Is Linux Dead?

TunkeyMicket writes "It appears MSNBC is reporting that Linux has failed as an operating system. By citing the large Linux hype as reason for Linux to be dominating the market, they draw the conclusion that the "open source" alternative has flopped as an operating system. They briefly mention the success of Linux in the server community, but really the article gives Linux as little credit as possible."

Obvious flame from MSNBC.

[Noryungi]

Please don't even bother to respond to MSNBC. They are probably trolling for hits... =)

Oh great!

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Where am I gonna find a penguin shaped coffin?

Ooooohh

[yatest5]

MSNBC says 'Linux is dead'
/. says 'Linux r00l5'.

An exciting discussion to follow, I'm sure... ;-)

In another article....

[Asikaa]

...MSNBC also stated that Microsoft is actually a charity set up by Mother Teresa just before her death, Windows is more robust than UNIX and Bill Gates is the Messiah.

Sheesh.

MSnbc

[ChrisMG999]

And in other news, MSNBC reports that apple smells like poop.

A new slogan for Linux

[UncleAlias]

Modeled after Apple's "Proudly going out of business for twenty-five years now.", I give you: "Almost dead for ten years now."

Failed?

[sporty]

If linux has failed, you should prolly reboot and send any information on what processes were running, what your compile options and all to [e-mail]

MICROSOFT DECLARES FOES DEFEATED

[soybean]

Did you hear the news? We've been defeated. Dang, I thought we were doing just fine. Well, I'm glad that I found out now and not years from now. I guess I can go back to my day job.

This Just in....

[jeffy124]

It's Official - MSNBC Confirms - Linux Is Dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when MSNBC confirmed that Linux market share has not risen significantly in comparison to others, less than 5 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent MSNBC survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share to Windows, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent MCSE comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.

Fact: Linux is dying

Linux is dead?

[Cutriss]

I've been reading Slashdot for a while...this whole time, I thought it was *BSD that was dying...

Or so many people at -1 keep saying, anyhow... :)

In other unbiased news...

[GeekWithGuns]

In other unbiased news ORCL-CBS has declared MSSQL untrustworthy, NOVEL-ABC has declared Windows 2000 server unstable, and LNX-FOX declared that Windows has no future on the desktop.

Where will it end?

[cheezycrust]

Microsoft is hoping to reboot Windows sales

First Windows, now Windows sales... When will they reboot the world?

Re:ooh, gotta reformat this thing now!

[alfredo]

Oh no! I have Linux on my Mac!. Where do I go from here?? I'm so scared. mommy?

Very bad for Micro$oft

[IXI]

... their OS is outperformed even by a DEAD Linux ;)

Linux is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; MSNBC confirms: Linux is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent MSNBC survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. As many of us are already aware, Linux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Debian Linux is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Debian leader RMS states that there are 7000 users of Debian. How many users of Mandrake are there? Let's see. The number of Debian versus Mandrake posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Mandrake users. SUSE posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Mandrake posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of SUSE. A recent article put RedHat at about 80 percent of the Linux market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 RedHat users. This is consistent with the number of RedHat Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Lindows went out of business and was taken over by Lycoris who sell another troubled OS. Now Lindows is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.

Fact: Linux is dying

Other great slashdot headline

[hymie3]

Is Linux dead?
Is OpenSource better?
Natalie Portman: Hot or Not?
Cowboy Neal?

Re:Dead?

[TedCheshireAcad]

And in other news, Larry Ellison is a poopyface and Bill Gates's dad can beat up Linus Torvalds's dad.

Re:oh yeah right...

[TedCheshireAcad]

Oh come on now, we all knew from the beginning that this open source thing wasn't going to fly.

Maybe dead but...

[compudj]

We could have saved up to 70% on Term Life Insurance! Dammit!

I can say that this popup is at the right place ;)

Re:Did anybody actually READ the article?

[killmenow]

Yep...

Everybody except CmdrTaco.

Obligatory Reference

[bludstone]

[Linux] Im not dead yet! Im getting Better! I feel fine! I think Ill go for a walk! I feel happy! I feel Happy! I feel Hap~*thunk*

TELNET

[oliverthered]

well i though BSD was dead, but i managed to telnet in an kill the process holding evrything up.

Spam this guy!

[Quickening]

[e-mail]

It'd be great if he was slashdotted by all us "ghosts". M$ has lost more money in this dot.com bust than all the linux companies put together.

In Business News...

[Anonymous Coward]

MSNBC announced today that add revenues soared today when they posted a story on Linux. "Page views soared as a result of traffic driven from a tech website called slahdot.org", gasped an un-named source at MSNBC. "We're going to triple our advertising rates for any story that mentions Linux". At Microsoft's Redmond bunker, an employee was overheard telling his smiling superior "see, I told you we could make money from Linux".

Reboot?? Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft is hoping to reboot Windows sales by leading the charge toward the Tablet PC "

Well if Windows is involved - REBOOTS will most definately be involved too!

Re:Wanted: moderation for the articles

[Rocketboy]

It's called Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org].

Imagine that!

[tomhudson]

It's dead, and it still runs!.

Now that it's dead, they have no hope of killing it off - sort of a "dawn of the dead" scenario. Linux, the ghoul os. You might kill it, but it keeps coming back, like Jason in Friday the 13th.

It's dead, and it still works - didn't even miss a beat. Beat that, MSNBullshit!

Re:Not quite

[William Tanksley]

I suspect you're totally missing his point (I may be wrong). He's saying that unified usability is more important than configurability; you're saying that configurability can't be made simple.

You may be right; my experience agrees with you. But that doesn't address his claim, that configurability should take a backseat to unified usability.

Is he right? I'd say that he is. Yes, I want all our stuff to remain configurable; however, more and more that configurability should focus to a point. When I change the way the help system works, ALL the help facilities should change (except the ones I ask to not change, of course -- and those shouldn't just be the ones the author happened to use the wrong help viewer on).

A Windows user doesn't have to configure, and doesn't have a huge amount of choice; but the choices he does have apply pretty consistently throughout the system. Well, at least that's the goal ;-). We can do better; we can become consistent while remaining configurable.

-Billy (who keeps mistyping 'usability' as 'suability')

wait wait wait

[msouth]

I thought I was BSD that was dead.

Go to Kuro5hin!

[Alexey Nogin]

Sometimes (often!) I wish Slashdot let you moderate the articles and not just the posts; this one would have been (-1, Troll) very quickly.

That what are you doing on Slashdot? Go to Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]! ;-)