There are probably far more than 300 distributions, but then who cares? If markets consolidate without creating monopoly situations and without harming the product line, who cares?

Are they all vying for the same market, are they all even companies trying to build the marketplace, and do they create incompatible systems? The answer to all three is pretty much "no", with one small qualification.

There are lots of incompatible standards for software packaging, and in some cases configuration, but these are generally non-issues. There are efforts to provide standard base systems for end users, from LSB and freedesktop.org to initiatives coming from business groups themselves like the OSC.

FOSS in general actually hugely mitigates worries about forking by focusing on open standards, so sharing data won't be a problem. Contrast this with some sectors of the proprietary software industry who are still trying to tie up markets with proprietary data formats and protocols.

You should spend more time finding good arguments for your absurd statement that "innovation is [solely] the business of profit motive" and less posting these very silly non-arguments.

***You should spend more time finding good arguments for your absurd statement that "innovation is [solely] the business of profit motive" and less posting these very silly non-arguments.***

With the availability of free (free as in free beer) FOSS ~alternatives~ for virtually all proprietary technologies, please explain why FOSS does not dominate 100% of every market. As I like to call it, FOSS is the revolution you couldn't even give away for free.

I was under the impression people liked choice but you must be right.

Secondly, if you look at people like RedHat who have been dominant for over a decade in the game you will see that they have rejected collaboration with companies like Microsoft. RH is still at the top of their game and have done well against people line Novell, who are collaborating on IP deals but haven't been doing well regardless.

In the last two years Novell was up only .05 % while RedHat is up .67%.

Dude, pull your head out of your arse and smell the flowers. How do you imagine that linux distros or firms can get "squashed" by bigger ones. This simply never going to happen because a great deal of distros are community driven and cannot be "squashed" by any corporate entity, not even one as big as Microsoft, let alone the corporations that controll the big distros such as RedHat, Novel, Canonical, etc, etc.

It may be a mess to you, but it makes sense to me and many others. Each distro is like different product that has a different purpose. Kubuntu and Gentoo are 2 very different distros that appeal to different audiances, for example.

In addition, not every FLOSS company is willing to make deals with microsoft (RedHat, Canonical).

Furthermore I would like to know what made reach this absurd conclusion about the future of FLOSS software, out of curiosity.