Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

The article "Only Two Linux Companies Really Matter" on ZDNet is far from reality. The author claims only RedHat and Caldera "matter" and "dominate" everyone else.

While in software usage this is somewhat accurate in the states, it is not the case worldwide. It also overlooks other Linux companies that do not sell distros (VA, PenguinComputing, SGI, and many more) and it is not always usage numbers that "matter." Many Linux vendors contribute to the overall good and code and all of them matter to Linux as a whole (all that make contributions not the vaporware folks like LinuxOne.)

The open source movement relies on many contributors and diversity, there are in fact many that matter.

The author also says consolidation is on the horizon because vendors dont want to support multiple varieties of Linux. That makes sense if the distributions are different enough to cause issues, but the key to overcoming this is to develop applications and device drivers that are not distro dependent. Smart app and harware vendors are doing this and many products will run on any version of Linux you prefer.

The other point to consider in the corporate market is that Linux is often employed customized to a specific purpose and deployed far from its "out of the box" configuration. Companies need to make smart decisions about how to use Linux and employ people who can do so, it is not fire and forget desktop material at this point and may never be (well, on that neither is Windows if you ask me, but at least Linux doesnt pretend to be.)

While RedHat is the software Linux beast, it is not the only thing going or the only thing that matters. Key affiliations with IBM, Dell and others will continue to boost RedHat market share, but even RedHat relies on open source remaining open to multiple players and Linux itself considers many other possibilities in the scope of what "matters."   Only 2 Linux Companies Matter: ZDNet