The Strange Case of the Disappearing Open Source Vendors (O'Reilly) [LWN.net]

Publisher Tim O'Reilly writes about the current state of open-source software. "The dot-com boom has ended, the VCs and the stock market are in retreat, and of all the much-hyped open source companies, only a few are left. Red Hat is still flourishing, but VA Linux Systems has taken "Linux" out of its name; Caldera, SuSe, Turbolinux, and Connectiva are joining forces; Eazel, Great Bridge, and Lutris are out of business, among many others."

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The Strange Case of the Disappearing Open Source Vendors (O'Reilly)

Posted Jun 29, 2002 3:47 UTC (Sat) by lucho (guest, #2362) [Link] (1 responses)

A very interesting, though long (not boring) article. It really gets you thinking that the money to be made in OSS is in facilitating the end users make money from OSS or save, which is another way of "making" money. According to the article, and other sources, shelf software is only about 5% of all software developed. If that is the case, why is shelf software the center of so much media frenzy?

Anyway, I found the article very enlightning.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Open Source Vendors (O'Reilly)

Posted Jun 29, 2002 4:03 UTC (Sat) by sec (guest, #708) [Link]

I suspect you don't hear about in-house software because they aren't trying to sell it. Shrink-wrap software, on the other hand, is being sold, so the companies involved engage in plenty of bongo-beating in order to hawk their wares. In essence, shrink-wrap software is the squeaky wheel.