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BoneKracker
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Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1211
Location: U.S.A.
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 Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 2:39 am Post subject: |
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| sundialsvc4 wrote: | Linux is what one might call an enabling technology. Only geeks  use it "just to use it." Others use Linux simply "to get  done." To run servers and such, so they can, you know, "sell things."
There is tremendous business value in the fact that Linux (and the GNU tools suite) does "enable" so many things, on so many different types of hardware. It is a rising tide that lifts all boats, which gives a great many people and companies (including, very quietly, Microsoft...) a powerful incentive to contribute to its ongoing development. The more that Linux can do, the more you can do with it. The more architectures are efficiently supported by GNU, the more efficiently you can use those architectures in your designs.
These are indirect benefits, which you receive "in full" even if you contribute to the projects "in part" or even "not at all." It is plain to see how the computer industry "really took off" when it let go of the notion that core tools and technologies had to be paid-for unto themselves. |
Very well said.
Your last statement is particularly important. Two of the most important things that happened were:
a) Open Systems (now a more or less forgotten term)
b) IBM selling licenses to what had been the closely-held PC architecture
Both enabled important "network effects" (standardization, interoperability, economies of scale, etc.).
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| ichbinsisyphos wrote: | | You know, personally I've never been the greatest fan of Negroes |
Obama killed bin Laden like Nixon was the first man on the Moon. |
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