Initially, the article talks about Red Hat making an acquisition. Some point to the fact that the ability of an Open Source company is in a postion to make a multi-million dollar acquistion as a huge accomplishment for the Open Source community. However, if the author is correct, there is little hope for GNU/Linux companies to survive in the for-profit arena; the author speaks of “logical” acquisitions of Novell or Red Hat by Sun, IBM, or Oracle as a means of survival. So what does this say about GNU/Linux or Open Source software in general? The “Big Dogs”, so to speak, are still the proprietary, Closed Source companies. If the author is indeed correct, then GNU/Linux is nothing more than a deployment vehicle for the proprietary goods of the aforementioned companies; buy from IBM, get everything you need (a certified GNU/Linux desktop is just one small piece).

Secondly, what does this mean for Ubuntu’s push into the corporate market? Dapper has been delayed to work out a few wrinkles, but the thrust of this article is that having a slick, easy to use desktop is not enough. Corporate solutions are quickly taking the form of “vertical monopolies”, with each company providing every piece to the puzzle. Mark Shuttleworth is investing a lot of time and money into a tiny piece of the puzzle; clearly not the direction the article states the corporate solutions are headed. At best, I suppose, Ubuntu can only hope to be acquired by another company with far reaching goals, because it is the big picture that produces profit; at least the author would have us believe as much.

It is no wonder why Bruce Perens recently said in a “Linux Format” interview that, “I don’ believe that Linux distributions are a natural fit in for-profit enterprise.”