dale@mkseast.uucp (Dale Gass) writes:
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> I would really love to see Linux and/or BSD/386 help promote Unix as the
> operating system of choice.

Agreed.

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> In order for it to become anything other than a toy, you're gonna
> need commercial applications.

Probably true, if you defined "toy" as "not a commercial success".
Linux is not toy even now, for the people who use it seriously.

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> The inherent performance, stability, networking, flexibility, cost,
> etc., of Linux would make commercial operating systems second
> choices.

Technical excellence has nothing to do with it.  Marketing or pure
luck is what decides.

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> While it might not have been the original intent, I certainly don't see 
> that as a harmful side effect; I certainly don't see it as threatening.

It might be threatening, actually, since if Linux were to become the
heir of MS-DOS, it would make it much, much more difficult to develop
it further: a few dozen million users tend to dislike if they have to
upgrade their whole system every few weeks.

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> It sounds like you want to keep Linux for yourself (i.e. the Unix
> hacker) rather than for the masses.

No.  I want to keep Linux free.

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> So technically, there's no problem; let's just hope there's not a prevailing
> anti-commercial-products attitude among Linux users.

I don't have anything against people doing commercial versions of
Linux (as long as they stay within the bounds of the GPL, of course).
Trying to make it the primary goal of everyone concerned with Linux is
not that exiting, though.

I think that some of the people who wish to make Linux a commercial
success should start working on that.  The matter of copyrights
certainly has been discussed to death.  The copyrights are not the
problem.  The problem is being able to afford ads in all major PC
magazines, get favorable reviews in the same magazines, provide
guaranteed support, and create a rock-solid, easy-to-install product,
and the zillion exciting applications for it, roughly in that order.

--
Lars.Wirzenius@helsinki.fi  (finger wirzeniu@klaava.helsinki.fi)
   MS-DOS, you can't live with it, you can live without it.