At 12:22 PM +0530 4/2/05, Rony Bill wrote:

sherlock@vsnl.com wrote:

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In effect the commercial distros companies are providing

expertise not just software and they are >> fully justified in charging what ever they please.

What I don't like is the unnecessary hype about linux being free and the way people attack microsoft for making money. I do admire Bill Gates for the way he set up an international empire right from a small shed. Ultimately every software company wants to make money and capture the market.

I guess that depends on how you define 'company' - if you mean commercial organisation, then you are probably right. However, there are very many non-profit and not-for-profit organisations (the latter being 'companies' in the legally Indian sense of the word) who develop and make available software that is intended to benefit its users. Upfront payment is not the issue here - it is the overall benefit to the community that drives such organisations and their people.

While BG did a great commercial job, his first foray resulted from scamming IBM into buying a piece of software that the fledgling MS had not developed. This is sometimes called arbitrage in the commercial world, and the people who do it on a large scale are sometimes called robber barons. They succeed because they conceal information. The money is made from concealing and causing to be concealed such information. GNU/Linux has developed from a basically different approach to life and society.