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Networking Companies - Eh on Linux

Posted by Hemos on from the not-quite-the-numbers dept.

netstat sent us the story about the big networking companies and Linux. Much the same story as elsewhere, they already support NT and Solaris, and don't see the user base for Linux there yet. Much of the comments are candids taken from Networld Interop. As you would expect, most of them want to see more users before rolling out support.

2 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. SO WHAT!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    I gave last week a talk at SD "Building Web Apps using Linux". It was talk about Apache, PHP and Linux. And as such I was expecting a fairly large crowd. What happened? The crowd never materialized. There was an ok sized crowd Why? The reason is because it takes time. .

    I realized this with another talk I give. This talk I have given for two years. Only this conference is there actually interest.

    The conference folks and I are not fretting because there is interest. People want to see, but it takes time. Rome was not built in a day. Do you remember Windows? Windows took 5 years to catch on after the first commerical adoption. Linux while being around for a long time has only really caught the eye of the public for about two years. That is still a baby. Give it another three years and we shall see.

    I surely hope that the Linux people can rise above this "negative" comments and continue. Remember the success of LINUX is not something companies want. Consider the following.

    Corporate companies believe in a pyramid information approach. The top of the pyramid is the company. They are the top because they create the information. Those that want to share in the pyramid fight to get near the top. However, since the company is at the top they can select who gets the near the top. They can control who becomes their friends and enemies. The size of the pyramid depends on the amount of users who want the information. And the companies compare against each other on the size of the pyramid.

    Enter LINUX. There is no pyramid. Information is not hidden, but shared. There is no one specific entity controlling who gets the information. And as such it cannot be controlled who gets and does not get the information. This scares companies to death. You have just wiped out their business model. In an information age money is made, by those that have hidden information.

    But I think this model is catching on. Especially among the young ideal programmers. Me I am a bit older and I have a problem with the "Open" nature of LINUX. But I am trying to adapt. And so are many other people. Be patient we will get there.

    Christian Gross

  2. good reason to buy Bay Networks / Netgear by jonbrewer · · Score: 5

    Netgear cards have been shipping with a linux driver for several months now. They include the source for a modified tulip driver so that people who have older distros can have the card working out of the box.

    Even better, the Netgear cards actually display that liunx is supported on the outside of the box.

    I'd say its just a matter of months before 3com follows suit on their cards... and I would bet that most router/switch management packages are in the process of being ported to linux (if they're not already web-based), no matter what the company marketing people think or say.