[ Thanks to Stewart Vardaman for this
link. ]
” Businesspeople have tended to associate Linux with the
charlatans of the Internet bubble and the flakes who seem to
dominate its over-granolaed, Berkeley commune culture. Why? Because
dozens of now-defunct Linux companies went public at the height of
the bubble, each with its own plan for persuading customers to pay
money for free software. Because the record for an IPO’s
opening-day gain belongs to VA Linux, which shot up 700%, to
$239.25 a share, when it hit the market on Dec. 9, 1999, but now,
renamed VA Software, trades for about $1. And because Linux
adherents trumpeted the view that free Linux would replace costly
Windows on every desktop. They earnestly claimed that a community
of programmers who worked on the code free in their spare time, who
weren’t tied to any production schedule, and who willingly gave up
all profit-making rights to their modifications in the name of
promoting free software worldwide was going to topple Microsoft. It
just seemed too preposterous for words.“It turns out that the Linux doubters were wrong. Today Linux
has become the hottest thing in corporate America since e-mail and
maybe even Windows itself. Yes, most of the Linux IPOs are out of
business or on the verge of going bust. Yes, few really believe
Linux will ever replace Windows on the desktop. But on the back
end, on servers in data centers rather than PCs on desktops,
companies like Boeing, Amazon.com, E*Trade Financial, DreamWorks,
Google, and virtually every major Wall Street firm have either
finished reconfiguring big chunks of their servers to run Linux or
are in the process of doing so. General Motors says it is likely to
do the same in a year or so. Even the Chinese and German
governments, along with about two dozen other countries, are taking
a look at how they can save money by using Linux in their
infrastructures…”
[Editor’s Note: There are two sidebars with the four-page
main story as well. Links are provided below. -BKP]
Sidebar: Does Software Yearn to Be Free?