At LinuxWorld, Red Hat managed to merge two buzzwords, unveiling the Red Hat Linux Portal. The site will offer such features as the Linux Index, offering links to distributors, application vendors, third-party support organizations and educational institutions. Unquestionably, it has already had a big impact in price-sensitive venues such as college campuses, where the ability to fiddle with an OS' source code is a practically irresistible invitation. Likewise, Linux is gaining ground among Internet service providers, which bring a Yankee ingenuity to the routine problems of building bulletproof mail, news and firewall servers. Don't bet on it.
Commercial firms are risk-averse by nature.
They are more than willing to pay an OS license for the right to sue somebody if things go wrong. I'm thinking of single-purpose, inexpensive network devices for the home, parking lot or dentist's office.