Quote Originally Posted by FireXtol View Post

You asked, "Why would banks use Linux?" The answer to that is simple, because it's more secure than Windows. Banks, or other corporations, can know exactly what code is running on every single machine.
Sure they could, but the people making the decisions don't know. Are you expecting that the people who make the purchasing decisions sit down and go through the code in the Linux kernel to be certain that there is nothing malicious in there? What would that be, a hundred lines of code? Two hundred? In all seriousness, it strains credulity to think that just because people CAN do something smart they will. Such faith makes me doubt that you have reached twenty, yet, let alone your dotage. A more accurate assesment is that if somebody can cut a corner, they will.

Technically speaking, OSS leaves institutions open to fraud. If somebody can re-write some code and convince the bank to use the code, then the door is wide open to clever thieves (though the cleverest ones are at the head of the table, in that industry). The people deciding which software to run are certainly not spending their time combing through the code assuring that no back doors, trojan horses, or other gimmicks are seeded into the distro they are using. Therefore, they have two options: Go with a distro backed by a large company (RedHat was charging for their Linux distro at one point, though I don't know if they are now), or put their faith in a person. With proprietary software, such a thing....can also happen. So what's a bank to do? Hire the right people, audit, and retire before the excrement hits the fan.
Code:
You have absolutely no real idea what could be running in proprietary/closed source code.
Nor do you in OSS unless you wrote it yourself. In fact, the only thing you can be fairly confident about is that there were LOTS of hands stirring the kettle that produced the distro you are using. Were all of those hands clean?
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You're so not with it, Mr Funky! You know whom make or break the next technology? Developers, plain and simple. How do you miss that? [/QUOTE]

Since you're going to be vaguely insulting to Mr. F. D. Esq. II, I would suggest that the answer is: By not being an idiot. After all, there are thousands of developers. A few of them make blockbuster apps. The rest make apps that don't turn a profit. Some of us don't make commercial software, so we don't really expect to make a profit, but for those who DO make commercial software, it is not the case that "If you build it they will come!" In fact, to a large extent, if you write it, you won't make much money. I would expect failures to greatly outnumber profitable success. Therefore, it is not the developers who drive the system, but the buyers. The public has routinely turned its back on technically superior forms in favor of other things for no discernible reason. Most of the key examples have been in hardware, but there are plenty in software, too.

You can make the most brilliant program that ever was, and it can totally flop because people are capricious as an aggregate. They drive the market. MySpace was HOT! Now it's a has been, while Facebook, only one of several such offerings, is the in thing. The history of technology is not a story of better replacing current, but only of new replacing current. Whether it is better is irrelevant, and no developer can be certain whether their 'next big thing' will be a hit or a flop.

This thread is really starting to circlejerk....
Dude, you started it. You wanted peoples opinion and you got them. Unfortunately, it was apparently not the opinion you wanted, as you have argued with everybody who has posted (since everybody who has posted has disagreed with your premise). Guess what: The majority of respondents don't see the future of Linux as shining as brightly as you do. You can dismiss us all as ignorant bozos, or you can learn something. We represent different facets of geekdom across the world. Each has a different perspective based on the path their individual lives have taken them. The sum of all these views, including yours, is a fair indicator. You just happen to hold a minority position.

And with that, I will depart onto a path of my own. I'll be back in a month. Enjoy.