Linux Five Years Away From Mainstream 497
wellington wrote to mention a ZDNet blurb about a Gartner group study. Gartner indicates that 'mainstream' use of open source in IT environments may be 5 years away. From the article: "Gartner's latest Linux 'hype cycle' report shows that open source is halfway to maturity but warns the biggest test will be whether it can demonstrate the necessary performance and security to function as a data centre server for mission-critical applications. Leading-edge businesses are generally still in the early stages of Linux deployments but Gartner expects increased commercialisation and improved storage and systems management for the operating system by the end of 2005, with Linux being used primarily for WebSphere and infrastructure applications on mainframes and web services on blades and racks."
Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
When I wrote my article [blogspot.com] and its follow-up [blogspot.com] on directions I think a Linux Distribution could take, I expected that there would be some controversy. However, I hardly expected the shear number of responses to the effect of, "Linux is great as it is! Never change it!"
Which is surprising, because the very point of the Linux design is that different distributions were supposed to be able to explore completely different tracks. There shouldn't be any "one distro to rule them all", yet many of the respondants demanded exactly that! (Amusingly, they couldn't agree on *which* distro to rule them all.)
When I pointed this out to many responders, and mentioned the fact that I'm merely attempting to suggest a Desktop environment that would help Linux adoption, I got another surprising response: "Who said we wanted regular users? Linux is for the elite. If you're too stupid to recompile your kernel or read all the scattered HOWTOs, you're too stupid to use Linux!"
I understand that the Linux community is wide and varied, but this sort of attitude is not helping anyone. In fact, this sort of attitude causes Linux to take two steps back for every one step forward it takes in the market.
It's normal that Linux users will disagree. That's why Linux is just a kernel, KDE/GNOME are just desktop environments, and the GNU System is just a collection of Unix utilities. It's so the end distributions can build the OS necessary to meet their users. But such a design DOES NOT require that users berate each other! Rather, Linux users should understand that "idiot" users using an "idiot" distribution is okay. Gentoo users can still recompile Gentoo to their hearts content even though Ubuntu exists. Ubuntu users can still use Ubuntu workstations even though Fedora exists. Fedora users can still a have 100% "Free as in socks and gun ownership" OS even though SuSE exists.
There's no reason for this OS bigotry. It's causing confusion in the marketplace, and generally turning the public off to Linux. Just pick the distro you like, and be happy for other people who use something that works for them. K?
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2)
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Not in the software thats available, but in sheer choice of software.
MS Has Windows XP home and Windows XP Professional, designed for the general required use, its easy to tell epopel to get the correct version.
99.9999% of home users don't ever need or want a c compiler, or 4 different word processors, or 13 ways to do the same thing, they want the most efficient simple way. The list goes on, but people suffer from too much choice, its like going into a foreign sweetshop and not knowing the names of the products.
If I could just tell somebody to go and get the "Home" version of Linux - from whichever vendor was currently hot then it would be easier to get people to switch.
After they have gotten used to their version and know their way around, then they can start customising it and adding all the perfect bits, but until that point, its just overpowering.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who has been a Linux newbie repeatedly over the years, by virtue of periodically installing some distro, trying to get it to work, getting it 90% there and then getting hung up on some random bit of hardware and eventually getting frustrated and going back to my Mac, the lack of coherent established opinions is difficult to work with.
In my longest (and still running) experiment with Linux, on a home server, I went with Debian because I thought it would avoid RPM dependency hell that drove me nuts in previous tries. In retrospect, I think this was a good move -- I'll never use anything that doesn't have apt-get again. However I'll often ask a question on how to set something up or edit a config file, and get the response "Well, that's just because Debian sucks and is broken. Use [insert distribution here] instead."
It's fine to have multiple distributions. It's fine for people to have opinions on which distribution is best. But advocating that others switch distributions constantly in response to what ought to be minor problems doesn't do a lot to inspire confidence by new users in an OS.
Also, I think a lot of users go too far the other way -- so on one hand you have distribution zealots who loudly proclaim that theirs is better and yours clearly sucks, for any reason or none at all, while on the other the people who actually have a soapbox to stand on (in trade magazines, established web sites, etc.) generally refuse to take an opinion on distros one way or another. Once in a while I'll see someone take a wishy-washy stance as to 'this distribution might be a good one' but there's very little clear guidance for new users. If you have an opinion based on real experience, for god's sake say it. But if you just like your distribution because it's yours, shut up.
Okay, I'm done.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:4, Insightful)
5 years is not much to a large enterprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2)
And then we get into the problem, which is "currently hot". Today it's Redhat, tomorrow it's.... That is problematic. With Windows (and even Mac) I know the latest version is the "hot" version. After windows Me (which sucked) came Windows XP home and professional. Two choices, and their were self-explanetory. Soon MS will come out with a
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Informative)
Windows is complicated. Why do I have to spend hours helping telling people to install Adware and spybot?
Why do have spend time fixing busted registry entries?
Linux on my Tivo just works. Linux on my router at home just works. No mucking about with service packs or any of that junk.
Good grief too much choice in Software? I thought that is why people like Windows. There are a lot more than 4 word processors for Windows and frankly a lot more than 13 ways to do the same thing.
If you wan
Bunk... Pure bunk, that is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Software, in general, is complicated.
Even if you tell someone to "get XP Home" (Of which, I'd NEVER tell anyone to get- Home's got a bunch of crap turned on that actually destabilize the machine...) or to "get XP Professional", you still have to tell them to "get an Anti-Virus proram" (Which is best? Your guess is as good as any- and it's more off of personal preferences, cost, etc...) and to "get an Anti-Spyware program" (Again, which is best? And, it's t
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Or at least just the same way (as their neighbour, as at work, et cetera).
Even though one might laugh that one should access "Shut down" via "Start" in Windows, this is only an issue the first couple of times. People know how to shut down their computer by now. 10 years of shutdown placed at the same location has clarified that. This is only an concern the first time. The only people who claim they can't find "Shut down" are people who would like to make a point about
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really?
How is it that millions of people use it every day without even knowing that they are using it?
The Tivo was so revolutionary and user friendly that it has become a brandname/product synonym like jello or kleenex.
The Linksys WRT5x series of wireless routers are some of the most commonly used end user products of its type, and it runs linux.
People use google millions of times daily.
People use millions of websites that run Linux daily.
Linus was even surprised to buy a digital picture frame for his wife and found out that it runs Linux.
Seems like Linux is pretty mainstream to me.
Oh, the infamous Linux on the desktop is that what mainstream means?
The issues there are simple. There is not a compellingly different or better GUI subsystem and there is a lacking supply of easy to install and use software.
As soon as those two issues are taken care of, linux will be mainstream on the desktop, otherwise its on embedded systems and servers where it is currently better suited.
No... Linux is Complicated AND Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
To answer GP:
Not in the software thats available, but in sheer choice of software.
MS Has Windows XP home and Windows XP Professional, designed for the general required use, its easy to tell epopel to get the correct version.
Sure, and it is really easy to tell the same people to buy Xandros or Lindows or even Mandriva. Just tell them to use Mandriva! Do not tell them to use just "Linux" because then you will give them pr
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also fed up with some things, like ignorant idiotic "Linux [distro] reviews" and "Linux will be ready for [substitute as required] in 5 years" rants.
For the record, I have nothing against making one or more distribuions which would target the joe6pack masses, the "idiot" user base who doesn't know a kernel from an OS, a computer from a monitor, etc.
What I don't like is when dozens of reviews say Linux is a piece of junk because the usual computer-illiterate is not able to click his/her way through the installation process, because they can't be expected to know their hardware, and so on, coming to the conclusiont hat Linux is not ready for anything.
What I'd like my point to be here is that Linux is ready for a huge variety of things. Literally. It just takes a few energetic people and some funding to prepare a 6pack-friendly disto. Besides that, it is already ready to be used for datacenters, web server farms, clusters, developer workstations, and I could just go on with this, and many of you could even name exemples for them with known big players to back up the claims.
Stating anything that sounds like "Linux is/isnot/will/willnot be ready for this/that in 1/2/3/... years/ever" is just plain fraggin' stupid and idiotic. There is no "linux". Linux is what you make of it. One could correctly state that there does not exist a specific Linux distro that would specifically target the 6pack clicking crowd, but one should not state that such a distro could not be developed.
You are correct (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Informative)
Out of general curiosity, were there any positive responses to your article? Have any people offered to start projects and help implement some of your proposed changes?
I'm not an experienced developer in "low-level" languages like C or C++, but I'd like to help out wherever I can. I know the GNOME Storage project is working on some things similar to some of your suggestions, but otherwise I liked your article and I've got a strong inclination to help out with any projects like this, so it'd be useful to k
People are different (Score:2)
What can be damaging to your view is mixing up those you meet on a forum, or are acting immature/ignorant, with those who really matters in a project.
More interesting is that what you see as OS bigotry and elitism in others, is a feeling in yourself really. It might not have a reality in the other perso
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
If you even read the summary here on
They are 2 VERY different things, makes me wish I could mod the whole thread off-topic... (and redundant)
[Personally, I agree with the artice, linux is already moving fast in the IT sector. Depending on how you define 'mainstream' it could already be there. IMO that's where it belongs anyway. I know I definately prefer to work in a *nix environment]
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Interesting)
If you even read the summary here on
Hmmm.... What percentage of web servers run Linux?
What percentage of DMZ hosts run Linux?
What percentage of closed email relays run Linux?
THese are all mainstream IT environments and Linux is quite capable there.
Now, if you are talking large database managers, LDAP infrastructures, etc. there is still a little ways to go. But it is still possible today (just not as mature as the above examples).
Gardner makes one extremely serious error in this study: they underestimate the resources that IBM, SGI, and other traditional big-iron vendors are throwing at Linux. I would not be surprised of, in 5 years, IBM is retiring AIX in favor of Linux.
Just my $0.02
As for the corporate workstation, I think 6-8 years is a good estimate (not a question of whether Linux is ready for the desktop but a question of when people will decide to migrate and how long these migrations take).
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a LaTex junky, I'm helping the wife with a paper, so I install MiTek on her computer, permissions are screwed up so I just copy a couple
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
If people can make some money off of Linux then good luck to them, but Linux should not change to meet some commercial wish list.
Why not? Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet commercial desires? Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet home user desires? Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet scientific researchers' desires?
What is wrong with different Linux distros to meet the desires of different markets? Isn't that the entire point of Linux? "It's just a kernel," we say. But then the community berates anyone who attempts to reuse that kernel in Community Unapproved Ways(TM). How does that help anyone?
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2)
I think you've missed the poster's point.
He's saying the overall structure of Linux, and the way it's develop
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing. As I was attempting to communicate in my original post above (though perhaps not with complete success), the perceived attitude of the Linux community is one of elitism. So even if Linux distros currently meet all the critera of a Windows replacement, many users will avoid Linux simply because they don't want to deal with the community.
As a result, all this "it's our toys, go away" nonsense is counterproductive to the stated goal of spreading freedom (as in chili peppers and nonsensical ranting*) through software.
* Sorry, I always have fun coming up with new pairings for the "freedom" definitions. Someone should make a game out of it.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Developers are only a small part of the community and are not ranking members over anyone else. It is a developers elitist attitude that makes you assume that, please refer to the definition listed above that clearly demonstrates that being elitist has nothing to do with making demands.
The elitism the GP is referr
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
While this may be true, it is not accurate.
What do I mean? When people discuss "Linux" they are talking about the OS that is built on top of the kernel. Yes it's only the kernel that is Linux, but that semantic battle was fought and lost a long time ago.
Linux is an OS now. Carrying on with "it's not an OS it's a kernel" talk is a waste of time.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole misconception is due to vendors that sell distributions and refer to them as OSes because the two are never seperated (Windows, MacOS, etc).
For instance, loading Bash and GNU utils does not transform solaris into a different OS. The OS interacts with the hardware, not the user.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2)
As any businessman can tell you, scaring away the customers is not good for business.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed, but Linux is not a business and the people in the community you are referring to are not business-like. Unfortunately there's very little one can do if these people cannot be reasoned with. We just have to try our best to be more vocal in our helpfulness then they are in their scorn.
The Linux community is very helpful to new users. (Score:2)
Indeed, these guys [wcnews.com] should just accept who the are, and be comfortable with
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:5, Funny)
I hear there's this really nice one called "Aqua". They're even porting it to other architectures now.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Insightful)
btw, I was not asking a serious question, only posting my remarks. Linux is not linux quite often, which makes googling for problems quite a problem itself in my experience. FreeBSD is just plain FreeBSD. That I love: one system as a whole, not tens of dozes of systems that share more or less the same code-base.
[..a post or two..]
Wrong.
The point is that while all the *BSD share the same heritage, the code-base is different and unique for each flavor. Apart from the efforts by Debian, Gentoo et all, FreeBSD
Re:FreeBSD? (Score:3, Insightful)
I tried SuSe, Mandrake and one other I think. Problem was, every time I read a HowTo or other document, right after discussing how to do something, it always added "your distribution may do this differently." And surprise, surprise, they did. So I tried FreeBSD. I got the book "Absolute BSD" and went through that. And every example worked as published. Yes, I understand that this is due largely to the "FreeBSD is an operating system, Linux is a kernel" thing, but the problem I ran
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps you should read the ACTUAL content of his blog, and the responses to it, before criticizing blindly. His point wasn't to advertise his blog, but to show two particular pages in it.
Besides, his point was valid, wasn't it? And it's not the first time someone posts in his blog/journal about Linux not being user-friendly enough. I'd post a link to my
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:4, Informative)
Personal choice would make a difference when both are truly as easy to use as each other. Until then, it's too much effort for entrenched users to switch (although it is slowly getting better).
At the moment the desktop lineup is OS X, Windows, Linux. For servers it is Linux, Windows, OS X.
they're a little late (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:they're a little late (Score:2)
Re:they're a little late (Score:3, Insightful)
I take issue with the argument that Linux isn't mainstream until it's mainstream on the desktop. Just because people don't realize it powers a lot of the servers whose websites they visit doesn't mean it's not mainstream.
per Webster:
mainstream: a prevailing current or direction of activity or influence
Major player on the Desktop (Score:5, Informative)
It au pair with OSX in raw number of desktops installed in a lot of places, and was pushed in a lot of countries to the desktop. Ubuntu Hoary / Fedora Core are every bit as easy to install than W2k/XP, and work equally well. Choose your desktop environment for your users and you're set.
In 2000, gartner wrote (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:they're a little late (Score:2)
Re:they're a little late (Score:3, Interesting)
Anonymous Coward said: At this point, after the install, most Windows users could use Linux.
Amen to that. I installed 64 bit FC3 on the computer of some very non-technical friends of mine (a cop and a housewife) months ago and the only problem they've had has been the lack of a Flash player for 64 bit firefox, which in nobody's fault but Macromedia's. My laptop has 64 bit Ubuntu w/ Gnome and the sixteen year old foreign exchange student living with my family that has never seen or used a Linux OS befor
How many times... (Score:4, Funny)
- to the tune of "Blowin' in the Wind"
Mission Critical? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mission Critical? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mission Critical? (Score:2)
Really, AC, your statement is not that interesting.
Not a military term (Score:3, Informative)
"Mission Critical" is not a military term:
mission critical [answers.com] "Vital to the operation of the organization. The term is very popular for describing the applications required to run the day-to-day business."
It may once have been a military term, but its usage has long ago become more generalised, so that usage is now strictly a part of the etymology i.e. history of the phrase. Language changes, and the correct version of a word is the one in use today.
Everything takes 5 years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Everything takes 5 years (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Everything takes 5 years (Score:2)
It's a sign of a bad prediction, for the most part, unless there's a good reason to choose five years.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
After a quick google search, I've uncovered that:
1. Iran at least five years away from producing nuclear weapon
2. CIA five years away from terror readiness
3. Scotland: Independence 'five years away'
4. Cancer cure about five years away, British scientists claim
5. Dog returned to owners after being lost five years ago
6. Infants' gastro vaccine may be five years away
Sure, it might as well be tomorrow, or ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now all thet we need is to make it perform better and make it secure. What a crap.
As a matter of fact linux already mainstream in many areas, and for all we know, it may never replace Windows on a desktop.
But predictions are always true, right
ZDNet (Score:2, Insightful)
Only 5 more? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only 5 more? (Score:4, Interesting)
It was only 3 years away 10 years ago.
Re:Only 5 more? (Score:3, Funny)
It was only 3 years away 10 years ago.
Why is this thread beginning to sound like Windows Explorer reporting on how long it will take when copying a large number of files?
Linux is ALWAYS 5 years away from the mainstream (Score:2)
Wake me Linux is ONE year away, OK?
2015 called... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe John Titor can help.
Nothing ever really gets here. (Score:2)
Finally! *My* chance to be an angry Lunix zealot! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Finally! *My* chance to be an angry Lunix zealo (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux as a server has arrived, and has been here for awhile.
Re:Finally! *My* chance to be an angry Lunix zealo (Score:3, Informative)
I think it's important to distinguish between no Quicktime or WMV plugin and no easy to install on Ubuntu Quicktime or WMV plugin. CNN works great for me using mplayer-plugin on my Gentoo systems, thank you very much, and just required a USE flag setting if I remember right. Getting it to work on most other distros I have tried, however, can be quite an experience, but it is still possible. And I believe it work
What does 'mainstream' mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What does 'mainstream' mean? (Score:2)
Does Linux run the majority of web servers worldwide? I know that Apache does (around 70%, according to netcraft), but the only data I've seen on Linux usage (again, from netcraft) puts it at 25% of the ssl web server market -- considerably lower than Microsoft's 40%.
Its all in the hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
I personally have moved to a mac because I couldnt wait any longer. Will revisit Linux on the desktop in maybe 3 - 5 years.
Its not the hardware (Score:4, Insightful)
Until you can get the easy things doable by the masses, then you have a chance at taking the desktop.
Storm
Re:Its not the hardware (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been using Linux for the last three years, I've gone through Mandrake, SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware and Arch Linux and I have never ever had to manually go around and resolve package dependencies (except possibly on Slackware, but even then you can download swaret or slapt-get to solve that, and Slackware is meant to be a pretty hardcore nerd distro anyway). When exactly did you encounter this problem, and with which distro? I'm genuinely interested to know, so I can stay the hell away from it.
You might have a point if you're talking about downloading Mandrake RPMs and trying to install them on SuSE or something like that, but that's not meant to work anyway, and I don't know why you'd think it would. It's not as if you'd buy Toyota engine parts for your Ford now, is it?
Re:Its not the hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
My first ever experience with Linux was Mandrake 8.2 Beta. I found the installation of the OS much easier than (my first) windows install two weeks previously; It Just Worked. Once I'd gotten my head around how it handled installing things, it was easy.
These days it's brain-sputteringly simple. Every desktop distro worth its salt has a graphical package installation utility that explains exactly which packages are available, and what they are used for - usualy sorted into relevant categories. Heck, even installing things as complicated (in the Linux world) as kernel modules/drivers is usually simple.
Granted, some pre-alpha drivers require some confugling, but once they go stable and are added to the kernel, it becomes practically impossible not to set things up properly, thanks to the marvell of things like hotplug. Even relatively complicated pieces of software (that no Joe Schmoe would install anyway) such as Apache and MySQL have GUI configurators available. In the realm of pure desktop productivity/leisure software, I've not encountered a single package that didn't just install and give me a nice clickable button in my K/foot/whatever menu.
If there's anything wrong with the way modern desktop distros handle packaging, it's educating the users away from the "download arbitrary
FWIW, my girlfriend is entirely happy with the Gentoo/KDE box I've donated to her.
Re:Its all in the hardware (Score:2)
Anyways, the point wasnt totally about closed source, its around vendors fully supporting their drivers and hardware from what is a primiarly a from source operating system.
Linux Always Five Years Away From Mainstream (Score:2)
Gartner's latest Linux 'hype cycle' report shows that open source is always halfway to maturity...
I know a lot of people don't want t hear this (Score:2, Insightful)
This means that most of the software the current /.'r is running, won't show up in enterprise level distributions for several years. So yeah, five years off doesn't sound that far off the mark.
No way! (Score:2, Funny)
A five years from now Windows Vista will be ready for public beta (=final version)!
It's about to hit the mainstream? (Score:3, Funny)
Mainstream? Well, I was into Linux before it was cool. I totally dig their older stuff so much better... then they sold out to the man
</indierock>
Grain of salt (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Grain of salt (Score:3, Insightful)
The study is more about the market state than the technical readiness of either Windows or Linux, don't confuse the two. Technically Linux may well be ready and in many ways is better than Windows as a server, but this doesn't automatically translate to higher adoption in the market, as Windows has massive unfair advantages e.g. huge marketing budget & sales team, 'network effects', critical mass, desktop monopoly etc. When they say Linux is "ready" to start becoming "mainstream" they don't mean it is n
Almost 4 years uptime (Score:2, Insightful)
Gartner indicates that 'mainstream' use of open source in IT environments may be 5 years away.
I wonder where he has been. I started using Linux IN the datacenter some 4-5 years ago now. One system was up for almost 4 years running DNS and Squid. For DNS, we occassionally patched it, for squid we had a job that restarted it once per week at 11pm on Sundays. It didn't make it to 4 years because the UPS had to be upgraded. We had bets if she would reboot, the na-sayer lost.
And it was a no-name left ove
Re:Almost 4 years uptime (Score:2)
-russ
Wrong article title (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know whether this article is deliberate FUD, or just a confused mess. I suspect the latter.
Gartner Hype Cycles (Score:2)
Bunch of crock. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been using Linux for 13 years now (took me a week to download it on a 2400 baud modem!) and I first implemented it in a business setting 10 years ago to connect someone to the Internet.
How long has Windows or DOS or MacOS waited before becoming "mainstream"??? Certainly not 20 years!!!
Back to the future (Score:2)
$#!+, I must be living in the future @ work. Eclipse, Tomcat, Rehat and Suse, big brave talk about ditching Oracle for postgres - Open Source tooling being first choice every time.
OK, a big part of it is down to $$$, but that's not all of it.
Gardner blabla (Score:2)
What is important now is to get the remaining issues done, fix the 90% solutions. That is, we need more paid developers for key infrastructure projects such as KDE, gcc, classpath, valgrind, etc. It is just a matter of time. We will get openoffice 2 and fi
Sure Thing (Score:2, Funny)
In 5 years, I'll wake up after 2 hours of sleep to my AI assistant handing me my rejuvination pill. I'll hop in my flying car and it'll drive me to work at the fusion plant. There won't be much work to do, because the Open Source software that runs the place does so damn well. That's OK though, we'll just play Duke Nukem Forever all day on our quantum computers and go home and fuck our supermodel wives, because geeks are cool now.
The Money Pit (Score:4, Funny)
Windows Developer: Linux is mainstream now (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux installation is not a reason to avoid switching at a corporate or oem level.
I downloaded and installed Suse 9.3 64 bit on my new dual Opteron the night before last. The installation went really smooth but of course there was a hiccup. I had to install sensors. That involved a trip to a web site, yasting around a bit, etc.
It would be easy to blast Linux for not automatically doing everything and retreat to M$ land, except that Windows 64 bit doesn't even have drivers out of the box for my SATA hard drive and thus wouldn't work at all. If I really wanted fans to work badly enough, and could not get a device, I could write a kernel module myself and all Linux hardware stuff has excellent documentation to at least get me started.
The bulk of all OS distributions are either OEMs or corporate rollouts. OEMS have a team that prepare images for a fixed hardware, and so do corporate rollout centers. Whether you wade through driver compatibility issues on Windows or Linux doesn't matter. Both systems have similar problems and Windows wizards at that level don't really help someone who should already be an expert on the topic.
I would think that OEMs might consider locking down Linux PCs so that end users do not have the root password. So they can't break it...
Re:Windows Developer: Linux is mainstream now (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be easy to blast Linux for not automatically doing everything and retreat to M$ land, except that Windows 64 bit doesn't even have drivers out of the box for my SATA hard drive
You hit the nail on the head. People hold Linux up to different standards than Windows. If you try bring Linux into an organisation, even the smallest hiccup will be met with criticism and "told you so"s that you 'shoulda stuck with Windows'. But the Windows server can crash several times a month and nobody even blinks, because, well, "that's just normal" ... the "server down again guys" routine. The fact that so many other people on the planet also have problems with Windows somehow "validates" its crappiness in the minds of its users - managers often don't really understand computers, so they probably subconsciously reason "as long as everyone else has these problems it must be normal" right? Meanwhile you're bringing in Linux because it's presumably better, so people automatically look for flaws, especially if you're basically trying to "prove the managers wrong" for their decision to use Windows ... managers who like to think they know a lot do not like people who know more than them about something questioning their decisions. (This pretty much describes the situation at my last job.)
well what else do you expect when... (Score:2)
If the TCO study was done over
Out of touch (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming that this has been reported correctly (there is no link to Gartner's actual report), it shows just how far out of touch Gartner is when it comes to technical matters such as this.
I won't disect what they've said because probably everyone else reading this knows the flaws in both their arguments and facts, but if an organisation can make money producing unsubstantiated and just plain incorrect claims like this then I am clearly in the wrong job.
So, here's the plan: we set up our own global organisation, just like Gartner, and we issue our own PR, which by contrast will contain no factual errors and will not only contain details of the present situation but also predict how much better the situation is becoming (and how quickly). These reports can be distributed within the community who can then go to their customers/partners/PHBs and say "Hey, there's this great new report out which says that Linux is running on 10 million desktops worldwide and this market share is set to treble in the next 12 months". That way, coming from an authoritative source, they will naturally acknowledge that it is true.
I'm not entirely joking here - who's up for it?
Factors for switching (Score:2)
The GPL to me is a red herring brought up by Microsoft to plant this crazy idea that you should only develop for Windows because on Linux you aren't allowed to make money. I can't see any reason why I can't make shareware on Linux as opposed to
Linux always 5 years from Mainstream (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on what your definition of "mainstream" is, of course. Right now, more people are using Linux than ever used Microsoft's DOS. Or Windows 3.1 for that matter.
Define your own reality - don't let others define it for you, with metrics based on the sales price of the OS, or the net revenue from OS sales. Linux strength is it's low cost, so it will never win at that game.
But right now, many people worldwide use Linux, or even BSD, even if it's what runs on their cell phone or inside their networked self-repairing robot-dog-feeding fridge.
And, to paraphrase Martha Stewart, that's a good thing.
Yawn... (Score:3, Insightful)
In 5 years, there will be an in every garage [go.com]. Yawn...
Gartner Group (Score:3, Insightful)
You should be neutral (tough for this crowd)
You should be logical (shouldn't be tough for us, but will probably be)
You should perform qualified research with backup sources.
Publish
Profit
Saying "Gartner you suck, you don't know what your talking about. You are five years behind the times" is really lame and inflammetory (if not trollish). Proving them wrong goes a LONG way.
TFA is BS (Score:3, Insightful)
The article keeps flicking confusingly from Linux to Open Source.
Open Source is already mainstream. I don't have colleagues at any major enterprises that don't use it, and the smaller enterprises tend to use it for a larger percentage of their operations.
Linux adoption is however far slower, and I don't know anybody at all using it (commercially) on the desktop. I'd be surprised if Gartner's 5 years is correct, especially given the way Sun's Java Desktop hasn't exactly been the most successful business venture ever seen.
So does anybody have access to the Gartner report that can clarify whether it's Linux that's 5 years away, or Open Source software?
(Not that I rate Gartner especially highly anyway)
hear me out on this (-1 troll) (Score:3, Insightful)
I love it when they do this (Score:4, Interesting)
This one prompted a "see it's not ready to handle enterprise/critical applications.
Until we let the CTO know that we have been depending on Linux for 3 seperate ultra critical apps for over 5 years now. and that tiny companies like GOOGLE use it exclusively for it's servers/backend.
He did his typical "suprised" look and then left us alone once again. The key is to keep your Executives informed so they become immune to the FUD and lies these "professionals" like to spread about.
Demonstrate performance and security? (Score:3, Informative)
That statement has to be coming from the completely clueless.
I'd say that this happened 5 years AGO:
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/09/05/sept
Re:Pencil that in... (Score:3, Funny)
Fusion is always 10-20 years in the future. Linux is before that, but after jet packs