Linked by David Adams on Tue 4th Dec 2007 19:44 UTC
An enterprise Linux "expert" answers the question: "How can an open source software company like Red Hat stay in business if CentOS - and Red Hat itself - give their code away for free?" 
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Member since:
2006-12-28
I agree with your assessment of IBM's mainframe business strategy, and punch card tabulators before that, but to equate IBM with RedHat is just not a valid comparison.
Where as IBM locked you in using hardware, RedHat does not even sell hardware. Where IBM locked you in using proprietary protocols and APIs, RedHat offers source code for all their products and open standard protocols.
Clearly, your comparison of the two companies is flawed.
As for lock-ins, don't even get me started on Redmond! ;-)