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."
Gartner is apparently... (Score:1, Informative)
Huh?? (Score:1, Informative)
Grain of salt (Score:2, Informative)
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.
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.
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 know where I can help...
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 want to tell someone to just get the "Home" version of Linux then tell them to pick up Linspire. If they want a free version and they can read then Ubuntu is great. The only thing I find lacking is you have to jump through some hoops to get all the multimedia stuff because of twisted copyright laws in the US.
BTW I would love it if Ubuntu would have a for pay version with all that in it already. It it was say $10 or $12 I would buy it to give to friends and family.
Re:Nuclear Fusion (Score:2, Informative)
Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet commercial desires?
RHEL? [redhat.com]
Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet home user desires?
Ubuntu? [ubuntulinux.org]
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.
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.
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:Finally! *My* chance to be an angry Lunix zealo (Score:3, Informative)