An Open Source Tipping Point? 261
jg21 writes "Over at LinuxWorld there's an article arguing that open source will be propelled to market predominance by the same disruptive mechanism that brought Sony, Microsoft, and others to be market leaders at the moment. 'The improbable is possible - leaders have been dethroned in the past,' writes the author, who is also apparently the producer of an upcoming documentary entitled, 'The Digital Tipping Point' to be released in September 2005. The story refers to a corroborating article from South Africa and to Clayton Christensen's Seeing What's Next which backs up this general idea."
does MS care (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear short-term memory editors (Score:5, Interesting)
This is almost as bad as posting Roland Piquepaille submissions.
Re:Could Definitely Happen (Score:2, Interesting)
Why? You don't think Microsoft can adapt? It seems to me that Microsoft is the master of adaption. Why can't Microsoft go the IBM route?
Re:make your opinion known when vendors come in! (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, look at what we have from National Instruments today: http://www.ni.com/linux/lin_lv.htm/ [ni.com]
Never say never
It's not as OT as the mods think! (Score:1, Interesting)
Now then, it's not that parent doesn't have a point about O'Gara taking SCO's word for things a *wee* bit more than should have been reasonable, but I would suggest you all read what else PJ of Groklaw wrote about that whole issue here:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041026
Not that most Slashdotters will likely heed her advice...
Microsoft helping Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at the UI. Look at the applications. The basic look and feel hasn't changed significantly since 1995. Almost every new technology "innovation" has been either bought or copied (poorly) by Microsoft.
OSS' growth has been more viral, more grassroots, more innovative than the top-down "we know better than you" approach that Microsoft has successfully imposed on its users in the last 5 years. It is with this suppression of innovation that Microsoft has directly spawned and contributed to the open-source revolution!
On another note, after 10 years on Wintel, I switched to Macintosh recently. After 5 minutes inside of OSX, I experienced more innovation and creativity than I had on Windows for as long as I can recall.
Thank-you Microsoft for helping me switch to truly useable applications.
Re:It's a nice thought (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Just because it's happened before... (Score:5, Interesting)
I upgraded my mother to Linux a few years ago (RedHat 8.0), and she's been exceedingly happy with it. Indeed, Bubble Shooter is one of her favorite games as well, and its developer (Absolutist) does indeed have a Linux version, which is identical to its Windows counterpart [absolutist.com].
Mom-On-Linux (MOL) has had some major advantages. If her system needs maintenence, I can easily do it remotely through SSH, can can even export X apps (it helps that we're both on the same broadband network, mind you). Plus, as she doesn't have root access, she can't mess anything up. And wheras I had to watse a few days the last time my brother got a major virus infestation on his Windows laptop, Mom's machine is completely immune.
Mom's happy because she gets to run the games she likes, run Mozilla, and check her e-mail. I'm happy because the machine hums along problem-free without my constantly receiving calls from her asking for assistance or for routine maintanence.
(Mind you, since I bought myself my Apple PowerBook, and shoed her a picture of the new iMac G5, I think she's wanting an "upgrade" :) ).
Yaz.
Re:Rose-coloured glasses (Score:5, Interesting)
The tipping point for voters in this country (UK) for example, means that the 3rd party (Liberal Democrats) only has to get around 25% of the votes before their number of seats climbs considerably... that's a statistical anomaly that comes out of the quirky way we do our elections here (eg. in a pure 2 party race it would be theoretically possible to get 49% of the vote and zero seats. You can get 74% of the vote and lose, by the same measure... real world statistics of course aren't that clean).
If Linux got to 20% market share for example, would there be games for it? You bet - who's going to turn down that kind of cash. Would there be preinstalled machines on the high-street? Very likely.
Windows went through the same thing - for long time everyone wrote for DOS because nobody had Windows... then a point was reached where it became economically viable to write for Windows, and DOS went into decline quite rapidly.
New to you doesn't mean it is fresh innovation (Score:2, Interesting)
If you had used Mac OS X since 95 and just had moved to Windows you would have marvelled over all the innovations there.
FF (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Rose-coloured glasses (Score:5, Interesting)
"Linus has often said that Linux on the desktop would be a long, tiring battle."
I agree with Linus' assessment, inasmuch as making Linux an ideal desktop environment is concerned. But I don't think it has any bearing on the tipping point argument.
The longest, most tiring battle of my 15 year career in IT has been supporting Windows under increasingly difficult conditions. I now refuse to recommend or administer Windows servers, and I provide my customers with compelling reasons for this stance. The vast majority of them are receptive to my reasoning and discover for themselves that Linux servers are more cost-effective.
The huge upsurge in Windows exploits and the daily onslaught of malware and spam gives consultants like me all the fodder we need to argue for FOSS on the desktop too. Note that I'm not saying 'Linux on the desktop'. This is a transitional game we're playing, and conversion to Linux-based desktop systems won't be immediate. It will happen, though, unless something comes along that's got more momentum and greater robustness than Linux.
It's critical to note that Microsoft has never written robust, secure software. Pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding, it doesn't know how to do it. As software security becomes a dominant criterion for product selection, Microsoft's appeal diminishes. More and more frequently, organisations are willing to compromise on polish and integration in exchange for lower overall running costs.
This is precisely the wedge that Linux - and FOSS in general - need to break into the market. There will be a tipping point past which it becomes easier to move to FOSS than to remain with MS. The real question is when this will occur. You seem to be suggesting that this will be a long time in coming. I believe that rampant security problems will bring about the change much sooner than many suspect.
Not tipping quite yet... (Score:2, Interesting)
1. quality
2. easy fixes/improvements
The minor successes so far I think are clearly due to quality: Even mainstream technology enthusiasts can recognize that Apache, Firefox, and a few other tools are super-solid and finely-tuned applications.
But appreciation for a specific application does not translate into success for open-source as a whole, because it does not engage the user in the paradigm of open source.
But someday, the second strength of open source will become more evident: The ease with which it can be fixed and improved, and by this I mean improvements that are personal and specific to the user, something that is still very rare and unappreciated.
Consider, for instance, an average user of a mail program muttering to him/herself "I wish my email program could set off my alarm clock if I get an early email from work in the morning..." Suppose that person could post $100 improvement fee to a website, where it might be merged with similar requests from other users and leads to a new extension to be developed by an independent developer...
This idea is often discussed, but it is still only in its infancy. However, I believe it is critical for the success of open source, because it both engages the user in the OS philosophy and also allows a viable financial model to exist for mainstream software companies to participate in the OS revolution.
How can we make this happen?
lilo loading (Score:4, Interesting)
lilo loading
The slide has already begun!
The key is Myth busting (Score:5, Interesting)
All of our schools except for the high school have always had slow internet connections due to the ISDN line. We don't have the budget to install T1s for all of our buildings. In the past I had suggested using a Squid proxy at each remote building to save on traffic going to the High School. He said he had never hear of this "Squid" thing and asked me about it. I told him it was a free proxy web cache server that runs on Linux. He sounded interested until I mentioned the words free and Linux. Instead my boss, after I warned him many times, decided to buy an underpowered 3com webcache appliance and put it at the high school. The appliance was rated for a medium sized business (100-500 computers) Our district has over 3000 computers, 1000 of which are at the high school. Even at the high school this device is not adequate. As a result, network performance has not improved anywhere and has decreased at the high school due to the bottleneck. Did I mention the cost of this device was $11,500.
After one of the computer labs of the high school was upgraded we had a surplus of 30 350 Mhz computers. During the summer we are usually installing new labs and installing new servers because all of the childeren are gone. Since all of the labs and servers and been installed there wasn't much more for me to do. My boss asked me to strip down the 30 computers and save any usable parts. I was to then recycle the parts that were not needed. I asked my boss if I could use 14 computers to test software on. Without questioning me he said yes.
For the next week I installed Trustix Linux on the 14 computers along with Squid, configured as transparent, and Sarg. Originally each computer had 128 MB RAM and a 6 GB hard drive. I decided to up the memory to 256 and install a second hard drive in each computer. One drive has the OS installed on it and the other drive is for the cached content.
After testing each machine I installed them at the schools. School started and the proxies worked great. My boss got a call from a Principal at one of the secondary schools. He asked how our department came up with the money to upgrade our network. My boss told him we hadn't upgraded anything as far as the network goes. He told me about this call during lunch that day and I told him it was because of the Squid proxy servers I had installed over the summer. He said to me with a confused look on his face, "Oh, ok. Well next time you want to install something let me know first." After lunch I showed him Sarg. He was impressed with all of the information available. I think in the future he may be more open to open source software. (Firefox will be my next project!)
If you have read to this point I thank you. The lesson I learned from this situation was that free open source software is looked down upon by some IT managers or those who make the final decisions. The common wisdom by some is since it's free it must not be good. This concept is hard for a Linux user like myself to grasp. I knew all along that a free and scalable alternative was available but my boss still decided to buy the 3com because it was expensive. It must be good if you have to pay for it right?
One more thing (Score:3, Interesting)
now... what will happen to Microsoft? Will they survive?
Yes. But it will look very different from Microsoft today. Reminds me of a paper and rubber company called Nokia and a company like Montana Power (which now makes computers). Personally, I think Microsoft will become a media company, but that is just wild speculation.
Mom-On-Linux (MOL) (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess where I'm going is that, MOL doesn't work here, because all this crap she bought is for Windows, and I don't need to continue this paragraph...
OTOH, a lot of these resources and crap applications are being turned into internet accessible apps where the browser is the platform. I tried Turbotax Web with either Mozilla or Konquerer (I can't remember), and it worked great. As others have said, the more of this that goes on, the more irrelevant the underlying OS is.
I don't see the threat to MS as so much the linux threat, rather than the OSS threat, as it is many OSS apps like apache and firefox that run fine under windows but happen to be crossplatform and standards compliant among other things.
We all know linux has many advantages given certain circumstances, and overall it keeps getting better. There are plenty of problems that still need to be addressed, but at this point, a tipping-point is at least plausible.
Personally I'm too much of a wimp to push MOL, but I think things will only get better, in part because so many companies and individuals are working to escape the MS monopoly and provide a viable alternaive. Strangely enough, it seems to be working.
Re:Bla bla bla (Score:3, Interesting)
The kind of user who doesn't really know as much as we do about computers, but still wants to install some software or tweak some options is the type that really gets turned off of Linux. They don't want to use the command line, or poke around in
Linux really needs to be like OS X, you have a powerful command line, but if you don't want to - you never have to touch it. Windows is simular, you almost never have to touch DOS either, unless you want to (ipconfig.exe is the one, big, glaring exception to that).
The good news is, we're almost to that point with some of the newest Linux distro's.
My prediction (Score:4, Interesting)
Prediction Number One:
The people who will adopt Linux first are actually the home users everyone thinks will go last. The reasons are easy enough:
1. It's free.
2. It's easy enough to install and the UI is familiar enough for them to use it comfortably, especially with KDE. Plus, it does everything a home user typically does (word processing, web browsing, email) much better than Windows would.
3. It's free.
4. There is a LOT of info online about how to do Linux-related things, and people are getting used to Googling for information. This is true despite the constant assertion by techno-snobs that Joe Sixpack is too stupid or lazy to do this. Maybe they forgot to tell Joe.
5. It's free.
6. Unlike a business, there's no boss to tell you that you can't switch to Linux.
7. It's free.
8. Home users will feel cool and hackerish using Linux -- they'll feel they're clued in to something, hip and different. People DO care about this. It turns 'em on, and makes them look cool to their friends. Social capital -- don't underestimate it.
9. It's free.
People are going to say this is bullshit. But look how many people are picking up Firefox. It's clear they have the initiative to try new things when they're annoyed enough. And they're definitely annoyed.
Prediction Number Two:
People with enough money to buy a Mac are going to switch to Mac OS/X in larger numbers, faster, than the x86 crowd, because of the "cool" factor. Most artists, writers, etc, already use Macs. They're very trendy computers. And the more rich/popular people use Macs, the more regular people will see changing to something different as an attractive thing. So Mac use will foster eventual Linux use among people who can't afford Macs.
Prediction Number Three:
The holdouts will be organizations which are averse to change, which move glacially. Governments, for example. Individual departments might switch over, but as a whole, it'll be slow going. I know MY shop will be among the last to change over. There's a whole cultural pro-Windows bias there. I see any transition happening on the server-side first, because we're already running some unix boxen and that transition would be the easiest. We're talking far backend, not middleware or frontend, here.
Some private companies might be slow to switch over, too, because of their investment in custom software, and their lack of Linux-related expertise. THIS transition is going to be very painful.
So, here it is in a nutshell:
Rich/affluent people: Mac OS/X on fast machines.
Regular people: Mostly switching to some form of Linux, whichever gets buzz for being easiest to install and manage.
Techies: Linux or OS/X depending on relative wealth. Maybe both in lots of cases.
Small, fast companies: Linux or *BSD.
Large, cautious companies: Windows for many years.
Government: Mixed bag.
eesy peesy (Score:2, Interesting)
Decided thats its time to push Linux to the great unwashed masses, so installed Mepis on the P3s - took about 20 minutes (maybe 10 clicks of the mouse , did the user name thing, didn't really have to think about it).
Handed over to the sales guys. Told them - this is your userid, password; this is for web, this is for text documents (you know, Word). Leave.
An hour later the guys show up on MSN, doing their stuff. No complaints. No questions. No support.
Maybe Linus is wrong about the Desktop market - can't expect him to be in the know about EVERYTHING.
Re:Just because it's happened before... (Score:3, Interesting)
For instance, I'd switch my Mother to Linux just to degrade her chances of a virus, but 3 or 4 little games she plays; Kyodai Mahjongg (this isn't normal mahjongg) Bubble Shooter (There's a similiar one, but it's got a ways to go to catch up to Bubble Shooter), Bookworm, etc. aren't available on Linux that I know of.
Bubble Shooter looks an awfully lot like Frozen Bubble (which in turn is a revision of some really old game). I admit that Frozen Bubble's game areas look more cramped. As for Kyodai, I fail to see what people praise in it. Sure, it's 3D and has quite pleasant sound-world - but it still is a damn solitaire. Real Mah-Jong is a great game and these solitaire versions have as much in common with Mah-Jong as Windows's default Solitaire has with Poker or Bridge. This is real Mah-Jong. [stevens-bradfield.com] Great social game. The computer version is suitably quite close to the real thing.
Now, for Bookworm... I'd love to have the dedicated client for Linux. Applet version works nicely but for some reason Mozilla/Firefox+plugins don't always work seamlessly. (Flash sometimes leaves sound unusable until browser is restarted, Java-plugin doesn't exit and hogs memory in the same manner.)
The other issue is that, people are comfortable with where to go & what to do when there's trouble brewing in Windows. In Linux, even veteran Windows users are often at a loss./
You certainly have a point there, but...
If you do something wrong installing video drivers in Windows, you get a smack on the hand by the OS forcing you to 640x480, where you have to deal with what you did.
Actually, something quite similar could be done for Linux. If and when X has trouble starting because of screwed-up hardware and/or configuration, it fails to start. It would be quite simple to hook this failure signal with a configurator that allows one to retry. -- Now, I said that would be simple. Making the setup intuitive and moreover, robust, is the hard part. My hunch is that writing this for one distribution would take perhaps 4 months. Making it universally available and able to custom-fit for various different distributions is probably another year. Ironing out bugs and corner-case glitches is like any software project: an ongoing voyage. Not at all that easy.
So what am I saying? You have a point. But for games, there is actually quite a nice selection available. (Incidentally, I'm considering to try out Puzzle Pirates. Yes, they do have a Linux client as well.)
You're missing the idea... (Score:1, Interesting)
MS will have to give up 85% margins and cannot afford to continue to put $1Bn a year into non-competitive ventures.
They will be unalbe to change Office formats on upgrade, since there will be the OOo upgrade path that will allow seamless opening of Office docs.
They will be unable to sell WMV formats to media giants with "you get 90%+ of the deskop market if you go with us". A 60% penetration means they may as well go with Real or Apple than risk handing the keys over to a company that could turn into a rival.
They won't be able to force MS only shops, since that could remove a large section of the buying public. They could not keep activation, since the pain of changing would be less than he pain of activation.
I can see MS getting to a 60% level and then changing their work practices and holding there or thereabouts.
If MS ever get to less than 30%, they will probably close shop and sell assets and cash in.
Re:Could Definitely Happen (Score:1, Interesting)
NT was touted as a "Unix Killer" and it completely failed to make any impact on the Unix market...
However that wasn't were the explosive growth comes from, it came from PC's. And that's the wave that Microsoft has ridden to were it is today.
In fact that's one of the success stories about linux, it's making it in a very strong way in the Unix market,. Windows is just more embedded, so this stuff takes longer.
Remember that NT only has 50% market share in the server arena. The other 50% is Unix + Linux + the remnents of Novell Netware.