[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“In 1991 Linus Torvalds gave birth to Linux. In late 1998 the
world started to see Linux as more than a niche OS. What happened
next was the real shock, a shock to the whole economic system that
would forever change the way people do business and why business is
done. That avalanche, started by Linux, opened the door for
Open Source Software (OSS) to become viable in the world of
business. Sure, most of us reading this column knew about
Linux before the press started noticing, or we were using OSS like
Apache or FreeBSD, but little did we know of the door that would
begin to creek open.”
“What I will discuss here has a lot to do with business,
economy, and predictions of the future. As I don my pointy hat and
grab my penguin shaped magic wand, we will first look at the
current market based economy, and watch as it slowly transforms
into a network based economy. Early this year market analysts
predicted that the tech heavy NASDAQ had a good chance to overtake
the Dow industrial average. A couple of months later was,
literally, when it all came crashing down, and those same analysts
began chewing on their fine leather shoes as their feet ended up in
their mouths….”