eWeek: Answering Open-Source Questions

“Last week was filled with news on the Linux front, with every
major IT provider trying to warm itself near the fire of enterprise
interest. IBM claimed to have a billion-dollar business based on
the open-source operating system and pointed to the company’s own
progress in replacing its Windows and OS/2 servers with Linux
systems; Sun announced expanded Linux-based offerings of flagship
software products; and Microsoft won an award, at LinuxWorld Expo
in New York, for its Services for Unix 3.0 product that runs a Unix
environment on a Windows kernel and provides integrated
administration and developer support.

“I still get e-mail, though, suggesting that there’s a lot of
communication to be done before middle-tier companies will consider
Linux a genuine option. I’m talking about the companies too small
to have a substantial IT department, but too big for the
founder/CEO to make a Linux adoption decision at breakfast on
Saturday and have it deployed on Monday morning.

“One question that hit my in-box late last week was ‘How do you
get support if anyone can modify the code?’ I was tempted to reply,
‘How do you get support if you can’t modify (or even see) the
code…?'”

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