“We’ll admit to a certain fascination with ‘new Linux company’
stories. They’re a blend of straightforward ‘change in direction’
combined with a hint of courtship.“Vendors venturing into the Linux market have two constituencies
to win over: They must convince enterprises that they’re not just
chasing open source moonshine over a cliff in a doomed grasp at
some trendy mind share, and they have to convince the Linux
enthusiasts that they’re not going through the motions of getting
penguin religion without offering anything back.“IBM set a few examples. It devoted tangible resources to Linux
development, contributed to some early success stories with
engineering efforts and deployments, and made a point of courting
the fractious Linux community. It didn’t convince everybody, but
don’t think for a second that the outrage over SCO’s $5 billion
suit would be as intense if HP were the defendant…”