Re: RedHat = MS-Linux???
On 28 Mar 1999, Guido A.J. Stevens wrote:
> http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-03/young.html
Yes, that's the one. Of note are the following:
--Begin quote
Ketchup is nothing more than flavored tomato paste. Something that looks
and tastes a lot like Heinz Ketchup can be made in your kitchen sink
without so much as bending a copyright rule. It is effectively all freely
redistributable objects: tomatoes, vinegar, salt and spices. So why don't
we, as consumers, make ketchup in our kitchen sink, and how does Heinz
have 80% of the ketchup market?
We don't make ketchup because it is cheaper and much more convenient to
buy ketchup from Heinz, Hunts, or Del Monte than it is to make it. But
convenience is only part of the story. Convenience alone would suggest
that Heinz, Hunts, and Del Monte share the market equally because they
offer roughly equivalent convenience. In fact, Heinz owns 80% of the
market.
Heinz owns 80% of the market not because Heinz tastes better. If you go to
the Third World and find 100 people who have never tasted ketchup before,
you find out two things: one is that people don't actually like tomato
ketchup, the other is that they dislike all ketchups equally.
Heinz has 80% of the ketchup market because they have been able to define
the taste of ketchup in the mind of ketchup consumers. Now the Heinz
Ketchup brand is so effective that as consumers we think that ketchup that
will not come out of the bottle is somehow better than ketchup that pours
easily!
--End quote
What this means is that Red Hat is not interested in making a GOOD Linux
so much as it is interested in making THE Linux. Technical improvements at
this point are secondary to marketing efforts to gain market share. Any
technical change is going to have to pass the "How does this increase our
market share" test. Once they have reached their market share goal, they
can then focus on technical improvements ... and if that can be done with
unpaid internet labor, so much the better.
George Bonser
Support The THING -- http://shorelink.com/~grep/THING.html
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