LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@dog.topology.org>
  To  : mtippett@ticons.com.au
  Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 11:38:55 +0930

Re: More Meeting Information

Matt,

Maybe this is obvious, but....

Linux is not necessarily open source.
In fact, if all linux applications have to be open source, then
probably linux is doomed to a small future, especially if
open source becomes free source.

In other words, with regard to the Playford Centre thing,
I think that we should be emphasising _linux_ as the thing that
can make money, _not_ open source.
It's almost impossible to get serious venture capital for 
open source, in my opinion. Bankers and investors want to
see something for their money, namely _property_, whether
that is buildings or intellectual property, and if you say that
the intellectual property is to be given away, then that
runs completely counter to capitalist thinking.

On the other hand, if you just ignore completely the issue of
open source, which is really just a property of the OS, not of 
the applications that you can create with linux, then you
can start to get real support.

My favourite examples are in the area of certain kinds of
communications systems, which require real-time software
and also GUIs, and must run on minimal hardware.
Linux is good at all three:

1.
Linux has an excellent real-time environment, provided by
the kernel module functionality, which is excellently supported,
because the _OS_ is open source, and therefore you can
really understand what is ont he other side of the device-kernel
interface. With other unixes, not to mention MS software etc.,
the device-kernel interface is a cause of real fear and anxiety
to programmers, because they don't know what's on the other side.

2.
Linux is ideal for providing GUIs, because it has unix underneath,
and X on top, like most unix OSs.

3.
Linux can run on the minimal sort of hardware that is often found
in real-time projects involving communications, and similar
projects requiring microcontrollers etc.
The linux web server in a matchbox is a good example.

So what I am saying is that I disagree (politely) with your
emphasis on open source.
Open source is not linux's main selling point.
If that was the main thing, then windows95 would become an
excellent OS by making the software open source.
This is clearly nonsense.
The main thing is that linux is good in itself, architecturally,
and also partly because it is provided with source.
But that doesn't mean that all linux projects should be open source.

Conclusion:
If anyone wants to get money for a project from the Playford Centre
or whatever, then I believe linux can be an important component
of anything that involves real-time interaction with specialised
hardware, particularly for communications engineering projects,
but one should say that _linux_ is open source, _not_ that the
project will create free software, no matter how much money
you might think you can make out of supporting it.

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

PS.  My pet project is, of course, the burglar alarm radio network,
utilising linux as the OS in a small hand-size unit using the
150 MHz band for digital base-station-less survivable communications,
which will bring in so many millions of export dollars, you wouldn't
have time to count them!
http://www.topology.org/ideas/alarmnet.html

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