Linux, Inc. (BusinessWeek)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/05_05/b3918001_mz001.htm?chan=mz&

Little understood by the outside world, the community of Linux programmers has evolved in recent years into something much more mature, organized, and efficient. Put bluntly, Linux has turned pro. Torvalds now has a team of lieutenants, nearly all of them employed by tech companies, that oversees development of top-priority projects. Tech giants such as IBM (IBM ), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), and Intel (INTC ) are clustered around the Finn, contributing technology, marketing muscle, and thousands of professional programmers. IBM alone has 600 programmers dedicated to Linux, up from two in 1999. There's even a board of directors that helps set the priorities for Linux development.

The result is a much more powerful Linux. The software is making its way into everything from Motorola (MOT ) cell phones and Mitsubishi robots to eBay (EBAY ) servers and the NASA supercomputers that run space-shuttle simulations. Its growing might is shaking up the technology industry, challenging Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) dominance and offering up a new model for creating software. Indeed, Torvalds' onetime hobby has become Linux Inc. "People thought this wouldn't work. There are just too many people and companies to hang together. But now it's clear it does work," says Mark Blowers, an analyst at market researcher Butler Group.

Not that this Inc. operates like a traditional corporation. Hardly. There's no headquarters, no CEO, and no annual report. And it's not a single company. Rather, it's a cooperative venture in which employees at about two dozen companies, along with thousands of individuals, work together to improve Linux software. The tech companies contribute sweat equity to the project, largely by paying programmers' salaries, and then make money by selling products and services around the Linux operating system. They don't charge for Linux itself, since under the cooperative's rules the software is available to all comers for free.

How do companies benefit from free software? In several different ways. Distributors, including Red Hat Inc. (RHAT ) and Novell Inc., (NOVL ) package Linux with helpful user manuals, regular updates, and customer service, and then charge customers annual subscription fees for all the extras. Those fees range from $35 a year for a basic desktop version of Linux to $1,500 for a high-end server version. The dollars can add up. Red Hat, which employs 200 programmers, is expected to see profits triple, to $53 million, in its current fiscal year, as revenues surge 56%, to $195 million.

(Lots more at link)

[benburch]

1. My big concern...

is that most of these businesses who adopt Linux never feed back so much as a good bug report to the developer community.

When we were Linux early adopters at Zenith (Slackware, 1996), we felt it was our duty to feed our bug fixes back.

[ixion]

2. you can thank M$ for that, in part

for creating a hostile environment, ironically in the name of 'innovation'. :eyes:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Even if a small fraction do, that's enough. That goes for any software. nt