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Why Linux Is Wealthier Than Microsoft

Linus Torvalds can muster more creativity from his far-flung rank and file than
Bill Gates can from his corporate monolith
Sometimes I suspect Bill Gates doesn\'t sleep so well at night. Not out of any
guilt over his billions or the alleged mediocrity of his product. No, I wonder
whether he might actually worry about the competition. Not Apple (though that
iPod MP3 player is a killer toy, and I\'m cheerfully typing these words on an
Apple (AAPL ) PowerBook G4). No, I\'ll bet Linux and its creator, Linus
Torvalds, cross Gates\'s mind when he\'s looking up at the ceiling late at
night.


NOVEMBER 19, 2003 • Editions: N. America | Europe | Asia | Edition
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GUEST COMMENTARY
By Russ Roberts

Why Linux Is Wealthier Than Microsoft
Linus Torvalds can muster more creativity from his far-flung rank and file than
Bill Gates can from his corporate monolith


Sometimes I suspect Bill Gates doesn\'t sleep so well at night. Not out of any
guilt over his billions or the alleged mediocrity of his product. No, I wonder
whether he might actually worry about the competition. Not Apple (though that
iPod MP3 player is a killer toy, and I\'m cheerfully typing these words on an
Apple (AAPL ) PowerBook G4). No, I\'ll bet Linux and its creator, Linus
Torvalds, cross Gates\'s mind when he\'s looking up at the ceiling late at
night.


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On the surface, Linus vs. Bill seems to be the ultimate David vs. Goliath
contest. It appears to pit the man who cheerfully gives away his code against
the guy who ruthlessly seeks every last penny for it. You\'d expect Gates would
squash Torvalds. Yet they have more in common than you might think. And the
final score in their high-stakes rivalry could end up surprisingly close.

MONEY VS. ALTRUISM. For starters, the two face a similar challenge. Even their
big brains are puny compared to the wisdom and knowledge spread throughout their
organizations. In Gates\'s case, it\'s a huge, publicly held company. In
Torvalds\' case, it\'s a loosely connected but increasingly powerful network of
software developers. Both men must find ways to motivate people to work together
so knowledge can spread and have maximum impact on improving software quality.

Microsoft (MSFT ) uses money to motivate. And no doubt about it, that\'s a
powerful incentive. But others exist. The community of Linux users and
developers is held together by pride and the thrill of working toward a common
goal of a universal, free (or at least relatively inexpensive), elegant,
bug-free or bug-resistant alternative to Windows, the world\'s dominant computer
operating system.

Can the volunteers who work on improving Linux outperform employees dreaming of
stock options? That\'s not to say Microsoft employees are motivated only by
money. They, too, take pride in their work. Disdaining monetary incentives
entirely would seem to cripple Linux and reduce it to a charitable organization.
But charities work wonders. They can build a religious community or raise a barn
or build a habitat for a neighbor.

Look at the progress Gates\'s personal foundation is making against malaria.
Honda (HMC ), I\'m sure, would trounce the United Way\'s attempts to design and
build a car. But I wouldn\'t necessarily expect Honda to do a good job at
running a school for the blind. With some causes, passion and pride can
outperform money.

GEEK FERVOR. Designing software may be such a cause. A lot of people are
passionate about creating an alternative to Windows. In some cases, the desire
to see Windows\' dominant position threatened is its own passion. As a
21-year-old living at home, Torvalds created Linux in 1991 in Finland. He
offered it for free to the world and made the source code available to anyone
who wanted to alter it -- as long as the tinkerer was willing to make the new
additions available to the public as well. The result is a product embraced with
religious fervor by the geek community and even penetrating the mainstream,
running servers and other hardware.

Yet the rivalry is defined by more than motivation and incentives. Does Torvalds
or Gates have more resources at his disposal? Gates, right? But that answer
assumes that money is the most important asset. Even if money trumps idealism as
a motivator, Torvalds has a bigger team -- the millions who use Linux and
continue to tinker with it. Potentially, he has more brainpower on his team.

Torvalds has another advantage. His organization is less organized than
Microsoft. It\'s really a disorganization. At Microsoft, Gates is the head
honcho. Torvalds is just Linux\' gatekeeper. He\'s not really in control --
he\'s called the project leader, the guru. That may appear to be a disadvantage.
But remember the problem that every organization\'s leader faces: The team\'s
smartest member, even if he or she is nominally in control, is vastly more
ignorant than the entire network of people who compose the organization.

CREATIVE CHAOS. Being disorganized can actually leverage that knowledge more
effectively than a command-and-control hierarchy. Innovation must rely on
creativity generated by the mass of folks underneath. In a dynamic system, trial
and error is a powerful force for change. A bottom-up system with a gatekeeper
can be more innovative than the hierarchical system over which Gates reigns. It
can generate a lot more trials, and a good gatekeeper can throw out the errors.

You would think being the head honcho allows Gates to plan. But Torvalds
rightfully revels in not planning. He\'s counting on the marketplace\'s judgment
of Linux and the wisdom of his disorganized organization as a better strategy.
He may be right. And while Torvalds and Linux have recently faced legal issues
about whether Linux might have some proprietary code embedded in it, that
distraction is dwarfed by the time and energy Gates has devoted to battling the
U.S. Justice Dept. That antitrust case clearly diverted resources away from
innovation and making sure his organization was operating at top efficiency.

While Torvalds is a threat to Gates, Gates seems to be little or no threat to
Torvalds. To hear Torvalds talk about it, he\'s having fun as Linux\' guardian.
His challenge is merely that of being an effective shepherd to a vast flock of
very creative, un-sheeplike sheep. Regardless of the marketplace\'s final
judgment, Torvalds probably sleeps a lot more soundly than Gates.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2003/tc20031119_9737.htm

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