On Sun, 29 May 2016 08:20:01 +0200
Edward Bartolo <edbarx@???> wrote:

> Follow the money to understand why all this is happening. More users
> mean more customers, more customers mean more support, and finally
> more support means more gain.

I totally agree we should follow the money. Too many Free Software
people believe the Free Software ecosystem is or should be a
meritocracy: It is not and never can be.

I see the money trail more like the following:

Redhat makes money on training and support on Free Software, because
it's impractical to make money selling the software itself. The more
complicated the Free Software they give away, the more money they'll
make on training and support. Although some might label this a
conspiracy theory, let's hear it right from the lips of the former
Redhat CEO:

http://asay.blogspot.ru/2006/10/interview-with-red-hat-cto-brian.html

Search for the first use of the word "complexity" on the page:

===================================================================
Red Hat's model works because of the complexity of the technology we
work with. An operating platform has a lot of moving parts, and
customers are willing to pay to be insulated from that complexity.
===================================================================

The former CEO's words completely illuminate the money trail. The more
complex the software, the more Redhat gets paid.

But they can't just complexify Redhat, because then people will use the
simpler Linuxes. They must complexify the Linux used by *all* of us.
They must make that complexity so ingrained, so woven in, that it can't
(easily) be removed or substituted. And they must make sure all major
distros use it. Achieving the latter was just a matter of a
multimillion dollar marketing campaign, aimed first at the "upstreams",
and then later the major distros. This, combined with the fact that
back in the days they were taking over, systemd was a lot less
entangled, made it doable.

Oh, and they brilliantly used intergenerational division and age
discrimination to promote systemd. Before systemd, I was a pretty smart
guy whose tech chops were cut from years of electronic repair, computer
programming, developing a popular web presence, and gaining the
reputation as one of the world's premier authorities on process based
troubleshooting. After systemd, I was a "neckbeard" "afraid of change",
longing for the "simple life," the implication being that I should step
aside and make room for the new crew. Nice!

But how did they achieve the complexity? This was brilliant. My
speculation is that Redhat looked all over the Free Software world for
a psyco savant who was good at writing overly complex software and
making it work. This savant would also need to be able to brag about
the software, because marketing would be everything. One look at
Lennart Poettering, and his PulseAudio and fledgling systemd software,
and they knew they had to have this guy: He was their key to the
complexification of Linux. They hired him, gave him a team, gave him
money, and most likely gave him encouragement to go as complex and
entangled as he wanted. This was a match made in heaven: The psycho
savant gets paid big money to do his hobby of writing stupidly complex
software, money to travel the world bragging about it. And Red Hat gets
complexity almost impossible to remove, once they become the "upstream"
on the formerly independent but now systemd component software.

Maybe the Debianistas think this is about enabling ignorant users, but
my opinion is that to the guys who spread this plague upon us, the guys
who paid PoetterPuppet, this is about nothing but complexifying Linux
to get more training and support work.

SteveT

Steve Litt
May 2016 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21