[BLUG] About the article

[Simon Ruiz]

Ack! Nearly free?! I'll assume you mean nearly gratis, and not nearly libre. Using a computer is something that can't really be gratis, so nearly gratis applies to Linux. Nearly libre would make Linux...ummmm....SLED?
 
While the three "biggest" distribution (Top three being Ubuntu, SUSE, and Red Hat--I THINK in that order) all have a big company behind them providing commercial support, IMHO one of the beautiful things about Open Source is that you don't HAVE to have support from a single source, you're not locked in (Well, I don't know about Novell, since they do have quite a few proprietary bits...).
 
Oracle caused a bit of a stir offering support services for Red Hat Enterprise Linux at a cheaper rate than Red Hat--free enterprise at work. Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu), although they only have an income based on their support services, in fact encourages other companies to jump into the Ubuntu support business--as far as they're concerned the more people are fixing bugs and investing man-hours in Ubuntu the better for everyone.
 
And, like Steven mentioned, if you don't need Enterprise level support, you can bribe a Linux-savvy buddy into fixing your problem with a pizza or even *gasp* a little money. Or, if you're Linux-savvy yourself, you can hire yourself out to do this sort support on a Home and Small Business level (or get a group of Linux-savvy people together to tackle the more complex, and lucrative, markets).
 
I've personally been considering hiring myself out as a mercenary geek as a secondary source of income for a while now.
 
One of the biggest arguments for Open Source versus Proprietary solutions, especially in third world countries like my homeland, is that you can pay a local company local prices to support a global-quality product and keep that money in your local economy instead of paying dollar prices and sending that money to the United States to line the pockets of whatever company has locked themselves into your business.
 
I hope this finds you having a great day!
 
Simón
 
P.S. Regardless of the author's opinions, if they have anything to do with it or not, I do think Linux has a chance to become the standard as we transition to a 64-bit world. Some provocative thoughts on this at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html whether or not you're an Eric Raymond fan.

________________________________

From: blug-admin_at_cs.indiana.edu on behalf of Paul Proctor
Sent: Thu 1/25/2007 2:51 PM
To: BLUG_at_cs.indiana.edu
Subject: [BLUG] About the article


Leaving the author and his ideas about Mac and some other stuff behind, he may be right about IBM and friends more poised to take a shot at old Billy Gates. I for one would like Microsoft to lose a big chunk of marketshare to a LINUX product. From the outside of the LINUX world looking in I see the time is right! As a Newbie I think the business world wants support from a big company, ARRGH. I just want something that works, is nearly free and has support from a single source.