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Apple and Windows Will Force Linux Underground 554

eastbayted writes "Tom Yager at InfoWorld predicts: 'At the end of the decade, we'll find that Apple UNIX has overtaken commercial Linux as the second most popular general client and server computing platform behind Windows.' That's not a gloom-and-doom omen for the ever-popular Linux kernel, though, he stresses. While Apple and Microsoft will grapple for dominance of client and server spaces, Linux will be 'the de facto choice for embedded solutions.' And by 'embedded,' Yager means 'specialized.' With a push of a button and a flip of switch, he predicts, you'll be able to create a configured database and a mated J2EE server — all thanks to Linux."
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Apple and Windows Will Force Linux Underground

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  • Not really (Score:5, Funny)

    by 2.7182 ( 819680 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:27AM (#16006757)
    Linux was designed for the cheapskate, to download as much free porn as possible. Nothing stops porn, and the need for people to have it for free. Not to mention free software - the two are the yin and yang of the internet.
    • Re:Not really (Score:4, Insightful)

      by neonprimetime ( 528653 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:33AM (#16006802)
      How again was this modded insightful? I could think of a few other things to call it, but insightful wasn't one of them.
    • by eln ( 21727 ) * on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:47AM (#16006917)
      With the fact that virtually all advances in the computing world have been either inspired by or utilized for the distribution of pornography, this could truly redefine the "embedded" market.
    • by MECC ( 8478 ) *
      Absolutely - nobody uses windows for pron anymore.

  • Embedded. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HugePedlar ( 900427 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:28AM (#16006769) Homepage
    Well, whatever may or may not happen on the desktop, I sure would rather see Linux dominating the embedded market than Windows or Apple. The whole concept of embedded Windows seems ugly to me - like dressing up a nightclub bouncer in a pixie costume.
    • by jimicus ( 737525 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:46AM (#16006913)
      like dressing up a nightclub bouncer in a pixie costume.

      This actually sounds like quite a good idea to me.
    • Re:Embedded. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GundamFan ( 848341 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:53AM (#16006972)
      Bank of America ATMs didn't lock up... they ran out of money or had hardware falures but they never used to lock up.

      Now they run on Windows and they do... the touch screen is (seemingly) required for operation and they stop working all the time.

      IF my life depended on Windows... really depended on it... I'd be long dead by now.
    • It sounds as if the author is trying to invent a reason why free software won't be free. If Linux is relegated to the embedded market, it's not really free anymore. Oh sure, you can download the open source part, but if you don't have the hardware or the bundled commercial app, it won't do much for you. He doesbn't like the idea of free software, probably feels too damn commie to him, so he invents a fantasy in which it is relegated to a role where it isn't free, and the fat happy capitalists get to make mo
    • Re:Embedded. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Zephyr14z ( 907494 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @12:21PM (#16008213)
      Embedded windows is ugly. I used to work a cashier job, and when I started, all of the registers had some variation of embedded linux. Eventually the touch screens started to die, so the registers were replaced with new, "better" ones. These ran XP embedded, and were nothing but trouble. Wouldn't print reciepts right, wouldn't take credit cards half the time, and just froze at least a few times a day.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:29AM (#16006776)
    OSX is a vendor lock-in solution, and not many people like that.
    OSX is substantially slower on most benchmarks than Linux and Windows.

    OSX isn't a serious solution.

    -bms20
    • by fistfullast33l ( 819270 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:42AM (#16006879) Homepage Journal
      Not to mention that you have a hardware lock-in because Apple probably won't support you if you use hardware other than what they sell. Add to that the expense of purchasing an Apple versus a Dell server and I think this is a gigantic laugh of an article. Plus, now that Apple is using Intel hardware, the whole maintence argument that Apple parts last longer is out the window.

      If you want to talk about Apple on the desktop versus Linux then I'd listen to the argument, but in the server world you can't compete. I really just wanted to respond to this article with a gigantic Simpson-esque "HA HA".
      • by Whiney Mac Fanboy ( 963289 ) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:08AM (#16007068) Homepage Journal
        I really just wanted to respond to this article with a gigantic Simpson-esque "HA HA".

        Indeed - it's ridiculous. You notice the weasel way they have to qualify things as well:

        By mid-2008, Apple's sales of systems with factory-installed Apple UNIX will exceed the total combined sales of x86 systems factory-shipped with commercial Linux.

        That could mean that 90% of x86 systems will be bare bones by 2008, as OEMs will choose their own version of linux to install ;-)
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by 10Ghz ( 453478 )
        "Plus, now that Apple is using Intel hardware, the whole maintence argument that Apple parts last longer is out the window."

        Are you saying that Apple-products lasted long because they used PowerPC? Now that they use Intel, they are more likely to break?
      • by Prof.Phreak ( 584152 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:12AM (#16007099) Homepage
        ...but but but... they're so cute. The server may not be fast (nor cheap)---in fact, it may not even work at all---but it will be the cutest server in the whole datacenter (the one and only reason why people like Apple).
      • by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:16AM (#16007133)
        Not to mention that you have a hardware lock-in because Apple probably won't support you if you use hardware other than what they sell.

        There's no "probably" to it. Why would Apple support something they didn't sell? They don't qualify MacOS X to run on anything but their own hardware. This is not to desparage Apple - it is their business model.

        Oh, you do realize that the entire article is just a troll to get Mac fans and Linux fans angry at each other, right? There is no factual basis for this arguments presented in the article at all.
    • by Jeppe Salvesen ( 101622 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:50AM (#16006950)
      Vendor lock-in is something I'm willing to live with as long as the alternatives are insufficient - and there is an alternative. I'd like the choice to be between OSX and Linux. I quite like my MacBook. It's easy to use, it looks good, it performs well for its price. While I do Linux development at work, I like to have an enjoyable experience at home.

      Slower than Linux or Windows? I'd like to see those numbers, please!

      As for serious, by what standard? I'd readily admit I would not recommend running OSX on servers unless OSX adds geniune value (as it might in a Mac-based business).

      In my world, Linux is best for backend. OSX is best for front-end. (while Windows is probably best at the standard business desktop)
      • by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:00AM (#16007011)
        "Slower than Linux or Windows? I'd like to see those numbers, please!"

        MacOS X has infamously bad threading, which makes it an absolute dog for many important server apps. Anandtech, what I regard as one of the most trustworthy hardware sites on the Internet, has an article outlining the problems:
        http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p =1 [anandtech.com]

        Unless MacOS X for Intel has gotten miraculous improvements in this area, and I'm not aware it has, you'd be an absolute fool to use MacOS X for any server apps requiring high performance threading.

        -Erwos
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by forand ( 530402 )
          While the article you point to may, in the end be true, there is at least one very significant problem with they did: used gcc to compile the test code. As far as I know there are problems with gcc and vectorized code, a fact that is even mentioned in the article you linked to but not further discussed. If that is the case then what the g5 was designed to do and run as was not being properly tested.

          I would also expect things like this to change a lot when you change architechtures as Apple recently did
        • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @11:18AM (#16007634) Homepage
          Wanna see those numbers? really easy.

          install linux on a G3 or G4. Massively faster than OSX on that hardware.
          On it's own hardware, ubuntu kicks OSX arse hard.

          Graned you dont get the nice-y OSX and I do like OSX. but it takes a killer machine to handle it.

          Dual G5 2.5ghz runs it nicely.
      • by ricotest ( 807136 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:49AM (#16007396)
        While I do Linux development at work, I like to have an enjoyable experience at home.
        As I recent migrant from Windows to Ubuntu - I found Linux to be far more enjoyable than my iBook (or Windows) ever was. And this is not a grab for karma, I have more than enough already. Just look at the stuff modern Linux has:
        • XGL/Compiz - more impressive than OS X, although admittedly in alpha.
        • Screensavers - (don't laugh, apparently new computer users spend a lot of time messing with these) xscreensaver comes with dozens of impressive, customisable screensavers.
        • Installation - on Ubuntu, almost everything installs with one click of the mouse, with browsable game/app libraries.
        • Game support is a little lower than OS X but neither are worth mentioning compared to Windows.
        • Takes the better parts of OS X (Expose, Spotlight/Beagle) and drops the ones I personally dislike (Dock, Finder)
        • Unique apps like Amarok, which is more enjoyable to use than iTunes; Tomboy, etc.
        Plus if you're into development and compiling stuff yourself, you get the rewards that come with that as well. I was a long-time Windows user, and I've tried a whole bunch of distros that were completely horrible to use, or bug-ridden, or bad at detecting my hardware. But I really believe that desktop Linux is beginning to emerge now, and it's actually becoming that can be used by your average consumer (if it weren't for MP3/etc. licensing restrictions). Apple will always have the lead in music/video/graphic production, but for desktop use, Linux is rapidly catching up to OS X, and considering the price difference, I don't see the scenario in TFA happening.
    • by ElleyKitten ( 715519 ) <kittensunrise@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:54AM (#16006974) Journal
      OSX is a vendor lock-in solution, and not many people like that.
      Most people get into a vendor lock-in solution without knowing or caring. The only people who wouldn't consider OSX because of vender lock-in have already switched to Linux (or BSD, or whatever)

      OSX is substantially slower on most benchmarks than Linux and Windows.
      Yeah, and if companies can save money on technical staff by having an OS that's more user friendly, they'll do that. That means more to most businesses than benchmarks.

      OSX isn't a serious solution.
      OSX is a potential solution to anyone using Windows who doesn't like it. It's more secure, more stable, and doesn't require the technical retraining (or rehiring) that a migration to Linux would. Sure, some people and companies require more power and freedom than OSX has, but many don't. As OSX becomes more popular for personal use, it will become more popular for business use.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
        OSX is a potential solution to anyone using Windows who doesn't like it. It's more secure, more stable, and doesn't require the technical retraining (or rehiring) that a migration to Linux would.

        I don't think this is true at all. OSX is different enough from windows that your usual run-of-the-mill Windows admin would go crazy trying to admin it. Even the usually desktop admin stuff is so different than windows, not even getting into the differences in server administration. Notice i'm saying it's dif
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by chazwurth ( 664949 )

        As OSX becomes more popular for personal use, it will become more popular for business use.

        That depends entirely on what you mean by 'business use'. Those of us running high-traffic and/or computationally intensive services in our data centers are unlikely to switch to the Apple brand of Unix any time soon. The fact that many of us are using it on our laptops and desktops doesn't make us any more likely to use it on our servers. It just doesn't perform. And the GUI -- the only real selling point of OS X, IM

    • by Anonymous MadCoe ( 613739 ) <maakiee@NoSpam.yahoo.com> on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:00AM (#16007009) Homepage
      I often read about vendor lock in, and wonder if people actually realise what they are saying.

      ANY choice made in IT means some kind of lock-in. If I go all OSS I lock myself into something else. Of course one could argue that with OSS you can alwais "fix or change it yourself", but then again, most companies and users do not want to do that, they want to use functionality. By chosing OSS you lock yourself into that path, which is effectively no different from the vendor path.

      Sometimes it can me more cost effective to do this, sometimes the option with "evil vendor lock in" is actually more cost effective.

      The longer I am in IT the more just pick the tool for the fucntion. looking at the staff available, strategy of the company etc..

      Vendor lock in as such is a myth, there is alwais a path that's being closed with every choice of tool...

      To be honest, in a lot of cases MS actually provides a good sollution...
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by hackstraw ( 262471 ) *
        ANY choice made in IT means some kind of lock-in.

        Sure, but its what you are locking into and to what degree.

        UNIX and Linux (excluding OS X) is much more stable in terms of APIs, backwards compatibility, open standards, and the like than Apple OSes or Microsoft OSes. No, this is not absolute. Yes, I've frantically debugged some code I wrote after applying patches to an AIX box. Yes, I have had much more issues with Windows and OS X (with and before OS X) with gotchas after updates.

        To put this in perspect
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        ANY choice made in IT means some kind of lock-in. If I go all OSS I lock myself into something else.

        Let me explain the difference with an example (If it's too long just skip to the last two lines):

        "Hi, we bought your product X but we have a serious problem with it..."
        "Sorry, that product is discontinued."
        "But it is mission critical to us!"
        "You must exchange it with something else then."
        "Sure, we will. But that takes time and costs millions. Until then..."
        "Good luck."
        "No, I mean, can't you help us with the p

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by andyross ( 48228 )

        ANY choice made in IT means some kind of lock-in. If I go all OSS I lock myself into something else. Of course one could argue that with OSS you can alwais "fix or change it yourself", but then again, most companies and users do not want to do that, they want to use functionality. By chosing OSS you lock yourself into that path, which is effectively no different from the vendor path.

        That is a rather different definition of "lock-in" than is typically meant. Here's an example: a company has a six-year-o

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        By chosing OSS you lock yourself into that path, which is effectively no different from the vendor path.

        If I choose Linux as my server platform, I can run it on hardware produced by Dell or HP or IBM or any one of about a hundred other OEMs, in any combination I choose. I can choose Fedora Core, or Ubuntu, or Debian, or any other distro.

        If I choose OS X as my server platform, I can run it hardware produced by Apple, or by Apple. I can use either this year's model, or last year's model. If they still offe
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by vadim_t ( 324782 )
        Are you kidding?

        Here's a real world example to you: VB6. Thousands of corporate internal programs are written in it. And there's no more support. It's dead. Now all those companies have to rewrite their code, or keep using it and hope it still runs on Vista or whatever comes after that. If Vista happens to break something important (say, ADO, or some big vital third party component) you'll be stuck in a very nasty situation.

        Compare with say, C. MS may drop their C compiler, but so what? You have lots of oth
    • by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:03AM (#16007032)
      Weeee... another troll.... Who modded this up?

      OSX is a vendor lock-in solution, and not many people like that.

      It's still more Open Source [macosforge.org] than Windows.

      OSX is substantially slower on most benchmarks than Linux and Windows.

      On the server?
      On the destkop?
      Care to elaborate?
      Links perhaps?

      OSX isn't a serious solution.

      Really?!?! Based on all the facts you provided I suppose we will have to believe you!
    • by Bastian ( 66383 )

      OSX is a vendor lock-in solution, and not many people like that.

      If by "not many" you're willing to include the >90% of computer users and businesses that use Windows - another lock-in solution that's even more more so than OS X. How many open source apps for *nix can you run without modification on Windows?

      I'd counter that the market seems to love vendor lock-in.

      OSX is substantially slower on most benchmarks than Linux and Windows

      For almost all applications - even server applications in small businesses

    • by dema ( 103780 )
      I'm going to undo my mod here, but apparently it doesn't matter since ever other mod is a dumb fuck.

      Windows is a vendor lock-in solution, and not many people like that.
      Windows is substantially slower on most benchmarks than Linux and OSX.

      Windows isn't a serious solution.

      -bms20


      Do you see the pattern here mods? No? I'm not surprised.
    • by Luscious868 ( 679143 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:20AM (#16007171)
      Cars are a vendor lock in solution, and not many people like that. Cars are slower than flying. Cars aren't a serious solution.
  • Is this bad? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by joshetc ( 955226 )
    Is this prediction really such a bad thing? Most predictions I've heard as far as the future of computing goes point to us eventually moving to solely imbedded solutions. Powerful cellphones, smart washing machines, etc. A computer chip in every device.
    • Re:Is this bad? (Score:4, Informative)

      by eln ( 21727 ) * on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:44AM (#16006904)
      Well, it's bad in that it's based on fiction. First of all, Linux was not "made" for the embedded market, because the embedded market didn't really exist in any meaningful way when Linux was created. Linux happens to do well in embedded devices because it's so highly customizable (without cumbersome licensing costs).

      He also mentions the idea of "embedded" Oracle and IBM databases. While this idea might work in a limited capacity for small businesses, it just doesn't fly for the enterprise clients, which are those companies' bread and butter. Enterprise clients wants to customize EVERYTHING. Trying to sell them a push-button cookie cutter solution just isn't going to fly. It's been tried, and it hasn't worked. You sell them a cookie cutter solution, and by the time you're done making everything just the way they want it, it would have been far cheaper and easier to just start out building a customized solution to begin with.

      As for Apple taking over in the server space, I haven't seen anything to indicate that. No one I know even mentions Apple as a general server solution, much less gives any serious thought to it. Where I work now, we have tens of thousands of servers, 90% of which are running Linux. The remainder are running Solaris and HP-UX, with a very small number running other proprietary Unix-based systems or Windows. None of them are Apples.

      Also, all of our systems are sold to us without an OS, and we install our own custom images on to them, so they wouldn't show up in pre-installed system sales. I would imagine most data centers and large hosting environments would be doing the same thing.
  • FTFA

    Now before anybody goes nuts, understand what I'm saying: Apple isn't going to win or even wage a religious war with Linux. The market will bring about the adjustments to which I'm referring. There will be more money than ever to be made with Linux, but sales won't derive from a model fashioned to compete with Windows and OS X. Microsoft and Apple will be the top-seeded fighters in general client and server computing platforms. Linux doesn't need or want to be the third man in that ring.

    But don't g
    • I'm not sure laughing or crying is better. I mean is there any support for anything remotely like this prediction? I've just spent a few minutes googleing for server market share numbers, looking at NetCraft, etc and I could only find one site which even mentions Apple in the discussion of server market share and that was the MacObserver site from 2002. I assume on the rest of the market share breakdowns I saw Apple was included in the "Other" category.

      Does anyone know of any half way reliable numbers
  • by kabloom ( 755503 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:30AM (#16006783) Homepage
    Apple UNIX will overtake Linux at the expense of whose market share? Windows? or Linux?

    And have they figured out how to count Linux installations yet? (A very hard problem since you can just download Linux off the internet for free, so there are many more ways to get it)
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) *
      Well Market share is a poor judge for Linux anyways. Almost everyone uses Linux every day (Google). Just because it is not installed on your Puney little computer doesn't mean people are not using it, as more and more services that were once installed on Computers as application become web services the need for Server based OSs will expand (Like Linux) and PCs will be more and more religated to smarter then average dumb terminal, where the "Application is hosted somewhere else" and the PC handles all the g
    • by alexhs ( 877055 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:21AM (#16007175) Homepage Journal
      It's written right here in the summary : commercial Linux.

      So you just have to ask Redhat, Mandriva, Suse... without any consideration for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Slackware, Gentoo and others...

      Worthless if you ask me. I wonder if Apple hasn't already more market share than combined commercial Linux distributions (in units) (*). And the end of the decade is in four years. Big deal.

      Now IMHO, the whole author opinion is worthless...

      (*) From what appears in some web hits statistics
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Courageous ( 228506 )
        It's written right here in the summary : commercial Linux.

        So you just have to ask Redhat, Mandriva, Suse...


        Not true! I can install my commercial linux several times without telling them. This "commercial linux" is nevertheless still GPL'd!!!!

        C//
  • skewed vision? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Recovering Hater ( 833107 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:31AM (#16006789)
    I can't help but think this guy got all hyped up because of an Apple conference and just had to gush over it in print. Not to sound flamish or trollish, but what he fails to take into account is that Linux is seldom sold pre-installed. People generally buy the machine they want and then install linux post purchase. It is short sighted to only take sales into account when comparing OS use.
    • Re:skewed vision? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Whiney Mac Fanboy ( 963289 ) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:48AM (#16006932) Homepage Journal
      It is short sighted to only take sales into account when comparing OS use.

      Absolutely. Sales data!=Market share.

      And just to bring that point home, OS X fans believe OS X's share of the market is rising because Mac sales are rising. One does not lead to the other.

      Everyone I know who's 'switched' to a mac has bought it expressly to run windows. Sad, but true.
      • And just to bring that point home, OS X fans believe OS X's share of the market is rising because Mac sales are rising. One does not lead to the other. Everyone I know who's 'switched' to a mac has bought it expressly to run windows. Sad, but true.

        I'm not saying you're wrong, but wtf? Why would you buy an expensive computer that comes with an OS just to buy (or pirate) another OS when you could have bought a cheaper computer with your OS of choice? Is it 'cuz Macs are sooo pretty? How dumb are people w

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          Why would you buy an expensive computer that comes with an OS just to buy (or pirate) another OS when you could have bought a cheaper computer with your OS of choice? Is it 'cuz Macs are sooo pretty? How dumb are people with their money?

          Pretty dumb.

          That said some mac configurations are pretty hard to get in that ff from another vendor. It's the 13" that people seem to be getting - and purely for the weight.

          If it was me buying, I'd probably go for the equivilant Asustek model. Smaller, lighter, made in the s
    • Well, it is InfoWorld. The computer news magazine so well-liked and valuable that they give away free subscriptions if your application says you influence what brand of printer your boss's boss might buy.
    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )
      He could be thinking about servers as an appliance in the small business market. The mistake in that of course, is the server as an appliance is controlled remotely by a web interface on one of the clients.

      So it ends up being an embedded solution on the server and whether the web interface is running on a Linux, Apple or windows client, doesn't really make much difference it is still a Linux server and because it will provide by far the cheapest per client model in the small business enviroment, Linux wil

    • by Dr_LHA ( 30754 )
      "but what he fails to take into account is that Linux is seldom sold pre-installed"

      This is also the very reason why Apple will overtake Linux, although it may be at the expense of Windows rather than Linux. "Joe Public" doesn't want to buy a computer and have to install an OS on it. Right now there aren't any mainstream vendors of computers that preinstall Linux. However sales of Macs are on the rise, and Joe Public is a big buyer, so mainstream "UNIX" sales go up, even though the buyer probably has no idea
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:32AM (#16006793)
    In the year 2010, all of the worlds money will be replaced by toilet paper. "Stay lonely" will be the new "goodbye". Apple pie is no longer American, being bought out by the Canadians. Google releases new TattooSense, paying people to get chest-and-back tattoos of ads. George Bush, in a hostile take over, becomes King of the Planet and enslaves all of humanity. He uses his new slave army to move Mt. Everest -- mumbling something about proving an interviewer wrong. Donkey Kong is brought back to life, only to be shot three days later after going nuts in a barrel factory.

    ADD rocks.
  • by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:34AM (#16006806)
    Despite the way most professional and commercial buyers see it, Linux is, as a colleague helpfully reminded me, a kernel, not an application platform. Linux is a backplane for device drivers, file systems, protocol stacks and low-level programming interfaces. It is a substructure for application services.
    And that is different from any other OS ... how?

    Apple's UNIX (who knows what it'll be called by then) will overtake commercial Linux in rate of revenue growth by the end of 2007. By mid-2008, Apple's sales of systems with factory-installed Apple UNIX will exceed the total combined sales of x86 systems factory-shipped with commercial Linux. At the end of the decade, we'll find that Apple UNIX has overtaken commercial Linux as the second most popular general client and server computing platform behind Windows.
    Why?

    You're making "predictions" without explaining the "logic" behind them. Why will all those countries / governments / cities currently deploying Linux drop it?

    If they don't drop it, why will other ones go with Apple?

    I believe Big Software vendors such as IBM and Oracle will use Linux to give unwieldy enterprise solutions the George Jetson treatment: Push a button, you've got an enterprise database, configured, loaded with sample data and listening for connections. Want a J2EE server with that? Flip this switch, it'll unpack itself, sniff out that database you installed and mate with it.
    And this will fail to drive Linux adoption ... why?

    If anything, that would seem to me to be something that would drive Linux adoption.
  • by Falconwmua ( 537564 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:34AM (#16006809)
    Considering the number of enterprise companies that have invested in Linux and do exert some influence over kernel development(IBM, Oracle) and I don't see Apple letting Dell, HP, or IBM build XServes I don't see this happening. Does Apple make a good, stable product? Yes. Is their client (desktop version) more user friendly than Windows or Linux at this point? Yes (I use all 3, Macbook being less than a month). Will Apple carve out a decent chunk in a few different markets? I hope so but I don't see them moving linux out of the data center.
  • by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:35AM (#16006819) Homepage Journal
    Hahahahahahahahahaah ahahah hahhah hahahah ha ......
  • O RLY? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:38AM (#16006842)
    From TFA:
    ...there is exactly one Linux. It's a standard....
    ...I believe ... IBM and Oracle will use Linux to ... Push a button, you've got an enterprise database...

    Have you ever tried to get Oracle running on anything but Red Hat? When are we going to face the fact that Linux distros are different from each other? When I say "I run Linux" I've really said something as vague as (here comes the car analogy) "I drive a car" (as opposed to "I drive an Oldsmobile"). When people pick on "Linux" what are they really picking on?
    • Nope, never .. Oh wait .. what's this?

      http://oss.oracle.com/debian/ [oracle.com]

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by pyite ( 140350 )
      Have you ever tried to get Oracle running on anything but Red Hat?

      A little while ago, I would have agreed that Oracle has the most unfriendly installation ever. But look at the Oracle Express product. Here's how I installed it:

      apt-get install oracle-xe

      I'm not kidding, either. Check it out here [oracle.com]. (The article applies to Kubuntu, I think, but I installed it on vanilla debian just fine)

  • Linux, BSD, Solaris and Windows rule the ISP server market.
    I've never touched an OSX box that did anything really important.
    Most don't take it seriously, and Apple has not built many 1u rack mounts, but I guess they have a new product now? I just checked..
  • Apple Picking (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mhazen ( 144368 ) *
    What is it with the high percentage of Apple stories that make the front page? For the 95% of us who aren't drinking the Kool-Aid, it's getting ridiculous. Everything Apple does seems to make headline news. What's next, "Jobs visits executive washroom"? It's starting to make the front page look less like an amalgam, and more like Apple marketing.

    With all of the Mac crowd self-gratification going on, perhaps it's time we stopped calling Cupertino's golden child "Apple", and instead refer to them as "Fapple".
  • by Oz0ne ( 13272 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:42AM (#16006884) Homepage
    Linux *is* underground for all intents and purposes. Ask a bloke on the street if they've heard of Linux. If they're not in IT, web design, or a related field chances are they have not.

    Ask a bloke on the street if they've heard of windows, or apple. Even if they don't own a computer, they probably have.

    Linux has made great strides in the past 10 years, but let's not confuse what it is. Linux is the survivalist to windows' soccer mom.
  • On the contrary, I see Debian Ubuntu, Suse and Fedora/Red Hat more and more on the desktop. Once it has finally catched up with some of the requisites of the corporate environment (eye-candiness for the lame Windows admins, graphical userfriendlyness, + monitoring tools, clients for obscure protocols/formats), it will be shipped OEM by hardware vendors (look, Lenovo will ship Suse [crn.com] soon if not already). And they will offer support.

    GNU/Linux adoption can only grow on the desktop. Just look at the trends fo
  • by Laxitive ( 10360 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:46AM (#16006912) Journal
    In the future, no-one will wear pants! The pantsaphogia virus, to be engineered by terrorists in 1999, will leave us all restricted to wearing breezy summer dresses or short-shorts.

    In the future, the only colors allowed will be those based on citrus. This will be mandated by the Tangerine Council world government, headquartered in Morocco. In an effort to reintroduce all the beautiful colors of the world into human products, scientists will genetically engineer strains of lemon with tunable 48-bit color, with the exception of mauve, and there will be much rejoicing.

    In the future, spammers will form a revolutionary movement to fight for their right to speech, and incite a rebellion. The rebellion will be crushed mercilessly, but create the foundations for the great Spam Wars of 2015.

    That's all for now.

    -Laxitive
  • Developing world? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jschottm ( 317343 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:46AM (#16006916)
    As the second and third world countries continue to develop, they will increasingly use computers. Apple's market strategy cannot support that need - a company whose main desktop starts at $2500 just can't work in a country where the average worker makes that in a year. Even a Mac Mini is far beyond the reach of most people and companies in that area. On the other hand, those people will be far more likely to use recycled low-end x86 systems and inexpensive RISC systems (China's homegrown chip springs to mind) and the OS of choice on those systems will be Windows (quite likely pirated), Linux, or xBSD. That will create both a huge user and developer base for Linux.

    The article also fails to explain why companies such as IBM and HP, who've invested much in the server side of Linux, would just walk away from that investment. I'm sure that IBM consultants will sell Apple products in the times where they are the exclusive fit for the need, but they can't control or steer Apple's direction the way they can Linux, which is one reason they push it so hard.
  • Duh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CaptainZapp ( 182233 ) * on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:47AM (#16006918) Homepage
    Apple's UNIX (who knows what it'll be called by then) will overtake commercial Linux in rate of revenue growth by the end of 2007.

    Well duh, Apple OSX (or whatever it's called by then) costs 100$. Ubuntu Linux (for example) is free as in gratis. How many Ubuntu licenses do you have to sell to reach the revenue of one "Apple Unix" license?

    By mid-2008, Apple's sales of systems with factory-installed Apple UNIX will exceed the total combined sales of x86 systems factory-shipped with commercial Linux.

    That's very well possible, since there are hardly any systems (specifically in the Desktop realm) which come pre-installed with Linx. Usually you flatten the hard disk of a Windows taxed box, or you build from scratch if you want to run Linux.

    You sir are either dim, dishonest or just a plain old idiot.

  • US-centric outlook (Score:5, Insightful)

    by non ( 130182 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @09:49AM (#16006945) Homepage Journal
    His opinion only reflects corporate/consumer use in the US. In the rest of the world Linux use is growing at the expense of Windows.
  • "The following message brought to you courtesy of X?"




    Fine print: The previous statements represent what X would like to happen and have nothing to do with what might happen.
  • I find apple is better than Linux on the desktop and for average users but in my opinion, Linux is better than OS X on the server end. That's why my laptop has OS X on it and my servers all have linux on them.

    The greatest thing about "apple's UNIX" (to quote the article) is that it plays nicely with linux. Now I can have OS X and Linux boxen on the same network and it's fairly easy to jump back and forth.

    I think apple and Linux can both exist and give the end user <gasp> choices. </gasp>
  • At the end of the decade, we'll find that Apple UNIX has overtaken commercial Linux as the second most popular general client and server computing platform behind Windows
    Not if Apple doesn't lower the price of entry into the Apple OS universe. Apple is just too damn expensive for most people. Sure, like a fine automobile, you get what you pay for, but we can't all afford that kind of luxury.
  • On servers, Linux has about... what, 30% share (and growing)? OS X has maybe few %, if that. If they plan to overtake Linux in servers in just few years, they better get cracking! Then we have supercomputers, where Linux has about 70% share in top500. Either Windows and OS X are about to overtake Linux there as well, in just few years, or supercomputers are considered to be "underground". Which one is it? Regardless, I find neither possibility likely.

    Client-OS'es are a different matter. OS X has about 3-5%
  • The Author Of TFA fails to consider the biggest object on the radar: the Open Source Movement.

    And it's big enough to scare Monoposoft. Consider:

    A) The Web is where it's at. One competent, cross-platform browser that supports a very high level of Web interactivity makes the choice of client OS much less important.

    B) Where the above is true, the unspecialized user with limited funds will choose piracy or FOSS. Monoposoft and the US government are chasing pirates (any except China) and suing families.

    C) There
  • This is YOUR fault (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shaneh0 ( 624603 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:08AM (#16007076)
    I've been a slashdotter for a long time. Not a beginner, but certainly not a newbie. Check out my number.

    When I found this place I didn't even know how to SAY linux. I said it "LINE-ix."

    Over the past 6 or 7 years I've heard a ton of predictions about linux breaking into the home market. A million reasons have been given, and later, a million excuses.

    I use linux lightly in my (development) job. I'm occassionaly tasked to do website stuff and all of our webservers run LAMP.

    I enjoy using it. Partly because I'm an elitist prick who likes things that other people don't know much about. Also because it's sort of straight-forward. Things are a heirarchy, not an unorganized collection of windows, tabs, dialogs, and buttons.

    I enjoy windows, as well. I make a living developing windows software. And there is absolutely no question in my mind that for the huge portion of users, Windows is a superior platform to Linux. If for no other reason then it's actually USABLE by mortals.

    My point in this is not to make 1000 people hate me. My point is that SOMEONE needs to do to linux what NeXT/Apple has done to BSD.

    Yes, I know that Linux has shells, but these are after-thoughts. They don't come close to the experience of OSX or even Windows XP.

    If all the OSS guys HATE microsoft so much, and they think Microsoft sucks so badly, then why the hell can't they build an OS that is actually able to beat windows at its own game?

    The strength of Linux is in it's stable and secure kernel and low-level "plumbing." The same as BSD. An OS that includes a "Windows" experience on top of this solid foundation would for teh first time attract real attention and a real user base.

    I know this isn't easy, but look at all the time you've had. People slam MSFT for taking 6 years to put out a consumer OS. How is it better to take six years to NOT put out a consumer OS?

    Right now Linux is like a Hamm Radio. Adored by hobbyists but foreign to the public. Everyone has a radio, but it's closed-source. They can't tinker with it. They can't do much at all, except press its buttons and turn its dials. The Hamm operators know that their setup is superior, but that's a fact that's lost on the population as a whole.

    I would LOVE to have a real alternative to Windows. But I don't. Maybe I never will, at least not in the form of linux. But the way people grasp linux with religious fervor makes me wonder why they don't do what it takes to actually build it into a windows-killer.

    Maybe linux-devs and linux-fans really don't want to supplant Windows. As crazy as that sounds, I think it has some merit. What I'm suggesting is that you work to "dumb down" linux a bit. Build a linux that appeals to the novice. But I think the linux camp is waiting for the novices to "smarten up" and adopt linux. I just don't think that's ever going to happen.

    Before you slam me, understand that I'm advocating linux. Yes, I'm criticizing the Linux community, but I'm doing it because I (somewhat) agree with the goals of that community.

    I would love to see a world where Windows has a 75% market share.
    • You do bring up some very valid points, and I will give credit to you for that. Most linux distros are too complicated for the average user. Ubuntu is wonderfully simple to operate and configure, I think the only drawback there is that the installer goes way over the head of most users, though so too did Windows not too long ago. I have worked in shops where the SOP for a hosed Windows was Fdisk, Format, Reinstall. This process, too, is over the head of most people, which is why companies started to mak
    • by Random Walk ( 252043 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @12:33PM (#16008327)
      And there is absolutely no question in my mind that for the huge portion of users, Windows is a superior platform to Linux. If for no other reason then it's actually USABLE by mortals.

      I've yet to see any 'mere mortal' who really can USE Windows without guidance from some friend or relative that happens to know a bit more than this 'mere mortal'. I think it's quite telling that people choose Windows over Mac because they are afraid of problems, and feel more comfortable with an OS that is used by more people (and thus the chance of finding a helpful hand is higher).

      I'm not trying to argue that Linux would be more usable, but I think the usability argument is a joke.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      You know what I think the real problem with GNU/Linux is, and why it's never going to topple Windows?

      Lack of ambition.

      The aim of all the GNU project was to re-create Unix. It wasn't to create something new and original that's significantly better than what has come before - it was to create free versions of the tools that made up a typical Unix system. Sure the tools got tweaked and improved, but the same basic model was followed. It was a project aimed at making tools for hackers, not for making a gener
  • by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @10:09AM (#16007084) Journal
    And by "embedded," Yager means "specialized." With a push of a button and a flip of switch, he predicts you'll be able to create a configured database and a mated J2EE server -- all thanks to Linux."
    I've done a bit of embedded work myself. Driving hardware from microcontrollers, communicating via SPI ports, sampling A to D comverters, even hacking small linux boxes. And in all that time I've never had a need for a database mated with a J2EE server. In fact, despite playing with embedded systems, 20 years programming experience and currently being a Linux developer, I have no idea what such a beast is. Since when did "embedded" come to mean something that sounds like the kind of weenie stuff ecommerce people might use?
  • Missed the point (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pravuil ( 975319 )

    First off, the headline for this article has flamebait written all over it.

    Secondly, I've seen some interesting things from Linux in terms of how they're handling support issues. I think the press about the whole community driven support is intended to speed up the development process more than that of providing adequate technical support for commercial use. If you really want commercial support from Linux you're going to have to pay between $50-$2500 depending on your needs. I think the article attempts

  • by segedunum ( 883035 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @11:04AM (#16007519)
    I'm not the biggest optimist for Linux, especially on the desktop, but this article is just ludicrous:

    By mid-2008, Apple's sales of systems with factory-installed Apple UNIX will exceed the total combined sales of x86 systems factory-shipped with commercial Linux. At the end of the decade, we'll find that Apple UNIX has overtaken commercial Linux as the second most popular general client and server computing platform behind Windows.

    And what the fuck is that based on? Fresh air? Given the fact that Apple has showed no signs of being able to get this mass growth at any stage, largely because, oh err, they have their own proprietary hardware which can't hope to compete with the massive supply of the Windows and x86 Linux world......... Everybody who knows anything about the computing world, and professes to write about it, should know this.

    Push a button, you've got an enterprise database, configured, loaded with sample data and listening for connections. Want a J2EE server with that? Flip this switch, it'll unpack itself, sniff out that database you installed and mate with it....Plug in a drive, and within a few milliseconds you have a self-contained instance of an enterprise application. If you need more database instances, put in a blank flash drive and tell the existing database instance to replicate itself.

    There are no words.

    Jesus H. Christ. I'm definitely in the wrong job. Feel free to sign me up for a job as an online 'technical' journalist where I can stick my finger in the air and throw whatever shit that comes my way from the pulpit.
  • I don't think so. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sloth jr ( 88200 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @11:07AM (#16007544)
    Much as I love MacOS X, Apple is clearly committed to a war on the desktop front, not the server space. For boring ol' mission-critical server apps, Linux is likely to keep its fingers in that particular pie for some time to come, wrestling with Windows.
  • I'm not sure why he thinks OS X has a big future in the server market.

    * It doesn't run on generic server hardware, like all of its competition do.
    * It's much easier to administer through a command line than Windows, but far harder than any other modern UNIX platform.
    * It shares Windows' poor support for "headless" operation.
    * It is missing a lot of APIs that its competitors have retained, including the ability to easily run native servers chrooted and standard UNIX tape drive interfaces.
    * The native file system, HFS+, is far more fragile and easily damaged than the typical modern UNIX file system like UFS. It doesn't have Linux' wide variety of file system support.
    * Its NFS support is extremely nonstandard, and running a normal automounter on it is a recipe for disaster.
    * It's missing the "super-chroots": things like FreeBSD's jails and similar facilities in Linux that give you the encapsulation advantages of virtualization without the overhead.
    * The Mach kernel still gives it far more system call overhead than its competitors.

    All in all, OS X is a mediocre server platform when compared to other variants of UNIX, even if the inability to run it on generic hardware wasn't holding it back.

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