RE: tlug: Linux Community?? (was: HTML again)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "jdh" == John De Hoog <dehoog@example.com> writes:

    jdh> Stephen J. Turnbull wrote,

Nothing germane.  But I need the context for the following "you":

    jdh> What you and the others have done in the early stages of
    jdh> Linux evolution is of course vital and impressive. My

Not me.  What I have done is impressive only in the amount of stuff
that sticks in my brain.  Sometimes it's useful to others.  My
publically available code contributions amount to about 100 lines, my
docs about 10 times that.  I used to keep a couple of archives, but
they didn't get resurrected after the hard drive died and was
replaced.  That's it.

    jdh> question is whether Linux is going to (wants to/is able to)
    jdh> go on to a new stage where the community aspect is less
    jdh> important, and practical considerations become foremost.

I don't think so.  Unless MS-Linux happens.

<IMO>
It's a potlatch economy, and the driving forces will go elsewhere if
it gets commercialized.  We can't operate on a value-for-value basis,
we'll get competed to death.

It may be true, as Stallman hopes, that the GNU system, perhaps with
Linux as kernel, will be good enough to remove operating systems from
the realm of competition.  I doubt that; there will always be new and
wondrous devices to drive, kernel development won't stop, utilities
will be needed to interface to the kernel.  So the community aspect
will always drive Linux, as a kernel, as a (GNU) operating system, and 
as a work environment.

It may be possible to build a company whose product is catering to
practical considerations for making open source products into a solid
work environment (perhaps in combination with proprietary products);
Cygnus and Pacific High-Tech are proving exactly that.  But those
considerations won't be foremost across the board.
</IMO>

My mind is still completely open as to whether such a thing could give 
NT and the Mac a run for the money in _all_ desktop applications.

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