Why Open Source will dominate the future and is spreading freedom.

Tux, the Linux penguin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Why Open Source will dominate the future and is spreading freedom.

 

1. The USA situation is where it all ends up, in the end, it’s just that the bigness multiplies the moral hazard (an economic term) of rent-seeking, and concentrates more economic influence. Being the declining #1.

2. Enterprises pay for modernization, for sure, of their own software. Work for hire is not relevant. IBM has even paid big for projects that enhance Linux, for example, including the big belly flop dive of a billion dollars –with a “B”– some years back.

3. Which brings me to the point that the very title you gave to this discussion supports my point. IBM is making Linux work well on the mainframes!

4. Speaking of which, we also note that Linux is treated in technical terms as an “equal partner” with IBM i and IBM p on the Power Servers. Its role has only grown.
And that means it shares the spot with what looks from my perspective like the absolutely best multi-user proprietary operating system ever built, the IBM i, of course.
And yes, I’m sure it still beats Linux, even though both of them share one shortcoming with the mainframe, and that is no native GUI. (Which by the way Frank Soltis said once was something he always regretting deciding against.)

5. But note that even with the IBMi on Power, IBM opted, instead of enhancing the operating system with the new functionality that has been coming at us from open source projects, they decided to just incorporate the open source applications into the operating system (or plugged onto it). Apache, PHP, MySQL, Java, and of course HTTP and HTML, and the rest. And our fellow brethren of the “order of the i” have jumped in and added Ant, and Python, and lots more, God bless them.

And you could make a case for Scott Klement’s open source projects blowing open great new vistas of productivity for the i community.

6. Android is taking lots of market share from what would have been Apple’s domain, and probably expanded the touch-screen market in the process.

Bottom line, not going away soon, especially before libertarian principles start affecting central planning territory, but it is in start-up mode.

 

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