Support Services
With the growing popularity of Linux and BSD,
consulting services are supporting and recommending
them to customers wishing to set up Internet servers.
As mentioned above Compaq is now shipping and supporting
Red Hat Linux-based servers. Compaq may be contracting
with Red Hat for the support.
- LinuxCare
- 1999 startup LinuxCare provides commercial support for Linux,
including 24 x 7 telephone support.
That is, you pay money and get support like (or probably better than)
a commercial software product.
They also plan to maintain a large, free knowledge base
as a way to give something back to the Linux community by
sharing accumulated Linux wisdom with the world.
- Red Hat Software, Inc.
- The Red Hat company is the best known for commercializing
Linux products and services. They provide free and on CDROM
a broadly-known Linux operating system distribution,
sell applications such as the Applixware Office Suite,
offer commercial support services, publish books about Linux.
- Cygnus Systems
- Another example of commercial support for free
software is Cygnus Systems
which provides commercial support for the MIT-based
GNU project. GNU software includes editor environments
and systems development tools such as Emacs,
C and C++ compilers, debuggers, etc.
Next:
The Future