[Info-vax] CRTL and RMS vs SSIO

Dave Froble davef at tsoft-inc.com
Tue Oct 12 22:06:39 EDT 2021


On 10/12/2021 7:57 PM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 10/12/2021 4:52 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>
>> Linux is basically free, the developers are not counting on their work
>> to pay the mortgage.
>  Tell that to the many ex-DECcies (and others) who are quite happy
> making a nice living at Redhat.
>

So Robert, you're denying that you can download a free Linux 
distribution and use it without paying?

Yes, I'm aware that there are people getting paid to work on Linux, both 
in development, and at user sites.

An entity such as RedHat has figured out how to get people to pay them 
for support.

I'm hoping that VSI figures out the same thing.

But DEC had a large number of employees, and it was from sales that they 
got the money to run the company.

The topic was/is VAX to Alpha.  How would VMS, and DEC, have faired, if 
VAX users could not easily moved their applications to Alpha?  Might 
have been the end of DEC right then.  DEC had to make the migration as 
painless as possible, and they did a decent job of it.  Many did a 
re-compile, link, and go.

When Linux got started, there was no RedHat, and such.  If people were 
slow to use it, there was no company to go tits up.  Only later did 
companies embrace the OS, and pay people to work on it.

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA  15486



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