[Info-vax] Beyond Open Source

[Neil Rieck]

Big enterprises love Linux so it's not going away anytime soon. But it will not be the only game in town.
 
Everyone has known for years that IBM has contributed at least 30% of the code to the current Linux code base.
 
After Balmer left Microsoft, new CEO Satya Nadella admitted that Microsoft had installed more Linux-based platforms into the Microsoft cloud than Windows-based platforms (the rumor mill claims windows platforms were responsible for most of the problems). On top of this, we were told that Microsoft also contributing code to Linux and might be responsible for 10% of the current Linux code base.
 
With larger companies contributing to Linux, it will continually get better and more popular until it acquires a critical mass in the IT industry. Android is a stripped down Linux so I suspect Android phones would have been unaffordable if the cost of an OS was added to each handset. Both the PS3 and PS4 game consoles use a fork of FreeBSD to keep costs down. Apple products are based upon BSD with the kernel coming from Carnegie Mellon. For far too long many organizations were required to pray at the altar of Oracle until the rise of MySQL. We all know that the first 4 versions of MySQL were mere toys but version 5 changed everything. Oracle was able to slow the development of MySQL by acquiring it through the purchase of SUN but then a new MySQL appeared in Europe under the name MariaDB. It was around this time that Larry Ellison left the cash-printing machine.

I have always wondered why HP treated OpenVMS like the proverbial "red-headed step child" while continuing to promote HP-UX but lets be realistic: from a manager's 100-foot perspective, HP-UX and Linux are the same thing. Heck, I saw an HP article 2-weeks ago claiming they will develop something called Linux++ which will run "the machine".

But what does all this mean? It means that companies are not going to make money selling software. They are going to make money selling support (this was the model put forward by MySQL AB and MariaDB Enterprise). HP has washed their hands of OpenVMS by engaging VSI. VSI will make money by selling support for OpenVMS.

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

p.s. Some years back, HP jettisoned OpenVMS talent that HP did not value. Then the responsibility of maintaining OpenVMS has shifted to VSI who has hired back some of that talent. This reminds me of the problems DEC went though in 1988 when a small group of DEC employees who were not valued by DEC found themselves working for a then, small company by the name of Microsoft.