Caldera IPO?

Richard Finney wrote in to send us a a CNet news bit over at Netscape that talks about Linux IPO hub-bub with comments about Caldera, VA, and LinuxCare.

Comments

I'm really torn....

[cswiii]

Red Hat? Caldera? Which is the lesser of two evils?

I'm leery about this Linux IPO craze. Certainly, corporate embracing of Linux is a Good Thing (tm), and these IPOs might further interest in Linux all the way around. However, stock == stockholders, who thus have a say in what occurs at the company.

Granted, Linux will always be free. But if one Linux distributor becomes the de facto standard within industry, software with dependencies for a given distribution will inevitably occur.

Consider MS-Windows: There's the platform, and then the Office components, etc., which are used with it. Sure, you can find other programs if you don't want to use Office. But how much can/will this slow down your communcation and growth.

If one player becomes the dominant force in Linux, I fear that the same thing will happen. Granted, if distro-specific dependencies become prevalent, people will write alternatives. But if a corporation or person feels nonetheless complied to use a given distro, so that they won't 'lose ground', hasn't a major aim of Linux advocacy thus been abandoned?

Directly from Red Hat's Linux Undercover:

"OS/2 and Windows NT are proprietary systems. The interface and design are controlled by a single corporation, and only that corporation many implement that design."

Yes, regardless of the corporate interests of Red Hat and/or Caldera, Linux will always be free. But remember, (free == libre, != beer), 'Free' becomes a relative term, when one has to adhere in order to exist? What incentive/purpose is there for the user to use Debian or Slackware at home, if at some point, all the software he'll have to use/program/debug at work will only work with Red Hat?