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Brad Stone wrote:
They would generate sales from the OS. Look how quickly
linux became "popular", and then look at it's roots. If I
could sell hardware with software, and software alone, I
would think it would be advantageous.
I don't understand the quotes around popular. Linux is popular, whether
or not that means anything is debatable.
But looking at it's root is interesting. Linux came to be because Linus
Torvalds said, "Hey, I want to do this and this so I think I'll code it
up." He shared his work with others in a way that guaranteed the work
would stay shareable. People thought it was interesting, and decided to
work on it too. Linus wanted a unix system but couldn't afford one, and
didn't like windows 3.1. So he started coding something that was
interesting, and others thought it was also interesting, so they pitched
in. No one thought, "Hey, I want to make money, so I'm going to work on
this linux thing." Business reasons meant nothing, and by and large
still don't.
I understand as is OS400 is quite proprietary, and that's
the platform's biggest problem. Remove that problem and I
believe it would become more revenue. A little work, yes.
But you don't get anything for nothing.
I don't think it's proprietary nature is really the problem you are
addressing, rather the limited hardware on which it runs.
I think you don't necessarily want to change OS/400 to not be
proprietary, but rather you just want an OS/400 for PCs. There is a
parallel that can be looked at to see how well that might work. Sun
Microsystems sells a version of Solaris that runs on Intel architecture.
But most people still buy Solaris on SPARC, even though it is more
expensive. Solaris for Intel is not very expensive, but it's demand is
still low - even before linux starting eating away at Sun's marketshare.
The example of Solaris on Intel shows that putting a big time OS on a
commodity architecture may not give the results a company hopes for. I
believe Sun has sold more machines than IBM has sold AS/400's, and there
are probably more UNIX-trained people than AS/400-trained people. So it
seems unlikely that an OS/400 for Intel would do any better than Solaris
for Intel.
In fact, the only people for whom OS/400 on Intel makes sense are the
few hundred or so developers on this list. Most other OS/400 users need
the big time hardware that comprises an iSeries.
But business reasons are only meaningful to businesses. Perhaps some
person will say to themselves, "Hey, this looks interesting and I need
something like this. I'll just code this up and see what people think..."
James Rich
"As for security, being lectured by Microsoft is like receiving wise
words on the subject of compassion from Stalin."
-- mormop on lwn.net
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