3 ms·

On the other end of the spectrum, you could be awarded $20 million dollars in stock options by Red Hat and VA Linux. And of course, there's everything in betwe

by tsally 17y ago

On the other end of the spectrum, you could be awarded $20 million dollars in stock options by Red Hat and VA Linux. And of course, there's everything in between, including getting hired and paid by the company that likes your open source project. Companies also contribute back to open source [1], lobby the Supreme Court of the United States to fix software patents [2], and provide open source project hosting to thousands for free [3]. [1] http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/leadership/osdevelopment/ http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/leadership/osdevelopment/ [2] http://press.redhat.com/2009/10/01/asking-the-supreme-court-to-address-the-problem-of-software-patents/ http://press.redhat.com/2009/10/01/asking-the-supreme-court-... [3] http://www.ubuntu.com/news/canonical-open-sources-launchpad http://www.ubuntu.com/news/canonical-open-sources-launchpad

marshallp 17y ago
What's the market cap of red hat compared to microsoft, or oracle
- tsally 17y ago
  I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make with this fragment of a sentence. If you're trying to imply that Microsoft is a larger company than Red Hat because Microsoft takes advantage of open source developers and Red Hat does not, you're wrong. Microsoft had its IPO 5 years before the Linux kernel was written. If anything, Microsoft has benefited more from ripping off developers of proprietary systems [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso...
  - marshallp 17y ago
    I'm just pointing out that microsoft and other companies have much larger equity than red hat, and have made a lot more developers rich than red hat. In general I believe that open source transfers wealth from developers to the rest of society, and the same applies to web companies that choose a ad-supprted model. In certain segments, such as search, this makes sense. But in others, people like richard stallman and jimmy wales, have single handedly destroyed potential industries that could have formed and employed many people.
    - _delirium 17y ago
      I tend to think the opposite: the companies like Britannica keeping data closed do a lot to prevent potential industries from rising by keeping information from the people who would build those industries. Wikipedia goes a long way towards giving at least some of the information that is needed to start a modern business to everyone. It's hard to quantify each of them, but I'd be willing to bet that the wealth created by Wikipedia is considerably greater than the wealth that a hypothetical Britannica-still-rules-online-encyclopedias would create. I mean, Britannica just doesn't employ that many people, and never has.
      - marshallp 17y ago
        Perhaps not britannica, but the fact that wikipedia gets a huge amount of search traffic 'steals' a lot of potential earnings from would-be content creators.
        loup-vaillant 17y ago
        You sound like this is a bad thing. On the contrary, I think this is great. By killing the encyclopaedia industry, Wikipedia made everybody else richer. The reasoning is dead simple: if something you use suddenly gets cheaper, you get a bit richer. If something you can't afford (but wanted to have) suddenly becomes affordable, your buying power increases, making you a bit richer. I think that destroying an entire industry while making everyone else richer is worth often worth the trade-off. In the case of Wikipedia, I have no doubt.
- wallflower 17y ago
  Linus Torvalds was given enough stock options in RedHat, VA Linux to buy a house in California. These companies wouldn't have existed without him - they were just trying to pay him back for the network of value he created. Yes, the creator of Linux is not super rich (in the let's make a $200M+ America's Cup contender sense) but can you imagine what it feels like to have created a software industry?

by tsally 17y ago

marshallp 17y ago

What's the market cap of red hat compared to microsoft, or oracle

tsally 17y ago
I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make with this fragment of a sentence. If you're trying to imply that Microsoft is a larger company than Red Hat because Microsoft takes advantage of open source developers and Red Hat does not, you're wrong. Microsoft had its IPO 5 years before the Linux kernel was written. If anything, Microsoft has benefited more from ripping off developers of proprietary systems [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso...
- marshallp 17y ago
  I'm just pointing out that microsoft and other companies have much larger equity than red hat, and have made a lot more developers rich than red hat. In general I believe that open source transfers wealth from developers to the rest of society, and the same applies to web companies that choose a ad-supprted model. In certain segments, such as search, this makes sense. But in others, people like richard stallman and jimmy wales, have single handedly destroyed potential industries that could have formed and employed many people.
  - _delirium 17y ago
    I tend to think the opposite: the companies like Britannica keeping data closed do a lot to prevent potential industries from rising by keeping information from the people who would build those industries. Wikipedia goes a long way towards giving at least some of the information that is needed to start a modern business to everyone. It's hard to quantify each of them, but I'd be willing to bet that the wealth created by Wikipedia is considerably greater than the wealth that a hypothetical Britannica-still-rules-online-encyclopedias would create. I mean, Britannica just doesn't employ that many people, and never has.
    - marshallp 17y ago
      Perhaps not britannica, but the fact that wikipedia gets a huge amount of search traffic 'steals' a lot of potential earnings from would-be content creators.
      - loup-vaillant 17y ago
        You sound like this is a bad thing. On the contrary, I think this is great. By killing the encyclopaedia industry, Wikipedia made everybody else richer. The reasoning is dead simple: if something you use suddenly gets cheaper, you get a bit richer. If something you can't afford (but wanted to have) suddenly becomes affordable, your buying power increases, making you a bit richer. I think that destroying an entire industry while making everyone else richer is worth often worth the trade-off. In the case of Wikipedia, I have no doubt.
wallflower 17y ago
Linus Torvalds was given enough stock options in RedHat, VA Linux to buy a house in California. These companies wouldn't have existed without him - they were just trying to pay him back for the network of value he created. Yes, the creator of Linux is not super rich (in the let's make a $200M+ America's Cup contender sense) but can you imagine what it feels like to have created a software industry?