Commercial linux software

[stork]

I noticed in an earlier thread about best practices for C string
handling that one developer claimed to have sold 60,000 copies of his
app. That's a pretty good deal actually. My question is, how much
commercial stuff is out there for Linux? I don't want this to turn
into a religious argument about the GPL and open vs closed, etc, but,
I'm just curious, is there a commercial Linux software market and what
web sites are considered good ones to support it?

[phil-new...@ipal.net]

Coomercial software applications that run on Linux are certainly viable.
I don't think there is a GPL issue as long as the commercial application
is simply autonomous from any GPL programs involved. LGPL covers some
cases where there might be issues when linking programs dynamically that
still need a few stub components linked it statically to support it.

I think the larger issue is support in the form of willingness to purchase
such software by a public that wants to use Linux.

Still, there can be some issues with a few applications that need or want
to add enhancements to the kernel itself, or certain other parts of the
system. IMHO, a binary module inserted into the kernel at run time would
not be affected by the kernel GPL status. OTOH, I won't allow by systems
to run such modules. I want a clear boundary between programs when I am
getting support from them from entirely different sources (the appication
provider would not be selling me kernel support as part of the package as
I don't want it that way ... but that might be fine for some customers).

When an application revolves around specific hardware that is part of the
whole package, then that gets complicated. I'd prefer they provide source
for the driver part that goes into the kernel _and_ make it GPL (so in
theory it could be included in the kernel source tree). Then the program
itself can be in binary (no root access, access to the device must be by
specific ownership), and any intellectual property the vendor wanst to
keep out of public hands be inside that program or inside that hardware,
but not in the kernel driver.

Another issue is commercial software that is insufficiently unique that it
would have as "competition" a free open source alternative. The more that
such "competition" emerges in a viable way, the less attractive it is for
software developers to port to Linux. But this has to be weighed in terms
of the product, too. Does MySQL really threaten Oracle enough to make the
latter want to avoid Linux? I doubt it. Highly specialized and very complex
applications, however, should be rather safe.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[John Hasler]

Phil Howard writes:
> Does MySQL really threaten Oracle enough to make the latter want to avoid
> Linux? I doubt it.

So do I, particularly because Oracle is available for Linux (So is DB2).

--
John Hasler
jo...@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

[Kasper Dupont]

John Hasler wrote:
>
> Phil Howard writes:
> > Does MySQL really threaten Oracle enough to make the latter want to avoid
> > Linux? I doubt it.
>
> So do I, particularly because Oracle is available for Linux (So is DB2).

Are there some publicly available numbers about the number
of users of those databases? I'm curious to whether those
60.000 mentioned is really a significant number.

--
Kasper Dupont
Note to self: Don't try to allocate
256000 pages with GFP_KERNEL on x86.

[stork]

Well, on an interesting side, I went off looking to see if there were
any of the normal shareware registration sites that would work with
Linux. Turns out, good old SWREG actually does:

They write:

"Yes, you can definitely use SWREG for that. All you need do is create
an account on SWREG at no cost, add your products, and within minutes
you or your customers will be selling. Any changes or additions made
will become live immediately. You send your customers to us, we tell
you how to do this, we make the sale, then on the 15th of the following
month we pay you less our discount. After we get to know you a while
after at least 3 months you can apply to be paid weekly, one week in
arrears. We operate like a no-frills airline. We give you a good low
price for what you really need but charge for all extras.

We accept more forms of payment than most similar services. We are easy
to order from: We accept Mastercard, Eurocard, VISA, Delta, JCB,
Switch, Solo, Discover, American Express, Diner's Club, UK cheque, US
check, Postcheque, International Money Order, Bank wire and PayPal.

All pages display guideline prices in the currency of choice that the
customer selects each time he enters the store. The prices shown in
USD, GBP or Euro are the exact prices that will appear on the
customer's credit card statement except Diners, Switch or Solo that all
calculate in GBP

Thank you,

Jessy-SWREG"

[James McIninch]

Well, I work for a very large biotech company and we spend over a million
dollars a year on commercial Linux software of various sorts and we're
clearly not alone in that respect. We've got apps that run instruments,
statistical software, various application server packages, lab information
management systems, image processing tools, microarray analysis tools, etc.

I rather suspect you'd find a similar situation in any high-tech or science
oriented environment.

stork wrote:

--
Remove '.nospam' from e-mail address to reply by e-mail

[Jeffrey Schwab]

> stork wrote:
>
>>I noticed in an earlier thread about best practices for C string
>>handling that one developer claimed to have sold 60,000 copies of his
>>app. That's a pretty good deal actually. My question is, how much
>>commercial stuff is out there for Linux? I don't want this to turn
>>into a religious argument about the GPL and open vs closed, etc, but,
>>I'm just curious, is there a commercial Linux software market and what
>>web sites are considered good ones to support it?

James McIninch wrote:
> Well, I work for a very large biotech company and we spend over a
> million dollars a year on commercial Linux software of various sorts
> and we're clearly not alone in that respect. We've got apps that run
> instruments, statistical software, various application server
> packages, lab information management systems, image processing tools,
> microarray analysis tools, etc.
>
> I rather suspect you'd find a similar situation in any high-tech or
> science oriented environment.

Right you are. I work in the high-end microprocessor design industry,
and many of the EDA (that's semiconductor for "CAD") tools are actually
developed on Linux. The platform of choice used to be Solaris, until
about two or three years ago.