Joe (uh@no.way) on 5/6/07 wrote:
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>Yeah, which is why Apple had a 64bit version of OSX ready to go as soon as they were shipping x64-capable Macs.
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>Oh, wait.

I think people who are not working in a commercial software development environment underestimate the advantage Linux has over commercial products when it comes to adding new features and functionality.

In a commercial environment, many people might have good ideas - but they are not allowed to pursue them unless officially sanctioned. It is considered a waste of time and effort. With Linux, people just work on what they want regardless of whether anyone else sees any value in it or not. This is attractive to those who simply develop for the joy of it, or just to learn something new. Some of the very best products and features ever created were developed for this reason, and not because they were 'cost effective'.

MVS used to be open source, and there are quite a number of 'field developed products' from the 60's and 70' that are still in use today - widespread use (for mainframes, at least). Once they went OCO (object code only), many of the smaller ISVs disappeared, or were swallowed up, and many IT professionals that knew the internals eventually went away as well (mostly by working for large ISVs). With the possibility of IBM taking away the emulation market, many more will disappear.

Anyway, that was a long winded way of saying I think Linux has an advantage over *any* commercial OS.

Regards,
Dean