Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 27 Apr 2003 09:25:05 +0200 | From | Adrian Bunk <> | Subject | Re: Flame Linus to a crisp! |
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On Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 08:36:00AM -0400, Downing, Thomas wrote: > From: Adrian Bunk [mailto:bunk@fs.tum.de] > > >On Wed, Apr 23, 2003 at 10:43:37PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > >>... > >> And hey, the fact is (at least as far as I'm concerned), that as long as > >> you make the hardware, you can control what it runs. > >>... > > > >Linux is currently widely used and through this there comes some power. > >Let me try to make examples where this might be important: > > You cast these comments in the context of corporate use, so - > > The primary reason corporations are beginning to adopt Linux is TCO > - and such adoption is in its early stages, though growing. Such > adoption is _only_ to the extent that Linux will run specific > applications. > > Companies do _not_ adopt Linux because it is the only OS on which > their critical applications run. They don't adopt it because it's > the coolest OS out there. All the corporate required applications > run on other O$'s. If support for a facility percieved as desirable > or necessary (in this case, DRM)is not available in Linux due to the > terms of the GPL, corporations will drop Linux in a heartbeat. > > Some companies (viz certain very large financial institutions) are > only now just beginning to write applications _on_ Linux. When > Linux has a majority market share, with the rest of the market in > disarray, _then_ you have some power; but only for a limitted time.
There are even in bigger companies already many production machines running Linux. I don't say that it's impossible for them to switch to a different OS, but this would be a non-trivial switch (if this is critical infrastructure) and a non-cheap (both for training the staff for a different OS and for buying soft- and perhaps hardware) switch.
cu Adrian
--
"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed
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