Linus Holds Forth On the Future of Linux 249
colinmc151 writes "As part of Geekcruises' Linux Lunacy cruise to Alaska, Linus Torvalds was interviewed and answered questions about where he sees the future of Linux with a particular eye towards developers. Great stuff."
Desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like getting onto the desktop is important to him. He talks about the problems affecting kernel space - poor support from latop hardware mfrs being a big one... but really the kernel is NOT what's holding up the success of linux on the desktop. We need easier setup and a useable interface.
another interesting read... (Score:4, Insightful)
Torvalds might be saviour to the linux community, but thats where it stops. Frankly, The OS either needs some drastic marketting plans or a couple of well placed PR people if it ever wants to make some headway. Bill Gates & Microsoft didn't get rich of the quality of their programming.
having a bias (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my opinion.
Re:Desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Macs. I think they're great machines. Whenever anyone asks me for computer-buying advice, my first response is always "get a Mac." I would love it if Apple's market share blew up. My Mac does everything I want a computer to do. My last machine was a Mac, my current machine (obviously) is a Mac, and unless something drastic changes, my next machine will be a Mac too.
But.
What I would never want to see would be Apple becoming Microsoft. I don't want Steve Jobs to own the desktop any more than I want Bill Gates to. And honestly, assuming that the "Unix desktop" ("Unix" here being broadly defined, of course) ever becomes more than a niche market -- which I hope and expect it will -- I wouldn't even want to see Apple have 90+% market share there. Obviously I want them to do well. I don't want them, or anyone else, to dominate.
What I want is competition. I'd love to see Apple and Red Hat and SuSE and Mandrake and yes, even Microsoft, all slugging it out on something resembling a level playing field. I'd like to see the market work the way it's supposed to: the companies that do truly innovative things get rewarded, and their competitors respond with innovations of their own, and we -- the great unwashed desktop-using masses -- are the ones who win.
Obviously we're a long way from that. Right now, OS X and Linux play complementary roles. Linux ensures the growth of Unix as a whole, and that there will be lots of great Unix software out there available for free or for very low cost -- and that software almost always ends up on OS X as well. (Fink is my friend.) OS X provides an example of what a Unix desktop can be, and introduces users who would be put off by the inherent geekery of Linux culture to the wonders of what a Unix system can do.
Re:Spell Nazis beware! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:another interesting read... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of Linux the improvement in the OS is at a much steeper trajectory than Windows.
It is starting in smaller pockets (I am talking desktop) where the requirement for compatability is somewhat lower. Pockets where only a smaller subset of functionality is needed etc. But the thing is that once in, it will not be replaced by Windows. The Niche is gone for good.
Second Linux is Circling Windows from all sides. From big iron servers to cell phones. This means that the interoperability issue will become less and less. One day you will wake up and realize that it is actually smarter to ditch Windows than try to keep it in sync with it's surroundings.
Re:Linus about Mac OS X? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've personally switched from SGI Irix to Linux to MacOS X on the desktop, for both home and work. There have been some articles, in Infoworld and elsewhere, about normally geeky guys who have seen the virtues of Apple's creations. And CmdrTaco is the proud owner of a Mac laptop, which he apparently liked so much that he created an Apple section here on Slashdot.
Linux on the desktop seems to have done its best to imitate Windows on the desktop. If you want a user interface better than a pale imitation of Microsoft, then MacOS X is your OS.
For cost reasons, I don't think this is much of a threat to Linux or Microsoft. But I think it's a very interesting phenomenon that deserves more coverage.
D
Re:Desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Which is why Linus doesn't talk about the problems or future in the desktop arena. The KDE developers, Gnome developers, and distributions are responsibile for getting the kernel into the desktop and presenting it to the users of the system, not Linus.
Re:Linus about Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is like saying that a husband is against the very idea of vacuuming, rather than simply doesn't want to vacuum. From what I have read of Torvald's opinion, the difficulty was that a microkernel isn't as easy to write, and can be less efficient (but on the flip side can be dramatically more secure and stable - see QNX). That's great that he feels that as a developer, but as a user, or as someone choosing products for embedded systems, etc, I think I'd take a microkernel.
Re:The future of Linux is the Desktop/Set-top/Game (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Linus about Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
Linus has gone further than that, to slanderous accusations against microkernel research in general, stating that they were in it for the research dollars, knowing they had an inferior architecture. Tanenbaum wasn't mentioned by name, but it's fairly obvious who the comments were directed at. This behavior to me is beyond the pale, and completely unacceptable. He may have a fine OS, microkernel concepts or no, but he has no standing to be throwing around allegations like that.
This is a guy who learns fast when he wants to, an excellent x86 assembly hacker, but he doesn't know when to keep his trap shut when he doesn't know about something.
Re:Desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
You just don't get it, do you? As far as I'm concerned, OS X is not any better than MS Windows. It's a proprietary OS coming from a proprietary company. Sure, it's "UNIX-based" -- just like Windows 9x is DOS-based. Its only selling point, apart from aesthetic appeal, is ease of use and stability. But it's still (and will always be) a closed, proprietary system. Not to mention that Windows 2000/XP is not that much worse in those two aspects.
The main point of Linux is that it's a free and open system. It's not in the same category as OS X, Windows, OS/2, or AmigaOS. Don't compare it to those systems.
Re:Linus about Mac OS X? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is a corporation. MacOS is (for the most part) closed source. That means that when you purchase software from them, you are stuck getting updates and fixes from them. I wouldn't say apple is as bad as microsoft, not yet anyway, but lots of stuff points out that Apple is working towards locking in their users. For example, the fiasco about security updates to the older versions of OSX a few days ago.
I always hear people chastising Microsoft about their evil DRM-enhanced future. I don't see why people don't notice Apple doing it RIGHT NOW. Look at iTunes. You can burn your music, or you can put it on your iPod. I have an Archos mp3 player. I can't put music I buy from iTunes on it even though I've purchased the music. I'm by no means putting down Apple's use of DRM, after all, they have to make money somehow, but it's important to realize that they are just another corporation, and in parallel, they are just out to make money.
With open source you don't have to rely on a central source for fixes, you can fix it yourself, you can modify the appliations to suit your needs and whatnot. MacOS X may look nice, but it's no develper's heaven. That's what linux is for.
Re:having a bias (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure that's true. Look at the number of comments on the Symantec/Gun Control thread compared with the comments on this one.
Of course, I'm not sure what that means either. Perhaps that you have more wannabee geeks than real geeks reading Slashdot?
Re:Linus about Mac OS X? (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux on the desktop seems to have done its best to imitate Windows on the desktop
Another poster tried, but let me clarify.
KDE looks and acts like Windows. This is the reason a lot of Linux people don't like it or use it, myself included.
Gnome also looks like Windows at first, but less so. Lots of cool things going on in Gnome, all not very Windows-like.
XFCE, Blackbox, ICEWM, and Windowmaker look nothing like windows nor do they act like it.
"a pale imitation of Microsoft" would be inaccurate when describing these projects.
We should not speak of "Linux on the desktop," because no such single entity exists. There are, instead, many different projects providing desktop environments supported across not only Linux but the BSD family. And these vary from simple GUI+little functionality to full enviroments with internal protocols, etc.
While the visible desktop portion of MacOSX is very inviting from both aesthetics and functionality viewpoints, OSX has other problems which I believe will slow its adoption by the general user base (the not-so-technical who are beginning to care about issues like privacy+computers, years of Microsoft security failings, the DMCA, and notice that some countries are adopting Open Source Software as a mandate):
-Large portions of OSX is proprietary software. Fine: but so often it's touted as an open platform.
-The DRM architecture in iTunes is really no different than M$ DRM (more eloquently stated in another post )
-Cost.
Re:Linus about Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can we agree to finally put this canard to rest? No OS has more variety on the desktop than Linux. Yes, two popular desktop environments - KDE and Gnome - are similar to Windows. Fluxbox and Windowmaker, popular as well, aren't close. XFce4 looks like OS-X. Ion attempts to replicate the terminal. Claiming the Linux desktops are "a pale imitation of Microsoft" is either disingenuous or uninformed.
Re:another interesting read... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, that's my feeling... I kine of agree with his view--if that is indeed what he means. I highly doubt he is referring to the software itself, which is great.
Sivaram Velauthapillai