dkdundas's Profile

You are wrong because LINUX IS NOT A COMPANY. Linux in itself is not a PRODUCT. Who do you buy Linux from...? When your Linux breaks who do you complain to...? Companies can take Linux and turn it into a PRODUCT, much the same way APPLE has taken Unix and FreeBSD into a PRDUCT. We seem to forget how lost Apple was without its fearless leader Jobs. If a company can flounder for that long without releasing a competitive PRODUCT, then how do you expect an open source PROJECT to when there is no financial incentive, or a real leader...? If people want to develop for KDE or develop for Gnome, that is their perogative. But a company that wants to make a PRODUCT will choose one and support it. Sensationalist bloggers and journalists continue to create this fictitious battle between Apple, Microsoft, and Linux. They are comparing apples to apples to oranges (no pun intended :). The parallels they draw are fundamentally flawed. And to do this, it clearly proves that they don't understand the open source business model. They don't even truly understand Apple's business model. Linux is merely an open source PROJECT just like many others; firefox, gaim, wordpress. Linux is part of a PRODUCT on the server side. Companies like Red Hat sells and supports a Linux PRODUCT. Linux appears in set top boxes, mp3 players, robots, cell phones, and hundreds of other devices. In these cases Linux is part of a PRODUCT. Until companies see the desktop as an opportunity to take Linux, improve it, become a competitor, and support that PRODUCT then Linux progress will remain in its current state, that is developers making improvements that are important to them. Companies are beginning to do create Linux desktop PRODUCTS. Redhat, Suse, Linspire, Xandros, Mandriva (or whatever they are calling themselves these days) are companies with Linux PRODUCT. They are building on top of the open source PROJECT. You should compare those companies to Apple and Microsoft. Don't take the easy way out and generally compare "Linux." I still don't think these companies' PRODUCTS are on par with Apples OS or Windows yet. But I will say this... when a company does produce a competitive Linux PRODUCT, Linux will be an afterthought, much the same way Unix is with your beloved OSX.