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The Differences Between Red Hat and Novell
Tiberius_Fel writes "A former Novell employee has done a comparison at InfoWorld, reflecting on the business practices of Red Hat and Novell. They focus on such areas as customers, culture, and partners." From the article: "Red Hat has a hard-charging, take-no-prisoners approach to the market. If you're not making them money, you're not going to get their ear ... This has led the growing open source ecosystem to Novell, which is partner-centric and easy-going almost to a fault. Ron Hovsepian is changing this, and Novell is starting to become much more choosy about opportunities (customer and partnering) that come its way."
I can't find any definition of the word "company" which wouldn't imply that its aim is not profit;
Actually, no such aim is implied by "company" at all.
The general aims of a company are defined in its articles of incorporation and typically expanded on in its memorandum of association, including whether or not it intends to operate for profit (generally a company doesn't restrict itself from making a profit, unless explicitely noted). Companies whose aims do not include profits often can avail of tax relief, and possibly other forms of relief.
That companies typically exist to make profits does not mean all companies do, nor that the definition of company implies for-profit.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
I'd say it is because they bought Cygnus, a company which had entirely specialized on gcc support.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The Gentoo Foundation is a not-for-profit company. We are not a charity. Donations to Gentoo cannot be written off. Our goals have nothing to do with making money and everything to do with making software.