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There’s more to Linux than support
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If Oracle had its way, there’d be one Linux distro — but who would do the development? According to this post by Paula Rooney, Oracle’s Edward Screven says that Linux distro vendors should compete “purely on the support side of the business.”
That, of course, is complete nonsense.
The tension between Linux vendors to bring in customers through added features and continual development is what helps the Linux community move forward. Without that tension, Linux wouldn’t have matured as quickly as it did, and it wouldn’t continue to improve at such a rapid pace.
I’d also like to know which company is supposed to pick up the burden of development? Oracle isn’t doing it — they’re contributing to Kernel development upstream, but not doing much in the way of advancing Linux beyond that. While the multi-billion dollar company hitches a ride on Red Hat’s development infrastructure, Red Hat, Novell and other Linux vendors are investing in the future as well as supporting the here and now. Very nice for Oracle, not so nice for the rest of the community.
Even though Red Hat might be thrilled at the prospect of being the only Linux, I doubt they’d be thrilled about carrying the sole burden of developing everything to allow companies like Oracle to ride on their coattails.
If Novell adopted the Oracle model, we’d be able to save tons of money on development. We’d also be failing to hold up our responsibility as a Linux vendor to contribute to the foundation of our success. We’d also give Red Hat less incentive to innovate and work on new features. And we’d definitely be less interesting to our customers.
I also don’t fancy the idea of a single vendor in control of the operating system. Even when it’s open source — having multiple distributions is, while admittedly more challenging from the ISV standpoint — better for the market, and better for each vendor because they are not solely responsible for the entire development ecosystem.
Linux needs more contributors, not fewer contributors, and I don’t think all OS development or decision-making should rest in the hands of a single vendor. It’s too important to leave with one vendor or project. This is why I chastized Sun the other day for continuing to tilt at the Solaris windmill.
The Linux vendors do need to find ways to make it easier for ISVs like Oracle to target multiple Linux distros — and that’s why we support the Linux Standard Base — to find a standard that allows companies like Oracle to more easily support multiple distros, without doing away with actual development and advancement that Linux vendors provide.
I can’t help but think that none of the corporates (including RedHat or Novell) understood yet that we, the people developing FOSS software, actually do not need them. For all we care they can go down in flames. We did manage without them for a long long time and we would continue to do so if they vanish. Sure its nice to suck them dry and make a ****load of salary but if they really think that FOSS depends on corporates they are dead wrong. So they can keep on talking about Linux here and Linux there but they should not mistake their role as something other then the piggy-back riding necessary evil they are.
So ST*U and enjoy the ride
> For all we care they can go down in flames.
Also speed of development? What if without companies “Linux” would have today some state like Hurd?
Beineri makes a good point. Without all those companies helping fund linux development, it would move at a snails pace. All these developers would have to a real job somewhere else, where they will have to choose between getting a life or developing linux. And imagine if they were working for Microsoft or another company that produces an OS, then they wouldn’t be able to work on linux at all by contract.
Software like Wine has only gotten as far as it has in the time it had because of all the contributions from “unnecessary” companies, so you have to give it some thought.
As human beings, we do not actually need our hands, legs, or eyes, tongue, and many others; but would you really want to go about without them?!?
I would contend that FOSS depends on corporates to a larger and larger extent because most of the top FOSS developers are paid rahter well by them and are rather happy with that, not to mention the extensive PR noteriety that comes from working for a company with a marketing department. Have they sold their soul to the devil? That’s a call they should make for themselves. If they want they can always start an island colony for their development work because, like FOSS, corporates will also survive (albeit in one form or another) with or without FOSS. I see no conflict myself, there’s a level of mutual compatibility that’s too frequently ignored between the two camps.