> I'm very interested in the future of Linux as commercial OS, but > I have a question: > > Linux is great thanks to over 1000 programmers who hard worked on > it in their free time. It was a passion, an hobby. > For sure, the best valuable passion or hobby I ever seen, but I ask: > who can say me that I can be sure that this programmers will continue > their great job?
This is a common question about Open Source. The point is that should a programmer decide to quit, then there are plenty who can take their place. >I know that there are a lot of programmers, but > the problem is that, IF LINUX would reach (and I hope) a BIG MARKET > SHARE, > a lot of people will buy it and use it. How can this programmers to > support such a market ?? There are a lot of us. As OS grows, so the number of OS programmers grow - it's pretty much self-continuing. > They are not paid (economically) from their job. They're Linux system > programmers > in their free time. I know they're paid from their first job (most of > them > are > programmers), but imagine that Linux would gain a lot of market. > How can I put my firm in the hands of their free time ??? Because Open Source works - if theres an important bug in a program, and it's author can't or doesn't have the time to fix, then someone, or several people will write a patch. > And if they don't have anymore free time, what can we do?? As I said above, I think this is highly unlikely. Matthew -- Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo Steward of the Cambridge Tolkien Society Selwyn College Computer Support http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/8841/ http://www.cam.ac.uk/CambUniv/Societies/tolkien/ http://pick.sel.cam.ac.uk/
