“For-profit companies in the Linux business see an opportunity
to make money, but they aren’t interested in monopolizing the
market, said the heads of two major distributors of the open-source
operating system. Bob Young, chairman and co-founder of Red Hat,
and Dirk Hohndel, chief technology officer of SuSE, weighed in
Friday at the Linux World Conference and Expo here [in
Berlin].”
“Both speakers seemed at pains to reassure the gathered
Linux enthusiasts, many of them fiercely opposed to the market
dominance of copyright-based, proprietary software, that they are
committed to the open-source model.”
“Asked how Linux can continue to gain users, given the
relatively small number of desktop applications it supports, Young
responded, “We have the killer applications of the 21st century …
all of the applications that form the infrastructure of the
Internet and intranets.” All of the market growth in operating
systems, Young said, lies in embedded systems, Internet appliances,
and server technology. With the growth of ASPs (application service
providers), he continued, these areas will soon overtake the
desktop PC market, the source of Microsoft’s market dominance.”