Pandora's box has been opened and it can never, ever be closed again. So quit bitching about it. I think it should really be noted at this point that Linux as an expression of free software ideology & Linux as an environment for comercial software development are *NOT* mutually exclusive arrangements. The OS & the community (IMHO) are unquestionably big enough to accomodate both schools of thought. I think we'll be seeing some splintering amongst the Linux community over the next couple years. There will almost certainly be some degree of corporate incursion into the L realm. There will be standards bodies, industry advisory panels, & other beurocratic machinery formed to ensure feature compatibility between various implementations. Corporate interests developing products in or from Linux will seek to exhert control over Linux... to gentrify it & groom it for market. They'll do this for the simple reason that it is very difficult to turn a profit in anarchy. Of course, there will be members of the community who embrace these changes and those who rail against them. But, the important thing to remember is that neither camp will ever have any control over, or access to the Linux code base that the other does not. At its core, Linux will always be free because nobody owns it. No single entity can ever decide what Linux is, and push that vision on anyone else. That given... why fight? The more the merrier. And it never hurts to be able to eat regularly while you create your art.
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Pandora's box has been opened and it can never, ever be closed again. So quit bitching about it. I think it should really be noted at this point that Linux as an expression of free software ideology & Linux as an environment for comercial software development are *NOT* mutually exclusive arrangements. The OS & the community (IMHO) are unquestionably big enough to accomodate both schools of thought. I think we'll be seeing some splintering amongst the Linux community over the next couple years. There will almost certainly be some degree of corporate incursion into the L realm. There will be standards bodies, industry advisory panels, & other beurocratic machinery formed to ensure feature compatibility between various implementations. Corporate interests developing products in or from Linux will seek to exhert control over Linux... to gentrify it & groom it for market. They'll do this for the simple reason that it is very difficult to turn a profit in anarchy. Of course, there will be members of the community who embrace these changes and those who rail against them. But, the important thing to remember is that neither camp will ever have any control over, or access to the Linux code base that the other does not. At its core, Linux will always be free because nobody owns it. No single entity can ever decide what Linux is, and push that vision on anyone else. That given... why fight? The more the merrier. And it never hurts to be able to eat regularly while you create your art.
Wow! Grandpa Simpson's posting to slashdot.