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Technology Stocks : Red Hat Software Inc. (Nasdq-RHAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric Sandeen who wrote (1048)	9/8/1999 3:51:00 PM
From: Eric Wells	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1794

Eric - thanks for your message. So we now have four Open Source software products that have realized some level of success: Linux Apache SAMBA The Gimp I read the Netcraft survey at the link you forwarded (thanks) - my only concern about the survey is that no details were provided on how the survey was conducted (at least no details that I could find at their site). The site states: "We collect and collate as many hostnames providing an http service as we can find, and systematically poll each one with an HTTP request for the server name." This does not sound like random sampling - and I sure hope there is no double counting. And of course this excludes what's behind the firewall. There's a link to an InfoWorld article on Netcraft's site that even calls the survey into question: infoworld.com Anyway, I would question the results of the survey. But even if the survey results are correct, what do they mean exactly and how to they help to refute claims I've made in early posts that the bureaucratic overhead necessary to manage an Open Source development project might actually stifle innovation? If we compare the number of successful Open Source software products to the number of successful "closed source" software products - well, I won't do the comparison because we know the the result, and I'm not convinced it's all that appropriate (since Open Source is still relatively new). But I would say there is not enough data to make a convincing statement that Open Source is a superior method of software development. Do you know of any Open Source failures? I can't say I do - but I'm sure they exist (though they have not been publicized) - and I'm sure they outnumber the successes. What are Apache and Linux? They are web servers. In truth, a web server, while not basic, is not an extremely advanced piece of technology. Are there any enterprise databases that run on Apache or Linux? I don't know - that's why I pose the question. What about other server applications? For Linux to be a success such applications will have to be developed - and they will have to be successful - and they will have to be better than their NT equivalents. I do believe that the bureaucratic overhead of Open Source development will stifle innovation. You may disagree. Have you ever read a novel written by many authors? Or listened to a symphony created by many composers? A larger number of contributors does not necessarily lead to innovation. And this is why I believe the optimism for Linux and Red Hat is overblown. Thanks for your message. -Eric Wells