
So Nintendo will keep its dominance in the handheld console market, but they will also exit the console market?
Hello? Handhelds are also consoles!
I'm sorry, but where did they find these people? In addition to your comment about the GameCube, Nintendo actually makes a profit, and in addition to dominating the handheld market, it also has lots of cash in reserve for bad times.
These "analysts" really piss me off. Why do they get to write these things, and why do they get the publicity, when they are obviously incompetent fools? Does anyone have this moron's e-mail address?
Clever signature text goes here.
It's simple economics. Everything must be assigned a price and the purpose of production and distribution is profit.
Anything that reduces profits is, by definition bad. Anything that reduces profits reduces the GNP which is, by definition, a social evil.
If a thing has no price it has no value. Replacing things that have a price with things that don't reduces riches. The more of these things you have the less you are "worth." (As if value only meant "price." The primary value of your house is that it provides you with shelter)
From the standpoint of economics free software is just looney. That would be like cars just being free for the taking, like leaves on the ground in the fall. Everyone would be poor if they just get what they wanted like that.
Wealth means buying shoddy things with a high "value." Less stiches, more riches.
Of course things that are "free" can be used as well. Since the river next to your plant has no price it's fine to use it to dump toxic waste into. Clean water and air have no value because you don't have to buy them. They're just there until you pollute them.
Now businesses that aren't directly tied to the ideas of the software industry as part of the their own profit or adding to the value of the GNP are now starting to realize that OSS is like that stream next to the factory now. You can just use it. For free. (And maybe pollute it, but that'a another post).
But if you're in the software industry or an economist the idea of reducing an item that can be produced for free and "sold" (over and over again to the same customer) at usurius profit margins to free as in leaves on the ground is just daft. It can be literally unthinkable.
Of course from the "consumer's" point of view software is truly a consumable. You buy it. You use it. But you don't have anything of your own for it. Your "worth" is reduced. Then you have to buy it again. The flow of "value" is all one way.
But from the economic point of view that's a good thing. There is a schizophrenic rift in economic theory between man the consumer and man the producer.
Everyone's heard about it, but no one these days has read it. Pick up a copy of E.F. Schumacher's classic work "Small is Beautiful." It delves into these very issues.
Finding a copy of Stephen Leacock's (professor of economics at McGill) "Too Much College" wouldn't hurt either.
Even the autobiography of G.K. Chesterton has some interesting things to say about the issue, just ignore the religious stuff if you are so inclined.
KFG
...that is, before Activation took place. How many copies of Office and Windows from work ended up in the user's homes? And once that bait had been taken, the hook got applied.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Even for the writers of magazine articles. Their job is to sell advertisements and pseudo-content, and if they have to do it by being outrageous and saying the dumbest things ever, then that's what they'll do.
And check netraft. www.forbes.com is hosted on a Linux server. I wonder if they even know that?
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
I was just talking with friends about this the other day when we were discussing the purchase of a new car. My Toyota Tercel with 135,000 miles on it and a crumpled front fender has a trade-in value of less than $350 (US). My friend said, "ugh, that cars worthless." Well, no, not at all. It gets me to and from work every day, uses a fair amount of fuel, and is paid for. I would put its value far above $350 but I'm not looking to sell.
Seems to me that capitalism is based on people always wanting more. If people decide that they want less, capitalism will fall apart. Of course, that has yet to happen.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Every other disco has no door charge, charging only for drinks sold. Since the 1970's there have been free advertising papers allow adverts to be placed for free (I used to work for http://www.quokka.com.au); only paper sales are charged for.
Furthermore, many things are simply not products. You crack some funny joke, then your friends tell their friends, and the rough corners get cut off with every retelling. Sure you don't make any money of it, but that was never the purpose of the joke. Who really thinks that people will stop telling the jokes they want to tell; instead telling expensive pre-packaged jokes which aren't funny in the current situation because you can't adapt the `source code' to your current needs.
I've actually read in a couple of places in the last week how SCO and IBM will settle.
Isn't it interesting to see SCOX supporters like Lyons now claiming that this will be settled out of court? Why? Because SCOX has no fscking case? Even Lyon's realizes that they have no case and they can't keep making threats with nothing to back them up. Hell, they even threaten their own customers? This is not a normal company. It deserves to be wiped out.
It's like the fight scene in Monty Python's The Holy Grail with King Arthur and the black knight who has his legs and arms chopped off and says, "Shall we call it a draw?"
And then as we walk away, you can here in the background, "Come back you pansy! I'll make the LGPL illegal next!"
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
At this point, they can't even decide to drop the suit. They can drop their claims, but they will still be a defendant in IBM's counter-suit.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Did I mention that Daniel Lyons is a troll?
Maybe not. Perhaps he's nothing more than a mouth, repeating what he hears in the community around him. And he lacks the intelligence or insight to notice that he's surrounded himself with "experts" that are experts in all things Microsoft and not in computing in general.
What he needs are more informed friends.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!