[GUFSC] UserLinux: Repairing the Economic Paradigm of Enterprise Linux

[Rafael R Obelheiro]

[ Estou enviando apenas a primeira secao do artigo para nao gerar muito
  trafego. Espero que isso nao viole o copyright :-)  --rro ]


[http://userlinux.com/white_paper.html]

UserLinux: Repairing the Economic Paradigm of Enterprise Linux
Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>, Perens LLC

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Copyright 2003 Perens LLC. 

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The Problem

Enterprise users have embraced GNU/Linux. But the very aspects that
make Linux desirable, its low cost, Open Source nature, and the way it
gives customers more control over their software, are under attack by
Linux vendors bent on increasing shareholder value. Businesses are
paying more as Linux distributions demand a per-seat cost and service
lock-in for software that they didn't develop and that others support.
Many of the early adopters of Linux are small but profitable
industries with extremely sophisticated needs, and commercial Linux
distributors simply can't afford to pay much attention to them while
larger markets are waiting.

This has hampered the adoption of Linux. For example, a very large
multinational bank recently informed me that they had called off a
10,000-system Linux deployment becuase "Linux is now more expensive
than Windows". An ISP complained that the cost of Enterprise Linux is
greater than the annual profit of one of his servers.

We, the Free Software developers, created this software to empower
everyone, and for everyone to share. But today's Enterprise Linux is a
lock-in play, designed to draw the customer into expensive
subscriptions and single-vendor service. Customers are made to agree
not to pass service bulletins on to others. While this is within the
letter of the licenses that we crafted for our software, it's outside
of their spirit. We have no problem with payment for service, when
service is rendered. But the $1000 per year or greater that many
customers now pay for their Linux systems goes not for service, but
for a brand and the endorsement of a few application providers like
Oracle.

The economics of Open Source work worst for commercial Linux
distributions. They are attempting to generate profit from a product
that they don't own, and to which they can't add much value without
departing from the factors that make Linux desirable. This has forced
even the best of them to depart from the ethos of Open Source with
lock-in plays or pay-per-seat proprietary content. And the worst of
them used to be called Caldera.

[...]