Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: arch and linux 2.7

[Colin Walters]

On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 17:44, Tom Lord wrote:

> To their discredit, they have done so without adopting a free software
> business model.  This is really quite stunning because, by Larry's own
> public accounts, he got business model advice from at least one Red
> Hat executive -- Red Hat being a company that has on several occasions
> publicly reaffirmed its own commitment to a free software model.  It
> seems to me that one of five conclusions follow:

[...]

(f) This is an overblown rumor with very little if any truth to it.

I spent some time googling, and the closest thing I could find was this:

http://www.linux-mag.com/2000-04/opensource_evol_04.html

"McVoy's hybrid model for his own company, Bitmover, was spawned when
Linux developer Alan Cox came up with the idea of a central log for
changes to the Linux kernel."

Hardly a business plan.

In fact, on the same page:

"In a paper entitled "The Sourceware Operating System Proposal," McVoy
wrote that "software that is widely available and royalty free is more
useful and valuable to the end user than proprietary software." (This
would later become a mantra for Red Hat and other companies. The McVoy
paper, in fact, was a key influence in the creation of Red Hat's
business plan back in 1993.)"

So it looks like you have it backwards.

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