Linux is still kicking as an independent project 30 years in, despite the success of monetizing it. The EEE strategy has been tried by many.
Granted, that’s in no small part because Linus Torvalds keeps driving it. It will be interesting to see how he manages succession in the next few years.
Although, I would argue that what RH is doing is more “monetizing their investment” rather than a EEE strategy. Red Hat has done some wonderful things for the Linux ecosystem, and it absolutely sucks that they are trying to move their work under support contracts when it used to be freely available. But RedHat is not really essential for the Linux enterprise. You can buy robust support for several flavors of Debian, and of course SUSE is still out there kicking it old school.
ActivityPub, as a protocol, is particularly vulnerable to EEE, since a corporation can create their own implementation and still talk to existing instances - allowing them to gradually extend the protocol, without forcing a mass migration to their service from the get go.
With Wikipedia, for example, they would basically have to create a competing site, and users of Wikipedia will not see any content from that site unless they actively go to it.
Edit: BTW, I don’t see this as admitting defeat; if anything, these migrations from service to service over time show that the corporations never win in the long run.
With Wikipedia, for example, they would basically have to create a competing site, and users of Wikipedia will not see any content from that site unless they actively go to it.
The big difference is that the Linux Foundation and Wikipedia are non profit organizations. Companies exist to make money plain and simple. You cannot use a company to improve society, since profit is ultimately the only motive. Even the most altruistic of company owners will die eventually, and profit will become the driver again at some point. Non profits are the only way to maintain humanity advancing projects, since money isn’t the motive.
Linux is still kicking as an independent project 30 years in, despite the success of monetizing it. The EEE strategy has been tried by many.
Granted, that’s in no small part because Linus Torvalds keeps driving it. It will be interesting to see how he manages succession in the next few years.
@RickRussell_CA
They’re trying again with Red Hat. Probably the second biggest implosion in the last few weeks.
@revampeduser @Skyler @dsemy
Although, I would argue that what RH is doing is more “monetizing their investment” rather than a EEE strategy. Red Hat has done some wonderful things for the Linux ecosystem, and it absolutely sucks that they are trying to move their work under support contracts when it used to be freely available. But RedHat is not really essential for the Linux enterprise. You can buy robust support for several flavors of Debian, and of course SUSE is still out there kicking it old school.
Linux is a very unique project in many ways, so I don’t think it’s the best example.
There’s Wikipedia as another example.
We shouldn’t let them make us act like we’ve already lost.
Wikipedia is also a bad example though…
ActivityPub, as a protocol, is particularly vulnerable to EEE, since a corporation can create their own implementation and still talk to existing instances - allowing them to gradually extend the protocol, without forcing a mass migration to their service from the get go.
With Wikipedia, for example, they would basically have to create a competing site, and users of Wikipedia will not see any content from that site unless they actively go to it.
Edit: BTW, I don’t see this as admitting defeat; if anything, these migrations from service to service over time show that the corporations never win in the long run.
So… Wikia, aka Fandom?
Fandom and Wikipedia are both wikis, but they serve a different purpose, they don’t really compete with each other AFAIK.
The big difference is that the Linux Foundation and Wikipedia are non profit organizations. Companies exist to make money plain and simple. You cannot use a company to improve society, since profit is ultimately the only motive. Even the most altruistic of company owners will die eventually, and profit will become the driver again at some point. Non profits are the only way to maintain humanity advancing projects, since money isn’t the motive.
Not that it’s a lot, but I think the success of the Steam Deck is going to positively contribute to Linux, too.