SuSE lays off much of its US staff

[TWGuilderson at cvs.com (Guilderson, Tom W.)]

Making money on a Linux distribution is very difficult. You can buy a cd, or
download the image and create your own and give them to your friends, or
just do a network install.  the money in Linux will be made by selling
hardware, support/professional services, and software such as Oracle RDBMS
etc.  Since RedHat has over 50% of the market and they have the
relationships with the ISV's, that is a good reason to look at RedHat based
systems. But, you can get a RedHat based system from any of the hardware
vendors. I think that the distribution companies will have to look at their
business plans and realize that revenue will not come from selling Linux,
but from the support and services that they can offer to the customer. Why
pay for something that is free for redistributino by any one? That is what
makes the GPL so great and also why some people don't like it.

so when you build your application, and it relies on xyz compnaies whiz bang
software, and of by the way mr customer we only support ABC distro - you go
with ABC becuase in the end when you build that solution, the code base for
Linux is the same. 

The other issue is if you are a software vendor and have to choose which
distro(s) to build and test on to certify your product for the customer;
there are not too many ISV's that have time and resources to test every
aspect of their product on all 150+ Linux distros curently available. Pick
the 1 or 2 market leaders being used by your target customers, and leave it
at that.

<snip>That is why LSB (Linux Standards Base) is a must if Linux is to
survive in the long run. </snip>

Build and test to the standard base, and the distro no longer matters. The
differentiator between the distros then truly becomes there ability to
execute providing the expected level of service to customers paying for
support and services.

A BIG problem is that the distro with the number one market share worldwide
does not appear to be strongly supporting and participating in those
efforts. This is a shame and I hope that they change this stance, and I hope
that they see this post.

--
Tom Guilderson
Applied Technology Team
CVS Pharmacy
401-770-3913
mailto:TWGuilderson at cvs.com
http://www.cvs.com 

NB: The views expressed in this message do not necessarily reflect those of
my employer

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