[Dclug] The Economist says recession is a boon for FOSS

[ethan at 757.org]

> There's some partial truth to that but Economist makes a different
> argument. The article talks about businesses offering products and
> services built upon the FOSS technology. The geeks are still needed,
> even more so because more things are possible and it takes expertise
> to integrate the components to accomplish them.

True. But probably not as much. And innovation may be stifled. If everyone 
bases everything on Linux, then we loose out on the chance of something 
better. This is why I'm sad to see computers all move around the Intel/AMD 
chips (no more high end MIPS processors and the like).

Granted, there is still innovation in the open source world. Look how much 
better pf is on OpenBSD than everything else.

> Bob Young (the original RedHat CEO) said it nicely: "Our goal is to
> decimate the worth of the OS software market". His point was that
> there was a monopoly rent; once that's gone, there are lots of things
> that are easier to do, thanks to the freedom and cost advantages of FOSS.

I used to work for a company that made products based on FOSS. We were 
putting our iSCSI target through the RedHat and Microsoft certification 
process.

Let me just say this. Redhat was an absolute joke.

Microsoft had their !@#t together. They didn't want to waste your time or 
theirs, or your money. But they really wanted to make sure your product 
wasn't going to cause their users pain. I have to respect that.

I hate Vista and all this other new stuff, but just looking at that event 
was an eye opener.

And working for a company that now releases it's products in a kind-of 
open source model. Well maybe, hmm wonder if I'm getting laid off in a few 
minutes.

BRB.


--
Ethan O'Toole
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