mdma wrote:
Why would it be suicide?
Q. What would they lose?
Everything.
They make money from their hardware - and include an OS, at no additional cost
to run on that hardware.
If they open source it the first thing people will do is get it to work on
their hardware.
If it works on what I have already - why do I need to buy their products?
Answer - I don't.
And my selection for upgrades doesn't automatically go to them, why would it?
I'll choose the most cost effective solution for what I need.. and if I have the source, so doubt
myself and some other like-minded folks can expand it with what drivers we need.
It's suicide because it eliminates the need for you to buy their product.
For example
Why buy AOS4 when you can download MOS-GPL for free. Run it on your old hardware for a while. Then, when it comes to buying new hardware, you buy a Peg2/3/4/5 (or whatever) as you are used to using MOS and all your software is written for MOS as it has the biggest user base.
Your logic is seriously flawed there. Yes - you download MOS-GPL because it is *FREE*
Now how does this relate to automatically buying one hardware set over another?
If I follow the logic of the first statement - then I will be buying the cheapest
hardware -- not more expensive.. making the operating system open source eliminates
the need to buy a Peg setup.
Yeah I'm used to running software on an OS with a large userbase,
but that OS now runs on everything but the kitchen sink - which is part of the reason
it now HAS a larger userbase -- double edged sword.
Is it suicide for RedHat, SuSE, et al releasing their code? No it isn't.
Apples and oranges - Redhat, SuSE, et al. are not hardware companies.
They are companies with business models based around the legalities of the software they're providing.
RedHat for instance makes money on support.