Linus on the BK withdrawal

Posted Apr 6, 2005 19:04 UTC (Wed) by elanthis (guest, #6227)
In reply to: Linus on the BK withdrawal by dame74
Parent article: Linus on the BK withdrawal

You flunked economics, didn't you? ;-)

Seriously, is BK worth that much to OSDL? Buying BK would cost a good deal of money, I imagine, and that has to have a solid return on investment for OSDL, otherwise it would be absolutely moronic to spend the money on it. What is BK worth to OSDL, exactly? If Linus and crew are able to find another SCM that works well enough, then the worth of BK to OSDL would be near $0. If OSDL buys BK, open sources it, and loses the possibility to generate revenue by selling expensive licenses to big customers - BK's prime income method, I believe - then the worth of BK likewise drops compared to the worth of BK as a revenue generator like it is for BitMover. OSDL needs a solid financial reason to want BK and a solid plan on how to cash in on the investment. Simply going and buying a very expensive piece of software because Linus is too picky to use a "almost good enough" alternative would be a poor decision, and if the people in charge of OSDL were the kind to make such decisions, OSDL would be long gone and all its assets would either be unmaintained or sold back to proprietary development houses.