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Linux During The .Com Crash 243

Posted by Hemos from the following-the-path dept.
freakboy303 writes "ZDNet has a short article that can be found here , It basically talks about what the last couple of year of gloom and doom mean for the linux world in general. It seems to me it would make it more appealing to .coms to use the free software but..."
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Linux During The .Com Crash More

Linux During The .Com Crash

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  • ZDNet was owned by M$ anyway. That would give them some bias.

  • Shouldn't that read.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Linux part of the .com crash?

    really, the hype of linux was one branch from the same new economy craziness tree. Now that the shakeout has come, I don't expect Linux to revolutionize anything. They might make some nice gains here and there, but things won't change because of it.

  • ... it was the FUD.

    So the bust doesn't seem to fundamentally change the use of Linux in the enterprise, either way. Or maybe the two effects balance each other out.

  • Over maybe in the investment sense? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by syrupMatt ( 248267 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:20PM (#2779575) Homepage Journal
    What the article seems to push at (albiet around the bush) is that there are less companies willing to stake their future on the sales of service for Open Source work. Although RedHat and a few others are posting profits, the overall tech downturn is probably preventing any speculation in o.s. based companies.

    I think the point is missed however, if this article is taken as a view of an overall decline in open source work. If anything, now is the time for developers to be able to work at a less pressured pace, since they aren't worried about advancing the project so that Company X doesn't go out of business before it can put together a viable distribution/product/release.

    • how is .com and linux so closely linked? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      sounds like an editor said 'hey we need a dot com crash and linux filler article'.

      Can't they just use the almanic of stock news journalism to recycle an article appropriate for this time of year?

  • Understatement (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Kryptonomic ( 161792 )
    "Linux has shown some potential for establishing itself outside of the US, by appealing to the pocketbook or to national interests."

    I think this is quite an understatement.

    Both the German and French governments have warmly endorsed [cnn.com] the use of Linux and free software in general on the governmental level and (IIRC) cities in Finland are switching [theinquirer.net] to Linux.

    • Those are nice comments, but perhaps one shouldn't read too much into them. I'm sure that MS could find equally vocal endorsers if it felt any need. (Of course, you left out a bunch of Linux endorsers, but the point still stands.)

      OTOH, if, as stated the other day, 1 in 400 web page accesses if from a Linux based browser, then the penetration is a lot deeper than I would have expected based on casual observation.
      .
  • > more appealing to .coms to use the free software

    The VCs controlled to .com's every move, and they liked to see names like Oracle and Sun. Besides, the whole idea of the .com was to spend $.

  • .com crash perfect for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:23PM (#2779597) Homepage
    The main problem I saw with the ".com's" I worked with was that they bought the most expensive servers (i.e., Sun, DEC & microsoft) they could get their hands on from the get go. They just figured they would have 1,000,000+ visitors a day and equiped for it. I am sure it impressed the VC suits as well to see their invested cash going for "quality" hardware and Operating Systems.

    In reality, these ".com's" should have taken off the shelf hardware from CompUSA, fdisked the harddrive, popped in a floppy and FTP installed Linux or BSD. Once they realized that the load was more than the servers could handle then they could have thrown money at the big iron or betting yet, just add on more Linux/BSD servers and scaled up.

    Its no wonder that Sun is on the skids right now. You can get barely used, high end Sun servers for pennies on the dollar in the 2nd hand market. I just saw Sun E250s being sold for $1750 today that were $15,000 a year and half ago. Not a bad deal for the user, a major disaster for Sun.

    • Computer equipment wasn't the only thing that they were extravant on - Imagine the VCs horror when they saw the bills for all those neat ergo chairs.

      I don't know about now, but during the peak of the 'dotcom meltdown' one could get some great prices on those Aeron chairs on ebay.

      • Re:.com crash perfect for Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:51PM (#2779797) Homepage Journal

        What? I'm not supposed to have a chair?

        While all the attention is put on those chairs as some symbol of .COM excess, there were far worse excesses. Something as simple as unnecessary, extravagant travel by senior members. One unnecessary "business trip" by a CEO can be about a dozen ergo chairs. One CEO making $7,000,000 a year is quite a few thousand super duper chairs. I just find it odd that everyone jealously, it seems, focuses on those damn .COM workers with their Aerons when so much ridiculous excess happens daily in the corporate world.

        • I have one of these chairs in my offices. Ya know what? I bought it myself, because the chairs our company is willing to fork over for suck. And a lot of people are satisfied with the 100-150 dollar chairs we have in the offices. Those of us with bad backs or who work long hours and aren't satisfied fork out for more ergonomics. What's wrong with that solution? Just insist that you get paid enough that the 800 bucks for an Aeron doesn't break your personal bank.

          • Well you can extrapolate that out and say "Why don't we all just buy our own work PCs so we can have something really fast". Personally I think $800 for a chair (which contributes to a feeling of wellness, which contributes to productivity) is not a big deal when the person sitting in it is likely making about 100x that in a year (and the chair will last for at least several years). It just seems absurd to me that everyone uses Aerons as a demonstration of .COM excesses when it seems like a pretty small piece of the pie for something that can have a considerable impact on performance. It's odd that so many developers get jealous and we infight and cannibalize our own ranks, spiting .COM workers with game rooms or Aerons when such things are so TRIVIAL and IRRELEVANTLY INEXPENSIVE in the grand scope of a corporation. Hell the lawyer who proofreads the PR statements costs many magnitudes more than all of that combined for many organizations.

    • Re:.com crash perfect for Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SuiteSisterMary ( 123932 ) <slebrunNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:29PM (#2779653) Journal
      The main problem I saw with the ".com's" I worked with was that they bought the most expensive servers (i.e., Sun, DEC & microsoft) they could get their hands on from the get go
      That's really kind of a 'flip a coin' problem. I'm a firm believer in getting as much as you can up front, because upgrading is a real bitch, both in terms of getting what you need, and the actual downtime/replace/blah blah blah bit. Also, you just never knew when the shit would take off. We had that problem; a prototype gets pressed into service; sure, limited to a few customers. Then, suddenly, everybody's trying to use it, you're struggling to build your PRODUCTION system to handle it, customers get tired of knocking on the door and leave for a lesser, but available, product, and you get blamed every time the 'producto-type' goes down.

      • I'm a firm believer in getting as much as you can up front, because upgrading is a real bitch

        You're definitly correct about that. However, if you spend all your money in huge capital exspenditures, you take money away from other resources, such as development and product support, which can make you more money.

        Unfortunately, in the world of business, there is no long-term strategy except to make a long streak of short-term profits. That is, without a good short term, there will be no long term. And that means its better to go easy on those huge capital expenditures, such as leather ez-chairs, the latest and greatest servers, computers, etc. until you are making a profit. :)

        • And that means its better to go easy on those huge capital expenditures, such as leather ez-chairs, the latest and greatest servers, computers, etc. until you are making a profit. :)
          Can't get the big servers till you have a profit; can't profit without the infrastructure. Sounds about right. :-)
    • It doesn't hurt Sun as much as you might think. They have already made the first sale and while they might miss a few sales on the second go around they are assured of one thing.

      They provide the maintenance. They provide the parts. They have a pretty damn high markup on both.
      • Especially for seconday market equipment. You want support for that 4500 you got on the cheap? Get ready to pay for it.

        Sun VAR's excluded, of course. But I buy all my stuff from GCW.com. They typically have great deals, but we end up paying for it down the road in maintenance fees.
    • Its no wonder that Sun is on the skids right now. You can get barely used, high end Sun servers for pennies on the dollar in the 2nd hand market. I just saw Sun E250s being sold for $1750 today that were $15,000 a year and half ago. Not a bad deal for the user, a major disaster for Sun.

      You may be looking at my company's Suns, actually... I started working here just a few months ago to help with the "transition" into nothingness, and we literally have stacks and stacks of those Sun from floor to ceiling. Over $10M worth of computer equipment rotting away before it's eventually sold for less than $1M on ebay...
    • I have to agree. I'm amazed when my manager badmouths the dual Pentium II server (NT4) I use for all our demos and prototypes. But that "ancient" server handles hundreds of users at a time. He's just itching to buy a new 4 processor Dell or some such thing. I'm more interested in putting VMWare and Linux on the old box and doubling its load.
      Even better, at my last company someone found a HSI pcmcia card and put our entire server app on a Toshiba Libretto. The thing was smaller than the CSU/DSU. Ran great.

  • Not really. (Score:4, Informative)

    by supabeast! ( 84658 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:23PM (#2779600)
    "It seems to me it would make it more appealing to .coms to use the free software but..."

    You forget how many big hardware/software companies were FUNDING the dotcoms. Microsoft, Netscape/AOL, Sun, Novell, Oracle, and plenty of other companies with reason to push commercial software were giving the dotcoms quite a lot of their startup capital, much of the capital often came on the agreement to use/promote/develop a capital provider's product(s). Using Free/Open-Source software was seen as ingrateful by much of the industry, and for many of the dotcoms software costs were just a tiny part of their overall insane operating costs.

  • Linux Business model? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by reflexreaction ( 526215 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:23PM (#2779601) Homepage
    Here is the big thing with Microsoft, capitalize on the failures of the Dot Coms and try to associate it with Linux and the free software movement. One might argue that the "business model" of many dot coms was to give away their service to entice enough users, hoping to charge them in end for premium services. The fundamental difference is that Linux and other OSS is given away not to get more users (though it is nice) but to give freedom to its users. BIG difference, there is no long term desire to start sticking it to consumers. In the end there is no Linux business model that can be put out of business like the dot coms
    • True, there is no business model. Still, I think the more important point is the economic position of technology as a whole. If one accepts that developers work on Linux because they have time to do so (as a luxury of already being self-sufficient), then one can see how bad economic times might reduce the amount of Linux development significantly. Though I do agree there would still be *some* people out there still doing well and working on Linux, and maybe a few more who would rather work on Linux than eat. :>

    • Re:Linux Business model? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      1) You're using "free software" and "open source" as though they're the same thing. You're correct that the people writing free software to advance a political idea, or just for fun, will continue to do so. But the "open source" guys argued that there were business advantages to making source freely available, and that business model certainly has been put out of business like the dot-coms. Eazel and VA weren't supposed to be charities. It's only hybrid approaches like TrollTech and SleepyCat that seem to be workable.

      2) Where does "Here is the big thing with Microsoft" come from? What does this article have to do with Microsoft? (I'm already cringing at the explanations I know I'm about to get.. ;-) )

  • Guilt by association? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DeadVulcan ( 182139 ) <dead.vulcan@nOspam.pobox.com> on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:24PM (#2779607)

    Seems like there are many people who associate the Linux madness with the dot-com madness just because they happened at about the same time. The article says:

    Nevertheless, much of what got Linux talked about was directly related to Internet hysteria...

    ...without explaining what that relation is.

    • if you finished the sentence they stated it fairly clearly:
      ... hysteria, beginning in 1999, with the sky-high initial public stock offerings of Linux distributor Red Hat and server manufacturer VA Linux Systems--now VA Software. As a result of those IPOs, anything with "Linux" in its name could soon find large amounts of funding, and scores of Linux companies sprang up out of the woodwork.

      • with the sky-high initial public stock offerings of Linux distributor Red Hat and server manufacturer VA Linux Systems

        I don't really see that as any kind of link with "internet hysteria," which is what I considered to be the "dot-com" madness.

        I guess what I'm trying to say is that for most people, "dot-com" combined both Linux and internet (well, ALL things high-tech, really), although there's technically very little to associate the two.

        The only link I can think of is that Linux is popular for use in web servers. A rather tenuous link, IMHO.

  • Pop quiz, hotshot... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can buy Windows server licenses and cheap, back-breaking chairs, or use Linux and get Herman Miller Aerons. What do you do?

    It's a real conundrum, because you'd want your tech people to have comfortable chairs while stuck at the office for hours downloading and applying Windows service packs and updating virus definitions or repairing virus/worm damage.

    Kind of like how office politics works-- the people who are never in the office have the largest offices (with windows!) and the fastest computer.

    • .com answer (Score:2, Funny)

      by sulli ( 195030 )
      Buy the most expensive chairs and server hardware and licenses. Why not, money's cheap, right?

      (A .com in my building "moved out" just before Xmas - 100s of Herman Millers went into the rent-a-truck. Glad I wasn't an investor.)

      • (A .com in my building "moved out" just before Xmas - 100s of Herman Millers went into the rent-a-truck. Glad I wasn't an investor.)

        This shows the real reason why the .coms failed... they spent more money than they made! Its the only rule of business you need to know!

  • Usability (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Usability was and still is the achilles heel of Linux for the desktop. Unusable desktops, productivity software lacking, and non-trivial un-install methodology are shortcomings Linux have.

    I think that Linux desktop development should be watching Apple OSX, and use their GUI framework for something Linux could learn from.
    • I think that Linux desktop development should be watching Apple OSX, and use their GUI framework for something Linux could learn from.

      ... enter GNUstep [gnustep.org] ...
    • and non-trivial un-install methodology

      Whilst I agree by and large with the rest of your comment (and personally, I don't care if Linux makes it as a desktop OS or not; it'd be nice, but Linux will continue just fine without it and still makes a great server OS), I have to disagree with the 'non-trivial uninstall' bit. I use Debian, and I've found it extremely trivial to uninstall packages using 'apt'.

      It would however be nice if stuff installed from source had a "make uninstall" to go with "make install"...

  • this pisses me off (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Papa Legba ( 192550 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:29PM (#2779646)
    I hate it when people intentionally fudge facts on stuff.

    "About 65 percent of executives polled by Goldman Sachs said they have no plans to use Linux at their company next year."

    Well of course they don't, becuase 99% of them have no idea what is going on in the NOC. If you were to ask the CEO of my company if we were going to run linux, after spending three days explaining to him what it was, He would say no. The fact is that we ARE running linux in my NOC. No one has told the CEO because frankly he has no need to know. If he did know it would not change anything.

    It just shows the danger of trusting a survey when you have no idea if it has been implimented correctly. What is Goldman Sachs next major revelation? That 99% of corporate CEO's do not think the change from a 85:1 to a 475:1 pay discrepency between CEO and line workers is anything to worry about?

    • "About 65 percent of executives polled by Goldman Sachs said they have no plans to use Linux at their company next year."

      Actually this statement is probably true, and I would not blame it on the executives either. The fact of the matter is that companies that have mission critical applications will almost always prefer Sun over Linux because SunOS is much more robust and has matured way beyond where Linux is at today. You know how many bugs there were in Solaris 8? Last time I looked there were less than 20. Can you say that about any Red Hat version?

      Another issue with Linux is compatability. I have had my teeth kicked in by Linux several times the past few years. Once with Oracle, and another with Sybase. I installed Oracle 8.1.7 on RH 6.2 with no problems. On 7.2 it was a totally different issue. Because of the basic design of the architecture, I actually had to downgrade binutils and gcc to install a pretty damn recent build of Oracle. Why? I have no idea, but any OS that has dependencies that change with every release has issues. If I were an M$ guy (which I am not - I use RH 7.2) I would not have any issues upgrading the OS. Oracle will work if I run NT4, Win2k, or XP. No modifications are needed on the system. On Sun it is the same. Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, or 9. Oracle will run happily.

      One could theoretically say it was Oracle's support for building the application to a dependency like that, but when you think of it, an OS is just a layer between apps and hardware. It should not really even have any features of its own. The OS should be accomodating. Applications drive business, not the OS

      Don't get me wrong, I like Linux, a lot. It is my main development environment as well as my main desktop. It is just my opinion thatg being zealous or fanatical about anything is not good. Just because some of us really like it and it works for us does not mean that we are more right then those who do not use it. It just means that this is our tool of choice. Different tools are for different tasks.

      --Jon

      • The CIO certainly knows what's running the 'mission critical' application(s) for the company, but there are lots of applications that aren't mission critical. Your production supply chain software might be running Solaris or AIX, but there's a good chance your Oracle DBAs have a development box on Linux that they haven't told you about.

        High profile projects will get lots of attention and money, but if I need a server quickly to solve a problem that affects me or my team, but that most of the company couldn't care less about, the easiest solution is a Linux box. There are probably a few Intel machines around that I can commandeer, and I don't need to get any POs approved.

        This is what people mean when they talk about Linux being a stealth operating system. The difference between now and a few years ago is that you can install Linux and not need to hide it from your boss. Nowadays the boss will just nod and move on, while a few years ago he might have fired you for daring to install free software.

      • On 7.2 it was a totally different issue. Because of the basic design of the architecture, I actually had to downgrade binutils and gcc to install a pretty damn recent build of Oracle. Why?

        You just have to install the *compat rpms to accomodate Oracle's brain-dead java installer. This is explained in the release notes to 7.1 - I would hope 7.2 as well. This is not Red Hat creating a problem - it's Oracle creating a problem and Red Hat fixing the problem.
    • Well of course an "executive" be the CEO, VP of Marketing, Senior Executive VP of Drone Farming, etc.

      The scary thing is that I'm sure there are probably many CIO/CTO (IT execs) that probably have no idea what's running in their environment. :)
      • All VP/CxO types are all about "strategy" (ie, going to meetings, drinking lots of Starbucks, and so on). "Tactics", or what OS to run in the data center, they could care less about unless it costs them money or gets their boss pissed off.

    • Re:this pisses me off (Score:4, Interesting)

      by isomeme ( 177414 ) <cdberry@gmail.com> on Thursday January 03, 2002 @02:10PM (#2779908) Journal
      I hate it when people intentionally fudge facts on stuff.
      "About 65 percent of executives polled by Goldman Sachs said they have no plans to use Linux at their company next year."
      Well of course they don't, becuase 99% of them have no idea what is going on in the NOC.

      Amen. Amusing case in point: Last year, I attempted to sell an open-source-based intranet solution to a division of a major car company. The FUD flew thick and furious as various CxOs and VPs and Directors of IT debated whether untried, anarchic, scary open source could be allowed to run something as important as their intranet data sharing system. In the midst of the whole chaotic mess, I checked to see what their external, mission-critical, prestige-of-the-biz-riding-on-them web servers were running. Needless to say, the answer was Apache.

      The best part was that, when I pointed this out at our next meeting, the result was a roomfull of uncomprehending stares.

    • "According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless" says the quote at the bottom of the page. Thanks for the appropriate quote, slashcode. :)

      The more I learned about statistics and surveys, the harder time I have accepting any statistical data to which a detailed description of the technique used is not available. Which is a good idea, except that statistics are used a lot but references are rarely given, so half of what I read is just numbers I don't trust and don't know what to do with... They -could- be accurate after all.

      Oh well. This isn't as bad as, say, medicine as reported by popular media, where they tell you that cold cream was shown to cause sinus cancer in rats but don't tell you that the researchers crammed whole bottles of the stuff up the poor rats' noses every day for a year.

  • Open source programming is like playing solitaire (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:34PM (#2779682) Homepage Journal
    There seems to be all this concern about whether people will write software if they derive no obvious benefits from it. This is all based on the misconception that people dislike writing software. Many of the same people who don't understand will play solitaire when they don't have to (and even when they're not supposed to). They derive no obvious benefit from it, nobody cares how they do, nobody pays them, and the damn thing doesn't even stay solved.

    Writing OSS is like playing solitaire, in that it is fun (you're solving little puzzles which are non-trivial, but not impossible), but when you've done it, you end up with a program that does what you like, and you can give it to people and they'll be impressed. Some people might even pay you. Of course, at some point they start expecting you do what they want rather than just what you feel like.

    People get paid a huge amount of money to play basketball. Other people don't even get reimbursed for buying a ball and a net, but they play anyway. The same thing is true of writing software.
    • There seems to be all this concern about whether people will write software if the derive no obvious benefits from it...

      ...Of course, at some point they start expecting you do what they want rather than just what you feel like.

      That's the problem. I'll happily write software for free, and used to do exactly that. However, none of what I'll write for free has anything whatsoever to do with the drudge code for dull business tasks that is so essential in the commercial world.

      I'm a commerical programmer, and write a large amount of code from which I derive zero pleasure. I also write a tiny fraction of code from which I derive some small satisfaction. Left to my own, open source devices I'd cut out the dull stuff and stick with the interesting. However, the bank I'm contracting at rather prefers me to do more of the former, because it happens to be essential to their business. And I write what they ask, or otherwise I don't get paid...

      Cheers,
      Ian

      • Certainly; there's plenty of important code that wouldn't get written if the authors weren't paid for it (although I find code not to be boring if it has to be clever or well-designed; not to say that there isn't code which is basically data-entry [ejb]).

        On the other hand, there's a lot of code that gets written mostly for fun by people who find the strangest things interesting. There's also a lot of code written by people who need to write it before they can get the interesting code to work.

        The thing to realize about the software is that there's some software that's fun for the people who do it, and that will get written and improved so long as the people who are interested have time to write it. There's other software that is boring, and that will only get written if people get paid to do it. When trying to guess about the future of some software, it is important to determine which sort of software it is.

    • Writing OSS is like playing solitaire, in that it is fun (you're solving little puzzles which are non-trivial, but not impossible), but when you've done it, you end up with a program that does what you like, and you can give it to people and they'll be impressed.

      If only the OSS community could harness all those man-hours spent on solitaire... Holy shit.

      We now know the true means Microsoft is using to counter Linux. It's not MS Office, or proprietary file formats, or embrace-and-extend, or FUD... It's solitaire!

      Quick, somebody call the justice department, MS is bundling Solitaire with the OS! Alas, I fear the folks at the DoJ will not be able to intervene; they're too busy playing Solitaire.

      Damn you Bill Gates!!

  • Of course Linux isn't going to "die" because the .com craze is over. Linux has been around longer than the whole .com goldrush, and will continue to be around and developed for years to come.

    However, the .com crash probably does signal some changes in the commercial aspects on Linux, namely that it seems unlikely the market will support as many Linux-distribution and Linux-misc companies as it once did.

    This part of the "Linux shakeout" has already started of course, but I doubt it has ended.

    What's VA's stockprice at again?

  • Microsoft IIS and ASP (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ciryon ( 218518 )
    I don't think Linux has been particulary hit by the .com crasch. I'd rather say that Microsoft IIS servers are less then popular now after all security issues, including Code Red attacks last summer.

    I also firmly believe that many .com companies that went down had really stupid employees that hardly could code a page without visual BASIC-like ASP. This resulted in thousands of really bad webpages that prevented anyone not using Internet Exploder from entering.

    As a result lots of people stayed away from those sites, and the company didn't make any money. :-P

    Ciryon

    • Re:Microsoft IIS and ASP (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cscx ( 541332 )
      I also firmly believe that many .com companies that went down had really stupid employees that hardly could code a page without visual BASIC-like ASP. This resulted in thousands of really bad webpages that prevented anyone not using Internet Exploder from entering.

      Here's a link [zdnet.com] for ya. Ooh, here's a quote too:

      "But though PHP thrives on hosted servers, it's too immature for a high-traffic business environment. As much as we were rooting for it to succeed in our testing, it failed--especially when we attempted to evaluate on Windows."

      I'd like to see proof of that bullshit you posted. See, the truth really is that IIS/ASP is for the more educated, business people, and PHP is for the 133t k1dd13z... If you notice, ASP and IIS are used by many high caliber e-commerce sites, where PHP is not, because it would choke (so would MySQL).

      Guess who uses IIS? eBay, Dell, Gateway, Intel, Nasdaq, Compaq, most of the UK Government sites... etc.

    • Re:Microsoft IIS and ASP (Score:4, Interesting)

      by davmct ( 195217 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @02:06PM (#2779883)
      I don't think it was the stupid employees who only knew ASP that made all of those companies go bankrupt... I think it had more to do with the fact that their companies had no business plan and were giving their wares away for next to free.
      asp or not, if you don't have a good product, you're going to go under.

  • Some thoughts. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:40PM (#2779729) Homepage
    First, the desktop.

    I don't really use linux for desktop applications much. I have spent quite a bit of time dabbling with various desktop and window managers. However, I still use fvwm95 for mine. Why? Takes about 1/2 the ram of something more complex, like KDE or GNOME, is significantly faster, and doesn't offer much more than I need.

    Install Gnome with the default wm of elightenment. E is a very slick looking window manager. Beautiful eyecandy. However, the second I try to maximise the window, I practicaly have to go searchign through documentation. And I'm an experienced user. I pride myself that I can sit down at pretty much ANY application program and figure it out in a matter of minutes. And yet, E baffles me. Of course, if I spent 15 minutes reading up on it, and playing with all the buttons, I'll probably be just as efficient with it as with anything else.

    But I'm hesitant to do so. And If *I* am, then you can damn well bet that your average "my cupholder is broken" user isn't going to find it any easier. Do we WANT to make it easy? Do we want to have a linux desktop on every computer in the world? You get proponents either way.

    Maintaining linux based desktops is MUCH nicer. Not only can I generally fix almost any problem over a modem, but its highly unlikely the user will be able to screw something up anyways, especially if I don't give them the root password. Make a copy of the configuration file once you have everything the way they want it. Then if they start playing and end up with a font size thats too tiny to read, 20 seconds later, the problem's fixed and I don't even have to leave my chair.

    And if you catch the users before they've been exposed to a microsoft or mac product, then the window design will be entirely new to them, and they'll pretty much learn it the way you tell it to them. I'll teach ANYONE who's willing to learn. And people will gladly learn one system. Unfortunately, most people have been faithful users of microsoft products for the desktop. They've already got the idea of how its supposed to work/look and will resist any design that differs from that.

    What potentially hurt linux with the bust is a new lack of unlimited funds which could be used for marketing. Since pretty much any business based soley on selling products you're giving away for free, you COULD make money, but chances are good, its not going to be enough to fund a microsoft marketing machine.

    The current companies are entrenched with microsoft. Even if they never spent another cent upgrading, moving to linux would require significant costs in retraining and software porting. Sure, it would save money in the long run, but since the company already expects to spend that money on microsoft upgrades, they don't really consider the alternatives.

    However, hit the new companies. Startups, and mom&pop buisinesses where the owners are already working at minimum wage just to keep things afloat. An extra $100 license makes a difference there. They could very easily consider free software to be a worthwhile investment of their time. This would force the entire computer infrastructure of their business to utilize it from the ground up. Microsoft may never get a foothold there.

    -Restil

    • Re:Some thoughts. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by davmct ( 195217 )
      The problem with mom&pop shops adopting linux is that they have the least amount of time to learn a new technology, let alone be interested in implementing one. They want something off the shelf that works immediately to fit their needs. Not something they need to tinker with and install a half-dozen software patches to ensure their video card works properly.
      Until Linux has the application support and ease-of-use of Windows, there won't be a large flock of users knocking on its door. Linux is still a developer-oriented system. Its perks are that it allows the tech-savvy user to customize every nook and cranny of the environment, and to even recode and compile if desired. Windows is much easier to use, and will always have the AOL-crowd as customers until Linux matures on the ease-of-use front.

  • The frustrating thing. . . (Score:4, Insightful)

    by foo fighter ( 151863 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:41PM (#2779738) Homepage
    . . .about surveys of Linux usage in business, is that they are all to frequently based on "spending priorities for executives" and "new license revenue shipments". At least this article mentions that linux being available for free will skew the results in the proprietary offering's favor.

    I am trying to sell my boss on bringing linux into our educational institution, both on the desktop and on our servers. When I show him and our CFO that upgrading all of our desktops to Windows 2000 will cost us $100,000 up front while Linux is free they get excited. But when they see reports that only 2% of shipping desktops come with Linux they get understandably (seeing it from their POV) concerned.

    It would be nice to see a metric like "Six of the most popular linux distributions report sales of 100 million units, and downloads 500 million units for fiscal year 2001" from organizations like IDC and Gartner Group. That would help account for sales AND downloads and hopefully skew the numbers back to a more correct figure.

    Of course there is still the problem of counting installations after the initial purchase or download. Any number you get will be much fuzzier than the "sales and downloads" figure. The solution is to survery the engineers and not the executives. Ask the engineers how many machines they installed their copy of linux on and you will get a much more reliable figure.

    The most interesting thing about this article is the problem of linux competing with pirated Microsoft software in third world countries and southeast asia. In these places Windows is effectively as "free" as Linux in monetary terms. When all you care about is price parity, why not choose the more popular of the free solutions?

  • Linux is not part of .com economy boom. Both growth occured simultaneous, but not attached to each other.

    Internet helped with Linux popularity, it's much more easy to learn about linux with internet than it was before. But, the .com economy has nothing with linux, besides it's linux user, as many others industries are.

    Maybe now it's the linux comunity chance to show that .com != linux. All the comunity must do is keep working without worrying about .com crash. Why does the comunity must care about this?

    IMHO linux IS much more than apache, php, perl, etc. It can be a wonderful server with lots of wonderful functionalities, compabilities. And also be a great desktop for those who can understand what's happening behind X.

  • It's easy for a dotcom to go bankrupt, but you can't have an online community go bankrupt, unless every developer invested in webvan, Enron, and dogdoo.com.

    • Re:Linux go bankrupt? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by einer ( 459199 )
      I don't think the fear was bankruptcy (at least not initially). But, since Europe may be allowing software patents in the future, bankruptcy may become a concern for os developers and a concern for the os community in general.
  • On the other hand, Linux is far from dead in the water, and is in fact giving Microsoft a run for its money in the Web server market, where it is the second most popular OS after Windows.

    Windows is the most popular OS in the web server market? wtf? This has long been Unix's claim, no? I just checked netcraft but I could only find stats for the server application, not the OS.

    • Re:Windows most popular web server OS? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, sadly Windows IIS web servers are more popular and even my apache access_log file proves it. Look at all those entries for root.exe, system32.exe, etc... All files my poor linux system does not have. The writing is on the wall. Red ink flows like a river of blood. Linux is dead.

      Viruses spread better than well designed systems.

  • .com dead, open source humming along merrily... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Simon Carr ( 1788 ) <slashdot.org@simoncarr.com> on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:50PM (#2779787) Homepage
    The implosion of the dot-com economy has raised questions about the future of the GNU/Linux operating system and the open source movement that it typifies.

    Feh. What questions? The source is still open and still out there. Sure some .com companies have contributed to the pool of open and usable source code out there but the majority of innovation still comes from the user community, many of which aren't making a dime directly off of what they write.

    The thing if anything that's been keeping Joe User (who doesn't work in the computer industry) from using Linux is the lack of ease of getting at the entertainment. It doesn't have anything at all to do with the .com crash, in fact I'm starting to think very little ever came of the .com boom per capita.

    If User X wants to play CounterStrike, he or she doesn't want to fiddle with Linux until he can get it working, he wants to double-click on the icon. If User X wants to see the latest porn in AVI, all they want to do is double click. It's really just that simple.


    KDE's helping alternative OSes get close, but it's not quite there yet. Not to say it won't very soon.

    There's almost nothing more reactionary than a computer journalist. They'll cry the end of time just because the batteries on thier digital watch dies. These are the people that brought us Y2K.

    • I know why I love Linux!!! Because I can watch porn AVI in just one click, and I need two clicks in windows! Therefore windows gets in the way of my porn and I can not stand that. I just hope that Linux does not have to remove this innovative feature because of the Amazon.com patent on single clicks.
  • Hear me out, don't judge me prematurely. Hey, that means you, Mr. Moderator!

    Linux will not survive because of the people who are backing it. I'm not going to bash RMS or Torvalds, I'm talking about the hardcore hackers and coders out there who make Linux work. These people are all going to graduate from college, get married, find Jesus, or do something that will take the place of their current coding obsession. I know, because I was once an open-source programmer for a log parsing program (making it easier to grep through those huge logfiles). But then, I graduated college and had to make money for a living, and suddenly my open-source project fell by the wayside.

    Face it: Linux is free. The Linux economy (i.e., getting people to work for free) is based off of the concept that deep down, people are generally good. The Linux community is based upon the ideal that money is not the only motivation, and I agree; there are plenty of other human motivators other than money. However, I don't think that any motivator comes close to good 'ole greenbacks. People want money. People want PS2s. People want Final Fantasy X. People want a house. People want MONEY. The Linux community, with the exceptions of the major distributions (RedHat, Slackware, etc) cannot keep people monetarily satisfied.

    Once this generation of coders falls away (and they will) then Linux will lose its support in the forms of coders. Once the Linux source becomes obsolete, Linux is dead. The only reason these .bombs were so popular is because it allowed the coders to write Linux programs and earn money. Now that it's over, so is Linux.

    I can already hear the moderators giving me "Flamebait" and "Troll" for this post, but I don't care. My Karma can take the hit. But it's true; Linux's price model (free) is what is dooming it to a slow and painful death.

    • While I generally agree with your idea that open source programmers will eventually move on to other things, I think you underestimate Linux's impact. There are also more and more CS students who dabble in open source projects. Most of the newer CS grads I know are aware of what Linux is, what it does, and appreciate the mindset of its continual evolution. These kids are getting in the guts of Linux too. I think that as long as Linux exists at all in open source form, there will be those who will use it and further develop it.

      Of course that doesn't mean that Linux will be the desktop of choice, but its not now either.
    • It never occured to you that perhaps other coders will rise in the place of those who leave? how stupid
    • However, since the code for Linux is available to everyone, new kids can take it up at no cost. Look how many 15 year olds have access to computers and think how much it would cost them costs to buy M$ development tools. Linux on the other hand is free, so the these potential programmers can learn a lot using Linux at no cost.

      BTW, I graduated from college 24 years ago and I'm still contributing to several open source projects. So, don't underestimate the greybeards :-)

      • Look how many 15 year olds have access to computers and think how much it would cost them costs to buy M$ development tools.

        Why do you think any of them actually buy them? At least until DevStudio XP (Now With Super .NET Activation Included!!!) ships.

    • You're right, thiis niether troll or flambait.
      It should be moderated -1 unthinking and ego centric.
      there will be other people who will be in college after you.
      there are many people who contribute that also have 'day jobs' today.
    • Once this generation of coders falls away (and they will) then Linux will lose its support in the forms of coders. Once the Linux source becomes obsolete, Linux is dead. The only reason these .bombs were so popular is because it allowed the coders to write Linux programs and earn money. Now that it's over, so is Linux.

      Interesting point, but not realistic.

      A few things..

      There will be another generation of college coders. You're not that special. :)

      Dot-bombs didn't only run on Linux and you can do more than just run a webserver with it.

      There's a *HUGE* user base familiar with Linux

      There's lots of apps.

      HW companies have written drivers for Linux so that they can sell their products to Linux users.

      Many gov'ts are/will be using Linux.

      A lot of contributions to the Linux source code came out of someone(s) just wanting Linux to do a specific task.

      The Mighty Tux of Karma will cast spells of guilt upon shops that don't buy at least one or two distros. :)

      ...and so on. (Hey! Add your own!)

      At the end of the day, (IMHO) software is not just about making money, it's about making things work. Linux works in lot's of places and I don't see it going away. Practicality will overcome the money issue.

    • Hmmm. There should be a -1 moderation for "Just Plain Wrong".

      The proof that Linux won't 'die' for the reasons you state already exists. I started using Linux as a teenage college student. The kernel was 0.12. Pretty much everyone who was a student when I was graduated about five years ago. But Linux is many orders of magnitude stronger and useful than it was five years ago!

      Your comment is a bit like saying the human race will die off because people get old and die; neglecting that at the same time new people are born and replace the old ones who croak. There is a new generation of teenage first years at college who are doing what I was doing. The difference is that they are starting with RedHat or Debian and a 2.4.17 kernel, where I started with a 0.12 kernel, a copy of 'rawrite' and a root disk image. And there's a lot more Linux enthusiasts in the new generation of first-years than there was when I was a first year: many orders of magnitude more.

  • It's a matter of risk (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    During good times, companies are more willing to take risks than they are during a recession. All along, converting mission critical systems to Linux has been perceived (rightly or otherwise) as a risky move--you're moving from a known OS and infrastructure, whether it's Windows, Unix, or whatever, to Something Else. Businesses tend to be very cautious about taking such gambles, and tight economic times, as many are experiencing now, make them even less able to recover from a bad move.

  • In other news (Score:3, Funny)

    by Erris ( 531066 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:55PM (#2779817) Homepage Journal
    a recent Goldman Sachs survey found that mainframes, Linux servers and supply-chain management ranked as the three lowest spending priorities for executives in Fortune 1000 companies. About 65 percent of executives polled by Goldman Sachs said they have no plans to use Linux at their company next year.

    In other news, 75% of Fortune 1000 executives polled claimed to have turned a computer on last year. Many thought that MS was a subsidiary of IBM that made new and improved typewriters and file cabinets. "Servers?", said one darting accross a hel-o-pad, "We've got the best stinking servers in the business. I have three personal assistants, two drivers, a pilot, as well as the usual secretarial compliment. We don't need anything from this Linux company we keep hearing about. Now go away, you bother me.!" Most found the concept of email good and had their assistants print duplicates for them and their files.

  • In 2002 and forward, linux will have to stand on its own as a solution. Price is a selling point, but if companies can derive greater utility from buying AIX or Solaris, they are going to do it. Of course the same logic goes for AIX and Solaris, so Linux benefits from a pragmatic approach as well.

    Business thinking has succesfully slayed the cult of IT. Computers and software are now simply assets of production and utility just like a welding machine or a printing press. Treating technology as cool for its own sake put a great many companies in trouble, both by overextending IT spending and by giving people like sysadmins and engineers disproportionate power in the organization. The heydeys of tech are over.

  • Why are we still entertaining "Is Linux Any Good?"-style articles? We know it's good! This is all part of someone's FUD machine, and I don't like it one bit. We need more optimistic articles like: "How Linux Survived the .com Crash".
  • Mandrake just released an earnings reports [mandrakesoft.com].

    That little company is some SERIOUS trouble. They lost the equivalent of 13 million Euros last year. Mandrake only managed 3.5 million in revenue for the entire year!

    What more is there to say about this report other than there is little or no money to be made from selling a 30 dollar Linux boxes at retail? Good lord even lowly Caldera has more revenue than Mandrake!

    How can what is arguably the most popular Linux distribution be on the verge of economic melt down?
    • I don't know. I bet if you spread that 3.5 million bucks profit around the Debian camp or give a couple million to the Slackware folks -- they would be more than happy.

      Bottom line -- if you are spending 13 million on ANY linux based product and expecting to recoup that in sales....then you are crazy. First of all -- you are selling a free product that most people in the know are already getting for free....And 2nd of all -- as far as distributions go -- you are competing with other quality distributions, and that makes nice even slices into an already small pie.

      I would like to see some (sane) business plans that focus on CURRENT user base -- rather than all computer users. I mean "Well we can make a profit based on current user base and 25% of current Windows users moving to Linux...." ... It ain't gonna happen -- do we not have a big enough user base to make a profit?? The VMWare folks seem to be doing very well. Redhat is keeping their heads above water. Maybe the team working on Microsoft Word or Warcraft III can have operating expenses that are high -- and expect to recoup them, but anyone working on a linux based product has to have a realistic business plan that takes current user base into account. It is hard to exceed expectations and be pleasently surprised when your expectations where never realistic to start with. (I.E. -- THE EAZEL FOLKS)
    • If you're using a commercial distro and can afford to pay the measly bucks, pay them. They're doing a lot of work for you in configuration and such. If you're a rock hard geek, use Debian which is volunteer based.

      Oh - and maybe those that make money on their linux-based business should start donating a slice of the profit to the non-corporate organizations? It's free speech, but you don't speak very loudly if you're starved and thirsty.
    • I think it's easy to understand what happened:
      - Mandrake has gained much popularity in 1999/2000 and so attracted VCs that pushed Mandrakesoft to have great expenses for nothing in return (for instance the e-Learning adventure, the expensive so-called "international management team")
      - MandrakeSoft always claimed they wouldn't be profitable before 2002/2003 because they always focused on expending user base instead of being "break-even". They achieved this goal (I really see them becoming number1 distro in userbase very soon). Going back mid-2000 in Europe, it was not chocking to have such an expensive strategy because it was easy to get money from VCs.

      And now? Since 5 months they started to adapt their strategy to be profitable sooner than expected:
      - capitalize on their large user base to earn more money (better gross margin on products and goodies sold at Mandrakestore, Mandrake Club subscriptions...)
      - get their products more business-oriented and sell traditional support & services.

      Really I see MandrakeSoft's strategy as a very well conducted strategy: who would have bet 3 years ago that Mandrake Linux would become near top#1 distro in 2002??? Nobody.

      Now there are past financial results of the past strategy, let's wait for the new results with the new direction.
  • .. does the "dot-com crash" have to do with Linux? Only a small fraction of the poorly-run and financed "dot-com" companies that went bust were in any way related to Linux. When I think of the failed "dot-coms", I think of silly sock puppets and Internet grocery delivery services. I think of all those ridiculous television commercials we used to see for (insert now-defunct online vendor here.) None of these are even remotely related to Linux. You may as well ask how Linux is going to survive the September 11th attacks .. as a question, it makes an equal amount of sense.

  • IBM and Linux (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DRO0 ( 252117 )
    It may be wishful thinking, but I'm hopeful that IBM can make Linux take off in the corporate world.

    I think mid-to-large size companies are under internal pressures to stick with Microsoft despite the price, security issues, and dreaded EULA's. I think that over the years, most of us have heard expressions like "Nobody's ever been fired for buying IBM machines" or Cisco routers, etc. In other words, the typical "Cover My Ass" mentality as an IT exec is to buy the most popular, widespread IT infrastructure and if something goes wrong then he/she can more easily assuage the PHB.

    The reason I think IBM would be the company to make inroads with Linux is due to it's simple "label value". Corporations are at least more likely listen to a Linux pitch from IBM than some guy like me saying how wonderful my Debian workstation is at home. :)

    I'm not trying to put down RedHat, VA, or other Linux companies, but it's hard for me to believe that the herd wouldn't be most influenced by Big Blue.

  • This is comparing fish to bicycles (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DG ( 989 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @02:25PM (#2779994) Homepage Journal
    Part of the problem with revolutionary ideas is that there will forever be people who just don't understand; who cannot grasp the new concept, and who will attempt to recast it in terms they _do_ understand - only to miss the whole point all over again.

    Such is Linux and Windows.

    Windows is a PRODUCT. It is for sale, complete with sales reps, marketing budgets, and an army of lawyers to try and enforce the alien concept of "product scarcity" on a digital entity.

    As a "product", it is subject to the rules of the market; the ebb and tide of economics.

    Linux is NOT A PRODUCT, it is something else entirely. It's part common property, part social movement, part fun little hobby, and part irresistable juggernaut. In fact, I don't yet think there exists an English word that adequately expresses what Linux is. What do you call a tool that is owned by nobody, is constructed and maintained by many, and freely availible to all?

    There are companies that produce products BASED on Linux, and these companies often subsidize contributions back to the greater whole, but these companies are no more "Linux" than Frito Lay or Doritos are "corn".

    As long as the source code remains availible, and as long as it continues to function on existing hardware. Linux cannot "fail".

    This is what the article author does not understand, and why Linux is so dangerous to Microsoft's monopoly. Linux, in some form, will _always_ be there. It will _never_ go away. It cannot be bought, swept under the rug, supressed, or otherwise made to go away.

    The best you can do is to write code that does the same job, better - but we're seeing that Linux can develop every bit as fast (and oftentimes faster) as any proprietary product. No company, no matter how big, can muster a workforce as large as that actively working on Linux. Given enough time, Linux will eventually catch you and beat you on quality.

    Bill Gates is often given credit for "inventing" the concept of software-for-sale, where previously, software was shared amongst users and developers free of cost. Well then, Bill has made his own bed. Linux is the ultimate competitor; the anti-Microsoft incarnate.

    And a welcome CORRECTION, bringing software back from the artificial world of "product", to the real world of "service" where it originated and BELONGS.

    .
    • Good reply. I wish more people would understand that Linux is not a product. Greed follows money...and money and greed lead to failed adventures in coding and unhappy and broke people who wonder why the stock market crushed them like a grape into wine.
    • You make a good point, and one which should be more widely understood. But then:
      ...as long as it continues to function on existing hardware. Linux cannot "fail".
      and
      It cannot be bought, swept under the rug, supressed, or otherwise made to go away.

      But you have already hinted at the most direct way of making it go away. Make it unusable on current consumer hardware. Herd Linux into a small high-performance niche (IA64 perhaps) and then kill that niche. Microsoft has a famous talent for cutting off the air supply of competitors. Linux's air supply consists partly of the commodity hardware world that is greatly beholden to Microsoft. The drive towards locked down, trusted hardware is coming from two directions: the entertainment industry, which wants to control content, and Microsoft (who recently patented a technique) who would like to lock out Linux. If cleverly done, the lockout can be backed by the DMCA (it requires making it an "access control mechanism"). The third prong which could reinforce the first two is National Security. Ashcroft and company could probably be persuaded to back a "tamperproof" platform which can't be used to elude wiretaps.

      Even if Microsoft can entangle Linux in a situation where specific releases and kernels have to be digitally signed (hopefully with a fee), they can narrow the free-flowing linux world into a few corporate channels.

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