> The point is it became that _because_ it is open source.
I still disagree. Most companies happily pay for their server OS's and support (Red Hat, SUSE, Oracle, etc), and don't even think about the open source aspects.
Maybe a long time ago it got traction from being open source, but so is all the BSD's and they aren't nearly as prevalent as Linux is. Something else has to be a factor here besides it being open source.
Perhaps you mean it became that way because open source attracted talented developers? Perhaps... although today most contributions to the kernel are from paid developers working for mega corps like Google, Amazon, IBM, etc, who do that as part of their day job.
As an aside, I love and support open source projects, I just don't think it really matters for Linux (at least anymore). Plenty of folks would happily use it if it were closed source and proprietary - it's that good today.
> I still disagree. Most companies happily pay for their server OS's and support (Red Hat, SUSE, Oracle, etc), and don't even think about the open source aspects.
This is only partially correct, IMO. I'd argue that both are happening:
1) Companies are willing to pay
2) People in those companies are thinking about open source aspects
The key is that it's not necessarily the same people. The buyer probably doesn't care about open source, and it's not the sysadmin/developer/etc. that worries (or doesn't worry) about the cost.
Companies pay for open source operating systems because they're running a business and need support when things go wrong.
Sysadmins ask for open source operating systems because they do care about the ecosystem and how open source made Linux what it is today.
There's a reason a former employer of mine that ran a mix of AIX, Red Hat and Windows gradually moved more and more towards standardizing on Linux. The AIX boxes where incredibly difficult to manage because of ancient libraries and lack of access to modern versions of common tools. Lack of tools = sysadmin pain, sysadmin pain = someone pushing leadership to buy a better operating system.
At the end of the day, Linux was just simply better. I think a case can be made that it was better because of the open source ecosystem backing it.
This just tells me that the person "pushing for a better operating system" didn't have the technical chops to compile, link and cleanly package software for AIX she or he needed, so it's a matter of throwing money at the problem and buying an inferior product (GNU/Linux) because of incompetence. Happens very often and predominantly in IT.
Why would you conclude that GNU/Linux is the inferior product here? The year was 2009, and the Linux ecosystem was in a very different place.
Technical chops and "the OS has such a poor set of build tools we need a specialist" are two very different things. If you follow this line of reasoning too far, it quickly descends into absurdity: "Buying an operating system just tells me the person didn't have the technical chops to write their own" is something that I'm fairly certain neither of would use as an argument.
If a product is "superior" but is so difficult to use that people abandon it, was it ever superior to begin with?
I still disagree. Most companies happily pay for their server OS's and support (Red Hat, SUSE, Oracle, etc), and don't even think about the open source aspects.
Maybe a long time ago it got traction from being open source, but so is all the BSD's and they aren't nearly as prevalent as Linux is. Something else has to be a factor here besides it being open source.
Perhaps you mean it became that way because open source attracted talented developers? Perhaps... although today most contributions to the kernel are from paid developers working for mega corps like Google, Amazon, IBM, etc, who do that as part of their day job.
As an aside, I love and support open source projects, I just don't think it really matters for Linux (at least anymore). Plenty of folks would happily use it if it were closed source and proprietary - it's that good today.