What Lies Ahead For Linux 456
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an interview with Stacey Quandt, a Linux and open source industry analyst. She explains why she feels Linux will overtake Windows as the number one operating system within the next three years." There's some interesting tidbits on what it takes to be an industry analyst as well, and some looking back to when most analysts were unaware of Linux.
What she really said (Score:5, Informative)
Nice out-of-context hyperbole. She was referring to shipments of new boxes in the server market. In terms of desktop market share, she says that mere parity would take "a long time", and she's looking forward to a modest 10% share (essentially changing from a "fringe" player to a commonly-supported niche player) as a significant milestone.
Hmm... That's strange (Score:5, Funny)
Oh. Nevermind.
Re:What she really said (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, what a revelation! Here's some more:
1. A Mac and OSX industry analyst explains why they feel Macintosh will overtake Windows.
2. A FreeBSD industry analyst explains why they feel BSD will overtake Windows.
3. An Amiga fan in his basement explains why they feel the Amiga will overtake Windows.
4. A slide-rule professor in a bunker on the island of Midway still thinks the war with Japan is still happening...how he got on this list I don't know....
Re:What she really said (Score:2, Interesting)
I want good drivers for my hardware. open source would be nice but I'll be very happy with fully supported binaries.
let the ignorant fools have their Windows. if they don't care about getting the best then let them buy their 256MB-Intel-WinXP machines from Dell. see if I care.
Re:What she really said (Score:2, Funny)
You can have that today, it is called Windows.
Re:What she really said (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure what you're implying there. I would be scared to run a 'Modern Linux Desktop' on an Intel machine with a mere 256MB of RAM.
I use FVWM on Slackware 9.1 instead, on my older hardware. But I know that the 'average user' will require much more.
In addition to this: I can and do run Office 2000, on Windows 95, on an aging Toshiba 486 laptop that only has 32 megs of RAM. It works pretty darn well for writing and spreadsheets. I know for a fact that I could NEVER get acceptable performance with that machine running Linux with OpenOffice.
It would run Linux fine with FVWM (it boots NetBSD-current with FVWM instead) but not with the 'desktop' power (I prefer command-line power thankyou, and XTerms are great for running shells out of) that most people expect today. But it's good enough to run Windows 95 and MS Office quite acceptably.
I want good drivers for my aging software, and as Linux has marched ahead as a platform for closed-source drivers for bleeding edge hardware, and as a server platform, it's partially abandoned most of the 'desktop' hardware I own.
Which is almost entirely 'legacy' hardware, I will concede. But Linux used to be a cool platform to run on older hardware. Now I find myself having to pare back on what I install, as I know modern KDE or Gnome would suck on my mere PIII-500 desktop machine with only 768M of RAM.
A bunch of us used to run Linux on 486s with 16 megs of RAM. Netscape, and all that. It worked pretty good.
Sorry for seeming reactionary.
Re:What she really said (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What she really said (Score:4, Insightful)
And in fact, I'll say that this is _the_ problem with Linux. It's made by people who have nothing to do with their time, for people who have nothing to do with their time.
To get back on topic: It may well eventually overtake Windows, but that's when a whole different lot of people get into the act. People who don't thing "whoa, this is sooo cool... I dug through their sources and for a week, and read the newsgroups for 4 hours a day, and I figured it out. I'm sooo l333t." Instead it will take people who think "fsck it, I don't have time for this crap. I just want to press a button or two and have this configured, tested and running. I want it to do the repetitive menial tasks (like selecting the initial mirror in Gentoo) automatically, not make me do that through a text mode browser and command line. And if it knows that I'll also need to configure XYZ next, then it should jolly well do that for me, not expect me to manually launch yet another command line utility. And I want it to bloody remember my choices, so it doesn't make me configure the exact same DSL connection _again_ half an hour later."
I.e., people with the exact opposite mentality than whoever came with the Gentoo install. _Then_ Linux will be ready for Joe Average.
Re:What she really said (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What she really said (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to say there isn't some financial push to linux, but it's certainly not to the same degree as seen in the MS world.
Re:What she really said (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What she really said (Score:4, Funny)
I also always trust the unbiased, non-financially-motivated information on www-1.ibm.com/linux.
Re:What she really said (Score:3, Insightful)
Forget the DMCA for a moment.
DRM is something businesses want to use internally and home users need to legitimately access media content from the major providers. TurboLinux may or may not succeed commercially, but it at least has some anchorage in reality.
Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:2, Interesting)
I still favor Linux over Windows when it comes to stability, but there are several other facets of the Windows operation system and Microsoft philosophy that turn me (and likely other Slashdotters) off. First, security. I don't like my browser or mail client doing things I'm not explicitly aware of. I cannot use Windo
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Windows, also, and have found it to be very stable - but then again, I also don't experiment a lot with software, having figured out which stuff works for me AND I don't try to push the bleeding edge on hardware.
Windows is very stable, now. In common desktop usage, I daresay it can be as stable as Linux.
I used Linux for a while, but it lacked a lot of the software I needed to get my design work done.
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn... right when I got my karma up....
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think one hurdle Linux deveopers need to get past is their naming. Acronyms, abreviations, and random letter groupings culled from what the app does is not "user friendly".
"huh? Where is the install wizard?"
"oh, well you use RPM to get it."
"wha? What does how fast my motor is going have to do with installing my Video watcher thing?"
Maybe because they are names. And they come with a nice clickable installer. If they were called fbrsr and mrd, and required a full build from source on Windows, how much do you think their user base would grow?
I am relatively computer literate, but if I have a choice between something that needs building from source, and a nice installer, well, computer savvy or not, I am also lazy.
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:5, Interesting)
An average computer user today does not type. Well, you can expect him to type a letter in a wordprocessor. But that letter comes from his head, and is easy to read. Computer commands do not come from his memory (as opposed to you, me and other computer professionals), and so he would need to ask, in this order:
In other words, the consumer is now totally GUI oriented, and only UNIX heads still remember what a command prompt is.
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that Redcarpet, Up2date, RHN (and probably others) do auto-dependency like APT-GET.
I used the Redcarpet GUI when I first started with Ximian. It was very helpful and almost magic for a newbie. After a few months, I got 'rug' - the command line version (called 'rc' at the time). It was so much more flexible and efficient, I have never used the GUI since. For example, instead of paging through package listings with blearly eyes, I can just list them to a file with rug, and search the list with vim.
I started out my Dad on the GUI, and although he is no unix head, once familiar with the concepts, he found the 'rug' command line version much more efficient as well.
So my point is that you need both. I always recommend providing a solid scriptable command line interface first because it gives you the most bang for the buck (or hour). But then, a good GUI helps sell the program to new users by looking pretty and inviting and by helping to visualize concepts used by the program.
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:3, Insightful)
And still Microsoft thought it necessary to create a much stronger commandline interface for Longhorn...
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been looking at and reading about Linux for a while and recently begun using it, and I've already found several programs I want to use that are not in any packages. They just come in source, and I don't know how to compile/install source code yet. I have asked on Slashdot before if there is a graphical front-end for compiling programs from source, but haven't seen any answers yet. It would be nice to have a program where I can select the
If I have to run gcc manually or something to compile it, how do you know which compile options to use?
I've found no problems with packages--they do install and uninstall easier than Windows programs, but there needs to be an easier way to install non-packaged stuff. I don't think package dependencies are much of an issue on any of the several distros I have tried now.
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Stability is a big part, and I don't want to put words into your mouth, but other facets cannot be ignored. Performance. Ease of maintenance (service interruptions? reboot?). Remote administration. Batch-administration. Security. Lack of bloat (see Performance and Security as well). Available server applications. And lack of preparation or unique application training to accomplish these things. It's my personal observation that Linux beats out Windows in every area.
2) As far as I can see, most realistic people think Linux will take another 3-5 years to hit 10% on the desktop, including big Linux figures.
3) Administration is still the killer for Joe-user, but for companies with an IT department this isn't an issue. Considering Linux's put-your-home-and-usr-directories-on-NFS ability and how easy it is to mirror a box (no unaccessable 'files' on the filesystem), a company can roll out Linux without admin hassles. I honestly think this will be where it starts. People will use it at work and take it home (for work reasons or personal reasons). Companies will demand hardware support, user base will grow, and the snowball feeds itself.
Cheers
Re:Some issues worth further discussion. (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't have a remotely useable shell (which, despite what GUI fanatics may say, is still the most effecient interface available), it doesn't have useable virtual desktops (yes I know about the Powertoy virtual desktop POS that puts all tasks on the same desktop), application control is lacking (*how* many times must I kill Homesite before it acks the k
She? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:She? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:She? (Score:2)
Re:She? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:She? (Score:2)
1998 called (Score:5, Funny)
Re:1998 called (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I was going to say (Score:3, Insightful)
"I would doubt anyone would agree with the statement that Linux could overtake windows in 3 years, it will take a lot longer and more team work from the linux people to make this happen, not to mention Linux better start getting the support of gamers who can drive the sales of OS purchases."
She said:
"Within the next three years I believe Linux will overtake Windows as the number one operating system based on new server shipments."
Her statement has nothing to do with gamers, desktops, or OS sales.
Analysts (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Analysts (Score:2, Interesting)
The other problem is that her background seems to be exclusively Linux. I'm not sure how you can make judgements about a whole market when you only know one product.
Re:Analysts (Score:2)
Convicted Monopolist (Score:5, Insightful)
"Well, you could buy OS and related products from a convicted monopolist, or you could get these open source products (and buy professional support) from these (_list_) vendors."
Nobody but Slashdotters care about that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nobody but Slashdotters care about that (Score:2)
There's no helping people who want to play the sims, though. (Hey, that works on two levels!)
Re:Nobody but Slashdotters care about that (Score:3, Interesting)
That problem is self solving. If Linux had 90% market share everything would work with linux, while Windows users would complain that nothing supports there system. In other words the situation Macs re in today. (they support nearly everything, but the exceptions are common enough and very annoying.
Best would be the situation like the early 80s when all the good programs had versions for the APPLE II, Atari, C=64, and IBM PC. Or at least some combonation of the above, supporting all was rare, but most
Re:Nobody but Slashdotters care about that (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Convicted Monopolist (Score:2)
And it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of antitrust law, as well as the distinction between civil and criminal law -- I'm surprised to hear an analyst use those words. (Although it gives a strong hint as to where her "research" is done.)
"What Lies!" ahead for Linux (Score:2)
A better question (Score:4, Interesting)
How many years before the server/desktop OS becomes irrelevant? The apps make the platform valuable, not the OS.
Re:A better question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A better question (Score:2)
Hopefully very many, especially if it means I have to rely on an outside source for my computers OS. I like the fact that I have one computer that has never been attached to a network, let alone the internet.
The apps make the platform valuable, not the OS.
Actually, the combination makes the paltform valuable to me. I would be lost with out many of the apps I use regularly, and I would just as annoyed to not have an OS I liked resident on t
what it takes (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who has read more than 2-3 reports from the "big boys" like Gartner can easily answer that one. Not much, save zero morals/integrity.
I worked for a company which dealt exclusively with whitepapers written by the big analyst houses. The reports were widely known to be staggeringly poor, often blatantly wrong. It was hardly surprising that they were a royal pain in the ass to deal with on a technical level; getting them to use FTP to upload their content was nearly impossible. IT industry experts who can't figure out FTP. Special.
I've seen numerous comments here on /., on stories about both pro and anti linux analyst reports, talking about how much of a joke these companies are. Most of the analyst groups do huge amounts of "commissioned analysis", which is then passed off as being legitimate, unbiased analysis- when it is nothing of the sort.
Analyst groups have turned into little more than for-hire technical marketing (the computer industry's version of "military intelligence") who spew out documents just technical enough to impress/confuse the top brass.
Re:what it takes (Score:3, Insightful)
all over-generalizations are wrong.
Some of what they say HAS to be right, as it says in the interview, you don't make it long by making lots of mistakes. you have to get it right, most of the time. and every time that it counts.
the reason, you might notice if you read the article, that she is quoted in a media source and then later introduced to Linus, Perens, et al is because she holds POWER. she has a position of advising the people who spend _very_ large sums of
Re:what it takes (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA operates a serious marketing engine now (not that I can blame them, since they keep getting their money taken away if they don't) -- all those "beautiful pictures of cosmic objects" are usually a bunch of radiation grabbed from somewhere up in the X-ray range that are then rammed through a mapping program, enhanced and composited, and finally fed to Photoshop or whatever image manipulation program until they look really pretty. The glowing swaths of orange breaking into seas of purple fog and stuf
What Lies Ahead for Linux... (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux has been "overtaking windows in the next 3 years" for at least the last 6 years,
probably more. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for running Linux on some non-critical servers.
But on desktop it's a freaking joke. I mean, you still can't play multiple sounds in Linux
at the same time (unless you use a laggy userland daemon that takes a second to unpause your mp3,
or buy a "supported" audio card with hardware mixing). For some reason Linus has a problem with
putting kernel audio mixer (something Windows had since Win98 (and probably '95 but I'm not too sure))
into kernel-mode, so now all "desktop linux" users are stuck with playing one audio stream at a time.
Even FreeBSD, a much less "desktop" oriented OS (at least it isn't claiming to be "the windows killer"
on the desktop every few months), has kernel audio mixing support since like 5.x-CURRENT. So this
was one tiny nitpick about audio, something people on "desktop" will probably need sooner or later.
How about video? Windows supports almost every known video card out of the box, while to get any kind
of decent graphics in Linux you need to buy a "supported" video card. How many "corporate desktops"
you know of that run on exotic "custom ordered" hardware? They all use precanned HP/Dell/Whatever
desktops with generic onboard video and audio. Unless Linux will automatically without *any* problems
installs on this class of hardware, forget using it for corporate desktops.
And to sum this up, I guess the real reason Linux isn't going to be overtaking anything "in the next
3 years", is the group mentality of Linux users in general. There are literally hundreds of half-assed
"distributions" of Linux. And new ones seem to be popping up at an amazing speed. Compare that to
the *BSD family, where there is only one "distribution" for each flavor (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) and
once you know one, you should have no problems migrating to any other *BSD family. In Linux, every
distribution seems to want to invent their own packaging system, configuration system, etc etc.
People, this is not how you win users. You win users by creating a standard, easy to use system.
Forget the 100's of distributions. Create a single standard and make everyone use it. Then, only then
you might have some chance at a "desktop OS".
Re:What Lies Ahead for Linux... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What Lies Ahead for Linux... (Score:2, Insightful)
Forget the 100's of distributions.
We have two major desktops: KDE and Gnome (as well as the window managers) - the result is competition between them and they feed of each others advances and ideas. We have mozilla, konqueror and galeon - same result. Kopete and Gaim, Evolution and Kmail, etc and etc, all stengthen each other.
This pattern is repeated all over the OSS environment . . . you have completely missed the truth: diversity is *good* not bad.
Re:What Lies Ahead for Linux... (Score:3, Informative)
Also, I can't think of any video chips these days that aren't supported. Everything from ATI/nVidia/PowerVR/S3/Intel/etc., has some 3D support through either opensource or closed drivers. Hell, even the SGI Volari chips have Linux drivers. Talk about obscure.
Re:What Lies Ahead for Linux... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Windows supports very little video hardware out of the box. The last three video cards I had required me to install the manufacturer provided drivers in order to get out of VGA mode.
Re:What Lies Ahead for Linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have been doing more with my system than I would be able to if I was running windows. Blood is not my thing, so most games produced today FOR THE pc do not intrest me. I have Nintendo and Playstation and they are fine for gaming.
I have a P166 as my firewall, my webserver and my
Re:What Lies Ahead for Linux... (Score:2)
Don't expect it everywhere (Score:2)
Servers, on the other hand, should be linux's play ground.
Re:Don't expect it everywhere (Score:4, Interesting)
Servers, on the other hand, should be linux's play ground
I used to think that, but after doing some work with Win2003, I'm not so sure.
Re:Don't expect it everywhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Win2003 is ok. It's just a version of Windows that sucks 20% less.
My main problem with Win2003 is that ther'es hardly any upgrade path.
With *nix you can grow as you need to from Linux to FreeBSD to Solaris to IRIX to AIX.
Hell, Linux has it's own upgrade path - Linux on ARM -> Linux on Intel -> Linux on PowerPC -> Linux on Sparc -> Linux on POWER5/6 etc.
With Windows, once you outgrow your 4 way Intel box - you're screwed. (We'll there Windows Advanced Server - but from what I've seen, its a bitch to keep running and the hardware it runs on sucks)
Re:Don't expect it everywhere (Score:3, Flamebait)
Re:Don't expect it everywhere (Score:2)
Will have to remember this one.
Oh well, should be glad I'm no longer a) Aunt Tilly or b) Joe Six-pack.
a) is a bit too weird to get into and b) is downright insulting for the Belgian beer lover I am. I don't buy six-packs, I drink lovingly served, chilled and frothing Pater Bier in moist, beautiful glasses!
Re:Don't expect it everywhere (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen plenty of complete first-time computer users totally confused by the windows interface.
Too Optimistic (Score:2, Insightful)
I realized, of course, that it was really talking about "new server shipments". However, I came out of reading it still skeptical because this "analyst" undoubtedly has such a huge personal stake in telling people that linux will take over the world. If linux died tomorrow, she would be out of a job. What do you think her analysis is going to be?
Servers - maybe, Desktop - not ready (Score:2, Informative)
She's saying that for desktop "the timeframe is more like the next two years". I just don't see this happening. There's too many usability issues with Linux desktop today.
I really would like to see some serious co-operation with KDE and GNOME teams, for example, to get their software working more uniform way, and more importantly - to get OS developers realize that they need to focus more on usability and some common interface guidelines [gnome.org] instead of just adding new features on every new release.
Linux's evolutionary struggle to the top... (Score:4, Insightful)
Legitimate for-profit companies cannot compete against Microsoft. Due to this fact, "free" software, such as Linux and Open-Office, has bubbled to the surface as the only possible contender in the evolutionary struggle against Microsoft. Providing "free" software is the only way to possibly compete against Microsoft. There would not have been a need for "free" software if Microsoft had not crushed all possible means of fair competition.
This lack of competition also hurts Microsoft because: a competitor, in general, only needs to be better than his next closest rival. If there are no close competitors then Microsoft does not need to improve. If it does not improve it will stagnate, whither, and die. It will be overrun by the weeds of small "free" software projects just waiting to get out from underneath the shadow of the mighty giant Microsoft.
not only desktop share (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with everyone that Linux has become more usable and more security oriented(depending on the admin), but the bottom line is that as far as corporations and windows in the workplace goes, I doubt linux will grab a significant user base because of some basic reasons:
1. Alot of corporations will cling to windows because 99.9% of their userbase is on windows right now. They realize that there is cheaper alternatives out there (linux) but they rather stay with what they are using because it will cause less headaches for the IT dept. and operations as a whole will run smoother without messing with the OS that they are using.
2. Users in the workplace are comfortable with windows because it is what they know. Applications are not quite as cryptic and windows is truly a morons operating system which is what the vast majority of users in the workplace are.
3. The cost of hiring systems administrators is pretty close of linux vs. windows, but the cost of deploying software and the simplification that microsoft has deployed in this area is still untouched.
again, my argument is staged more to linux in the workplace and not in the end users hands which is probably where linux has more potential to grow.
prepare to see this posting get modded all over the place
I respectfully disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
1. One of these Blaster type worms will come along. AV software won't catch it while it migrates through web servers (and then clients using IE), also via Outlook, and of course the direct connections. Login
1b. Another real option (based on Microsoft's history of code writing) is that one of these updates that comes along -- which EVERYBODY is trying to install quick and fast
2. OO or WordPerfect (for Linux) sure don't seem cryptic to any of my users. Click File, Open,
3. Have you deployed large scale software roll outs for Linux? Or patched hundreds of systems that needed it due to, oh my gosh, a flaw that was found (and typically fixed if it is serious within 24 hours)? I've done it for Windows, Linux, and OS X. OS X wins hands down (GUI or command line is trivial to deal with), Linux can easily be made to work "magic"
May you be modded up
MS: Bigger isn't better (Score:5, Insightful)
Alot of times people have this misconception that something can be too big, too huge, too much talent and resources behind it to fall from greatness. This isn't true. How many times have we herd that "MS won't let it happen"
Does she have a blog ? (Score:2)
Microsoft made me do it...thank goodness. (Score:5, Interesting)
But when asked the question why I have moved to Open Office from Microsoft Office, and why I have moved to Linux from Windows, what is the answer?
It's mostly about rights and freedom. I'm not yet willing to admit that I am a full out FSF [gnu.org] supporter, though I have been a supporter of the Open Source [opensource.org] movement. Microsoft's licensing tactics (and not just theirs but the general tactics of many [divx.com] other [intuit.com] folks [symantec.com] have led me as far away from proprietary "treat-the-custer-as-a-theif" software as I can possibly get.
Linux is great, and it has been an incredible learning experience (I've honestly never felt so dumb sitting in front of a command prompt as I did during my first Gentoo installation).
I was never a *NIX user. I never had any desire to run anything other than Windows because I was happy with the product.
But they forced me to look elsewhere, and when I did I learned what I was missing.
So IMO, what lies ahead for linux is more users...and I don't believe that is limited to the server. From the desktop side, the strides that have been made in KDE and GNOME in the last couple of revisions have made them dramatically nicer to work with. From the server side...not having to have a GUI running on a server is quite a bit more efficient.
Back in the day I remeber Microsoft recommending you change the screen saver to the black screen instead of one of those OpenGL screen savers on your Windows NT SQL server because the screen saver would bury your processor. I couldn't help but think why do I have this huge GUI running on what is supposed to resemble a somewhat powerful database server?!!
Analysts are often wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Earliest citation for "linux overtaking windows" (Score:5, Interesting)
link [google.com]
Replace "NT" with "Longhorn" and change the dates and it still works!!!
Re:Earliest citation for "linux overtaking windows (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/~charlie [slashdot.org]
Charlie, um, you were a bit off. Nice to see you're still a geek, though.
What does it take to be an industry analyst? (Score:2)
That's right, we said lies. (Score:2, Funny)
This punctuation brought to you by your friends at Microsoft.
After a few years... (Score:3, Funny)
Here's an interview with Stacey Quandt, a Linux and open source industry analyst. She explains why she feels Linux will overtake Windows--blah blah blah blah--skip to next story
Okay, I even add: Linux on the desktop? Haven't they used OS X yet?
As an ex-analyst... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) If you want to be an good analyst, you need to be able to write English; preferrably fairly easily and fairly well. Speaking skills can be learned on the job. Overcoming writers block probably can't.
2) Tech skills can give an analyst an important filter and BS detector which can be a competitive advantage versus other analysts. However, ability to communicate with techies does not pay off. Techies aren't spending thousands of dollars for insight. Managers are. Ability to communicate with management and market the value of the service you provide is the paramount skill for an analyst.
3) In my view, the important milestones that lie ahead for Linux all have to do with success as a database server. That's where the most critical business data is, that's where the money is, and if a company trusts their data to Linux, what will they not trust Linux for? It's also a technology space that's complementary to Linux's existing strengths in webservers and web services, and it plays well to Linux's developer (not end-user)-orientation while avoiding the desktop usability and UI-training issues where Linux continues to play catch-up. In terms of specific milestones, I would track the percentage of applications being deployed in Fortune 500 with Linux hosting the database. And I would track the growth of applications employing open source databases. A Linux firmly entrenched as a database platform is a Linux not easily dislodged by Microsoft-induced desktop trendiness. Witness the billions upon billions continually invested in mainframes and AS/400 if you doubt me.
4) I'm personally agnostic about whether Linux will ever make headway on the desktop. If pressed for a conclusion, I confess that I doubt it, although if I was afraid of the Linux advocate hordes, I might couch it like Stacy did: "potential for a lot of innovation"... "a lot of potential for Linux to become a much stronger play there"... "next milestone to look for is when Linux takes 10% of the market"
More constructively, in terms of adding to that 'desktop milestone' analysis, another milestone to watch for is when Linux desktop developers spend more time trying to understand how the Mac OS X guys tackle the usability problem than they spend trying to copy the Windows approach blindly in the techy details while missing the bigger picture.
I used to get paid 20k... now I'll settle for 2 karma. Ah the price of doing what you love...
--LP
The way forward machine to April 29th, 2007 (Score:3, Funny)
Come on folks, I LOVE linux, but haven't we heard this song and dance before?
Best quote ever (Score:4, Interesting)
Best quote ever. Darn, it's refreshing to find an honest, non-pompous analyst.
Yes, one thing. I go to a lot of events where I can be the only woman in the room with a bunch of guys, and that's fine. I have no issues with that, really, except that I just think that more diversity in the Linux ecosystem is always good. I think it is great that Pamela Jones created Groklaw. It would be great to see more women developers involved too- there are a few, but seeing more of them would actually be better. The growth of Linux in India, Brazil, China and other countries may foster an increase of women in the community. I think that's probably one of the things that, if I could effect any change, it would be to encourage more women to enter the Linux ecosystem.
That is actually a facinating point [sabrina-online.com].
I've tended to find that as a very rough, general rule, women tend to do a better job of getting along with people than men, and take longer to get angry. If I had a choice between a male or female manager, and was choosing only based on ability to get people to work together and only with knowledge of the gender, I'd probably pick the female manager.
This is especially true for the open-source world, where nobody is *made* to work together. Communities form around how well people deal with each other and work together.
My guess as to why there are few female developers comes down to drive. This isn't that there aren't driven females, but there is a difference in the psychology here. I was reading an article [216.239.41.104] (listed on fark and Metafilter) on why many fields of science generally have breakthroughs done by relatively young people -- developments and interest in work for the sake of work and glory fall off after a certain point. The article drew a link between drive to impress females and the attempt to rack up accomplishments under ones name. (I got a kick out of this, and it stuck in my head -- apparently, my subconscious has been trying hard to improve my sex life by convincing me to code up new algorithms). Anyway, point is that there's at least some research evidence for the male personality being an easier fit for OSS.
Linus' claim for support of "a law to get geeks laid" could have been OSS's undoing.
Nepotism fuelld career progression (Score:3, Insightful)
So, one day she was a call center staff with a redundant degree in Mandarin. The next day, *ging* she's an IT Analyst. I'm sure there are CS graduates who would be very interested in how that happened.
Hmmm. I think we're not getting the full picture there. Any relatives / "associates" in the company by any chance?
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
dangerous forecasts (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm personally getting tired of all these forecasts that say Linux will overtake Windows. Not because I do not believe that they will come true, but because people have been making these types of forecasts for quite a while and at least half of the time they do not come true. I am positive that Linux will overtake Windows someday in the future. I do not know when, but either way I will be happy when it happens.
After two years of active advocacy, my company has decided to start a Linux Pilot Program. Yes, the tide is coming in.
Andrew
Not Desktop (Score:2)
Re:3 years? (Score:2)
depends. (Score:2)
gnome and kde can beat windows to the punch and put in features that surpass longhorn
or.....
Longhorn's interface pisses people off too much, and they crave a more traditional interface. (which I personally hate myself)
if all else fails, make an enlightenment clone that would be more windows user friendly, and with some badass themes...
but really, most windows users dont care about the interface as much as software compatibility, they want their programs to work. they're often afraid of alte
Re:depends. (Score:3, Informative)
Do you really think there's any chance that longhorn won't give you the option of using the traditional interface? XP not only has the "classic" theme to look like older versions of windows, but still has progman.exe (the program manager from win 3.1).
Re:Why do I care what she thinks? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why do I care what she thinks? (Score:4, Insightful)
My majors were chemistry and Asian Studies in college. Am I working in a chemical factory in Asia now? No. Am I a geek reading Slashdot at work and replying to you? Hell yeah!
If you cannot go beyond judging a book by its covers, you should not be judging.
Re:Why do I care what she thinks? (Score:2, Interesting)
While this person is certainly a moron, I think that if you judge CS-worthiness on whether it was a person's major in school, you're doing much of the free software community great discredit. The fact of the matter is, most CS-majors couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag -- much less solve a problem elegantly. CS majors are like art majors, you know: just because you studied the technique doesn't mean you have the talent. Talent is something you are born with, and is grown by love of a subject.
Re:Pre-install? (Score:2)
Re:Finally (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot editors are stupid (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slashdot editors are stupid (Score:2)
If someone wants to be called an editor they have a responsibility to check the links and see if the submitter is full of shit.
Of course this is slashdot and the /. crew is free to make "editor" mean whatever they want around here.
Are you kidding? That's the tip of the iceberg (Score:3, Insightful)
Or that big headline breathlessly declaring that "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China," because the oppressive Chinese government uses Windows. Never mind that China has its own custom Linux distribution, and Red Hat changed flags to sell there. But we never got an "OSS Violates Human Rights" article.
Or when a new user-ran executable m
Re:users (Score:2)
Re:Linux will overtake Microsoft when: (Score:2)
And XFree86, not to mention KDE and GNOME, are bastions of incorrect ideas about desktop and GUI design. X itself is rife with inconsistencies and extensions that conflict with each other.
Until a seamless, integrated solution is released--Apple has proved it can be done by melding their GUI on top of UNIX--Windows will alwa
Re:Apache is already dominant (Score:2)
Re:I propose a test! (Score:3, Insightful)
that would be good, but not very feasable in windows. Realistically, it would be great if people did that when they install the OS, but realistically it doesn't, and especially if the OS came with the computer.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I found the best way to get monitor information was to download the Windows driver, crack it open in notepad, and crib them....