RE: Re: Viability of Linux companies

["Arun Sharma" <arun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Yeah sure... if it was open source from the beginning ... Linus wouldn't
> have written an OS in the first place ! (And there would have been a
> stable Free OS ages ago... there would never have been an M$FT or Bill
> Gates!)

I see Windows 95 as the OS that changed everything for MSFT. Linux existed
for 5 years, by that time. What did it change ?

As has been noted by many historians, BSD was a stable free OS in 1995. Many
people argue that it was technically better than Linux at that point. It's
a pity that they didn't support IDE disks and extended partitions (they
don't
support it even today).

In the end, Linux "won", at least in numbers and PR, just like you accuse
MSFT of doing. Search the web for "worse is better".

MSFT has data which says that people find it easier to navigate to
Tools -> Options, than Edit -> Preferences. How is an open source hacker
going to get access to it ? The point is, finding this data costs money.
There is no viable GPL based business model, which supports this research.
In BSD land, there is.

Still in the mood for some more ? How about originality ? BSD is where vi
happened, TCP/IP happened. Both FreeBSD and NetBSD have their virtual memory
subsystems derived out of a PhD thesis. Perhaps you should hang out on
freebsd-hackers for a while and judge the quality of discussion ?

	-Arun