Linux Magazine: Who Builds the Open Infrastructure?

“The real issue we need to face in the open source world is
how to fund a fully malleable infrastructure, so that we can all be
free from the control of a single vendor. Linux represents
freedom from single-source, proprietary-software dependency. It
also poses an important question: In a world where there is no
“Microsoft tax,” who pays for the infrastructure? To date, a
variety of Linux vendors have contributed to the task. Red Hat and
SuSE have traditionally provided significant funding, and VA Linux
is now heavily contributing to this effort. Companies such as
Matrox, ATI, 3dfx, SGI, and Intel have absorbed a lot of the costs
of producing an open source graphics infrastructure, but there is
much more work to be done. Open source development is being
significantly outspent by proprietary interests. Fortunately, we
don’t need to spend nearly as much money to get a much better
result. Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, we should put as little money
into it as possible…but not too little! If the open source
paradigm is to succeed, all vendors in that space need to
contribute, either by funding third parties or by their own
internal efforts, to improve the infrastructure. Buying the
infrastructure today will save a lot of money in rent
tomorrow.”

Complete
Story