Why aren't Linux based products successful?

A discussion broke out regarding Linux based products. There are very limited Linux design houses out there that can integrate a complete solution in to a product, and they are going out of business faster than they are being started up.

Why, though?

Take the most recent Linux hit, the Asus EeePC as an example. Asus employed a Linux design house to do system integration for them. The first stage seems successful, gaining traction in the market. What will happen next?

Because everything would be open source, the design house will have to release all the source code to the public. What may happen next, in nearly all previous cases, would be that the product owner would think that they could use a couple of engineers and maintain the software themselves, and so they terminated the 3rd party contract with the design house.

The design house didn't earn enough money to maintain their operation and went out of business. The product owner did not fund proper engineering resource to the project and their software were unable to improve and grow over time and thus the product failed and dropped out of market after a few months time.

I'm not saying the same thing is happening at the Asus EeePC. It might, though, and if someone from Asus sees this message, do please honor the value of your Linux design house and keep them on the job for as long as the product still rolls out, and remember to pay them generously for making the product actually work.

Linux

I have received quite a lot of queries from friends and customers that they are planning to use Linux in their products and would like my advice.

I have always asked, "Who is your Linux expert?"

"Well, we have a coupe of software engineers who will be taking care of Linux."

"Why Linux? You were using Windows and other systems."

"Well Linux is free, right? It's open source so we think we will be able to sort everything out."

"OK, so these software engineers of yours, do they have experiences on Linux?"

"Well, they can always learn. They are pretty bright guys. By the way, do you have a total solution for this product we're going to make?"

So here goes. At this point, I can already bet all my money that their project will never be a success.

What makes a Linux Engineer?

A hacker. A hacker that started to play with computers in high school and nearly got kicked out of school because he's spent too much time on computers.

You can't learn Linux without the kind of crazy enthusiasm. You can't understand Linux without hanging on the Internet all day searching and browsing key words that won't make sense to anybody else. You can't make a product out of Linux without these kind of crazy hackers!