However in a case where the hardware itself is proprietary on a *nix-like operating system BOTH the company and its users can benefit...
Returning to our two main examples, the Sharp Zarus and the Apple Macintosh running OS X, say that Apple releases the specs of their Quartz Extreme or perhaps their Altivec optimizations and some bright engineer at Yellow Dog Linux notices an outstanding bug here or there, fixes them and submits the patch to Apple before going ahead and improving the performance of Yellow Dog on Apple's hardware. Perhaps a better example would be someone toiling away at the Darwin core to OS X submitted by Apple to the open-source community who discovers a performance enhancing tweak or fixes an error to file I/O and submits this to the community and Apple picks up on it resulting in an impressive boost to overall OS X performance. Who benefits? Certainly in the first example the various Linux distros on Apple hardware and perhaps Linux would benefit in the second example too. The Open Darwin Project would certainly be boosted by such an event in the second example, since they would be the first to get the improvements to system performance--but within a few days or weeks a service pack would definitely be released to OS X. In the end regardless of which operating system the machine is running Apple benefits as does its customers.. Best of all, despite the Linux and or open-source communities benefiting from these hypothetical developments, Apple doesn't 'lose' anything or sacrifice their brand identity because they have already made their profits selling the machine to their customers and any updates become enhancements that further the value of their brand.
In Sharp's example what if their Zarus engineers were tinkering around with the source code and discovered a line or two that dramatically boosted the display of embedded Linux as it interacted with the processors used in their devices. They fix the bug or make the improvements and then due to this being in relation to the kernel send their patches to Linus Torvalds, thus the code makes its way into Linux 3.2. Of course it won't take long before the Open Zarus distro managers find the patch and they have it also. This still doesn't cost Sharp anything, since they've already sold the customer their Zarus hardware. Whether the customer runs Sharp's own version of Linux or the freely available 'Open Zarus' version of Linux hardly makes a difference. Sharp might lose out on a chance to sell operating system updates to a customer who might choose instead to opt for the 'Open Zarus' distro since it's free, but since Sharp has already made its investment from the sale of the device itself such an event would not be seen as harmful to its long term profitability as if Sharp were in the business of making its Zarus Linux for X86 computers. . .
However, by looking at Sharp's Zarus as example of open-source, free software on vendor specific hardware and projecting Apple's desktop strategy as a possible model, I think we can see where the future of Linux will be. The X86 desktop is increasingly viewed as an albatross by even its progenitors, even as the 'standards' get changed and rewritten at leisure by hardware manufacturers who seem not to care if their hardware works with any platform other than that of Microsoft's Windows operating system--if even that! Modems and network cards that are hostile to alternative operating systems, fake RAID, and multiple audio\video problems caused by bad or lacking support from manufacturers are all issues forced on us by the X86 architecture. Given things as they are, its a minor miracle in itself that Microsoft has been able to make Windows work as well as it does! In a world that is increasingly shifting its gaze to a 64-bit future, why chain ourselves to a dying architecture? Why not jump ship early and get to work preparing for that 64-bit future? There is no reason why a vendor choosing to create a computer literally made to run Linux, able to run open-source and free applications, and capable of doing it well should be unable to turn a profit.
It will be a brave Linux vendor who first takes a final hard long look at the future and announces their decision to develop their future distro releases exclusively on their own hardware. They will likely in the short term at least lose many of their customers. Or at least likely some who have never bought from them or likely ever booted their distro claim-- but if that company is able to stay the course and get past the inevitable missteps along the way they will see that the benefits well outweigh the risks, that their hardships endured and slanders persevered make well the reward worthwhile. As long as they can provide a well performing desktop or other computing device that can run the variously available open-source\shareware (visit Zarus' online software store for an idea of what is possible!) an do so at a reasonable price they'll have no problem at all getting customers.
To this end the recent moves by some Linux vendors seem prophetic. Lindows with their email\webstation device. Lycoris with its Linux Tablet device. Both are baby steps towards a profitable future. Shaky and somewhat uncertain, but as the time goes on we'll be seeing more and more moves like these. Vendors will be providing specific hardware with which to run their Linux distros and open-source software, us better performing computing devices and the companies themselves will have a more profitable Linux.
- "Future of Linux is Proprietary, Page 1"
- "Future of Linux is Proprietary, Page 2"
