3 ms·

Because capitalism and technological progress (unlike science or art) is about greed and money, and a non-profit is not a competitive vehicle for it.

by cft 10y ago

danieldk 10y ago
And still, Linux outperformed most commercial competitors in the embedded and server spaces without being a single commercial entity. Apache was the most successful webserver for a long time, despite coming from a non-profit organisation, etc. I also believe that Firefox should look to exploit Google/Chrome's weaknesses more: Google relies fully on ad income. Firefox relies on sending users to someone's search engine/default page. Why not offer a version that shows the web as most of us see it: ad-free and with less tracking.
- cft 10y ago
  Very good point. Linux and Apache however are not consumer products, and the for profit companies that are using them are heavily contributing to the projects. The end users of Firefox are not contributing to its code, all development is done by Mozilla foundation.
- barpet 10y ago
  Linux did not outperform anyone. Companies did. Companies used and abused linux in such a way that the other simply followed the trend. Mainly because of the costs. And btw this is what Facebook and Google will be doing to most of other competitors as well. This is pure / chinese style capitalism. We give you something good enough for free but forget about normal wealth distribution only a single entity / group of people will get rich and the others will have to pay a hefty price of loosing their privacy. Linux and Apache and the others succeeded because they spawned a lot of other businesses that were just cheaper than the offerings from Microsoft or Oracle.
  - danieldk 10y ago
    Linux did not outperform anyone. Companies did. Companies used and abused linux in such a way that the other simply followed the trend. That's a unfair caricature of what really happened. There were competing systems with business-friendlier licenses. Obviously, Linux wouldn't be what it is without corporate contributions. But it also wouldn't be what it is without Linus' management and extreme pragmatism. That combined with the momentum introduced by the distribution ecosystem and advocacy that sprung up in the nineties. Don't forget that by the time that IBM started pouring money into Linux (Peace, Love, Linux was in 2001 IIRC), Linux already had a large following among the tech crowd, which was stealthily replacing commercial UNIX installations with Linux.

Because capitalism and technological progress (unlike science or art) is about greed and money, and a non-profit is not a competitive vehicle for it.

by cft 10y ago

Because capitalism and technological progress (unlike science or art) is about greed and money, and a non-profit is not a competitive vehicle for it.

danieldk 10y ago

And still, Linux outperformed most commercial competitors in the embedded and server spaces without being a single commercial entity. Apache was the most successful webserver for a long time, despite coming from a non-profit organisation, etc. I also believe that Firefox should look to exploit Google/Chrome's weaknesses more: Google relies fully on ad income. Firefox relies on sending users to someone's search engine/default page. Why not offer a version that shows the web as most of us see it: ad-free and with less tracking.

cft 10y ago
Very good point. Linux and Apache however are not consumer products, and the for profit companies that are using them are heavily contributing to the projects. The end users of Firefox are not contributing to its code, all development is done by Mozilla foundation.
barpet 10y ago
Linux did not outperform anyone. Companies did. Companies used and abused linux in such a way that the other simply followed the trend. Mainly because of the costs. And btw this is what Facebook and Google will be doing to most of other competitors as well. This is pure / chinese style capitalism. We give you something good enough for free but forget about normal wealth distribution only a single entity / group of people will get rich and the others will have to pay a hefty price of loosing their privacy. Linux and Apache and the others succeeded because they spawned a lot of other businesses that were just cheaper than the offerings from Microsoft or Oracle.
- danieldk 10y ago
  Linux did not outperform anyone. Companies did. Companies used and abused linux in such a way that the other simply followed the trend. That's a unfair caricature of what really happened. There were competing systems with business-friendlier licenses. Obviously, Linux wouldn't be what it is without corporate contributions. But it also wouldn't be what it is without Linus' management and extreme pragmatism. That combined with the momentum introduced by the distribution ecosystem and advocacy that sprung up in the nineties. Don't forget that by the time that IBM started pouring money into Linux (Peace, Love, Linux was in 2001 IIRC), Linux already had a large following among the tech crowd, which was stealthily replacing commercial UNIX installations with Linux.