__/ [ TheLetterK ] on Monday 15 May 2006 01:00 \__
> On Sun, 14 May 2006 13:10:58 -0700, Paul Welsh wrote:
>
>> There are several publicly quoted companies producing a Linux distro.
>> I guess Red Hat is the most widely known of them. The others I can
>> think of are Mandriva and Novell, though of course SUSE is only a small
>> part of Novell's product offerings and, presumably, revenue stream.
>>
>> In the last year I see Red Hat's share price is up by around 140%,
>> Novell's is up 35% and Mandriva's is down 40%.
They fluctuate quite wildly and I would never count on them. I believe
that my father held Novell when it hovered around $4 and he only lost
money on it. Ironically, Intel and Microsoft are where he made a fortune
before the bubble went 'ka-boom'.
>> So it seems that Red Hat is the rising star. If you had some money to
>> invest in one of these companies for the long term (10 years plus)
>> which would it be?
>
> I wouldn't. Though if I had some excess money, I'd probably donate to
> Debian.
I'd go with K on that one. I don't believe that business-type
distributions will necessarily rise above the more community-based ones.
They may be doing fine in terms of contracts, but many Novell top
executives (three, I believe) left the company to join smaller (thus
cheaper, but nonetheless prestigious) Linux vendors/incubators.
>> Does anyone know whether Ubuntu intends going public
They proclaimed some intent to have a business-targetted distribution.
Mark Shuttleworth has got a whole foundation/network going around Ubuntu,
so who can tell? If you asked me, I'd say it's likely. And, mind you, they
have an excellent and versatile distribution with a healthy community.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
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