Why Linux Vendors Need To Sell More Than Linux 290
jfruh writes "Mandriva, a venerable Linux distro, is on the verge of shutting down. One of its main problems is that it never grew into more than just an OS vendor. The big players in the commercial Linux space — Red Hat, SuSE, Canonical — all built Linux into their larger computing visions. Is there any room in the marketplace for just a straight-up Linux distro anymore?"
the one and only (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want the short answer (Score:2, Insightful)
No.
The long answer:
No. There is no viable desktop market for Linux currently, and probably never will be, and that is pretty much the ONLY market where a just OS approach may have even had a tiny amount of a possibility of succeeding.
No (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on your definition of "marketplace" (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any room in the marketplace for just a straight-up Linux distro anymore?
That depends on what you mean by "marketplace". If this includes free, then sure -- we've still got Slackware, Debian, Mint, and I don't know what all else.
But then, the question is loaded, and presumes that Mandriva's fall is solely due to the marketability of a Linux distro. But looking at the history, Mandriva was never that well run as an organization, with fits and starts and general policy confusion. For all its warts, Canonical's stewardship of Ubuntu at least has a direction. I suffered through many months with broken repo settings and no clear fixes as Mandrake/Mandriva went through a couple of its identity crises and infrastructure paroxysms, and these ultimately prompted me to leave them behind.
If its not RedHat... (Score:2, Insightful)
then its not worthwhile in the commercial space. SuSE marketshare is dropping and when did canonical every really have marketshare? Either you're big enough to do your own, have enough skills to maintain your own, or you buy RHEL.
Peter.
OS's are... (Score:5, Insightful)
... the most boring part of the computer for 90% of the population. You have to have something your end customers actually care about. I look at things like steam and I don't know why Linux devs didn't think of creating a platform around linux to begin with. While power user computing is great for the power users, the great unwashed really just want something ridiculously simple and easy. There is really no real reason to use linux. If I were trying to sell linux, I'd create a plaform like steam and sell non-drm'd software. Open source really has to start 'charging' for it's software if it hopes to be sustainable in creating apps/things people want in the future. Money is not a dirty word. You can still make money with open computing. With all the copyright bullshit linux could have a good opening if they'd just get on the ball and create a business out of it.
Linux suffers from being suffocated by geeks who really don't grasp that the user doesn't want to have to think, the user wants a magic box that adds value to their lives. This is why things like Steam took off and 'app stores'.
Re:the one and only (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup, Slackware. Still the best after all these years.
Re:OS's are... (Score:3, Insightful)
> There is really no real reason to use linux.
apt-get install xbmc
apt-get install mythtv
No dickering around with packages with names like "shark007".
Maybe it wasn't that good an OS (Score:0, Insightful)
Maybe it wasn't that good an OS
Lack of a business model (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Linux distros lack a sustainable business model. They expect people to pay for something they can get for free.
Not in the business place (Score:5, Insightful)
RedHat and Suse are both a success because it's not just a distro. It's also a support structure for the OS, which is what businesses need.
Many times, a technical person looks at it and does not care. "Let me use my favorite distro this week.". But what happens when that person leaves the company and a new guy comes in with experience in a different distro? Sure, we can catch on as techies.. it's what we do. But it's a gap to get there in time, which can cost a whole lot of money.
I'm sure Redmond does not mind as many fragments as possible. Honestly it's hurt Linux much more than it's helped as far as business adaptation.
Lets face facts: Execs want numbers, not quirks. Show them how much money they can save by going with RedHat, response time on support issues, security information for SOX and E&Y auditors, etc.. and that's your ticket in. "My Gnome tool bar roxxors in Favlinux 6.0zers" is not something businesses want, need, or look at.
Frags are fine for the geeks that want to play. I'm sure there are some good things that come out of those and get added back in to the stream for Business Linux. I can't count any, but I'm sure someone has some. Just keep it out of the VP's office, and get them a supported version of Linux.
It's not the code, it's the talent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fragmentation again (Score:4, Insightful)
> Theres a reason that after 20+ years Windows has won.
Yes. The market was already dominated by MS-DOS.
All of these "helpful suggestions" are just total nonsense that tend to ignore the actual facts.
The differences between the various flavors of Linux are mostly overblown. They all use the same basic core components. Although some are better at "packaging" than others, libfoo is still libfoo whether it's Ubuntu or Mandrake.
Re:Diversification (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OS's are... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why things like Steam took off and 'app stores'.
This is why Linux has has "app stores" for over ten years. Users didn't like package managers until they had to pay money to use them.
Selling Support and Services (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been using linux for years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's not the code, it's the talent (Score:5, Insightful)
Your reply really reinforced the GP, not contradicted it.
He's right, there isn't a market for a *commercial vendor* selling a desktop Linux distro only (which was the question), because people can just copy it for free.
Your example just explains how you can not only copy the resulting distro, but the source as a new project. It's yet another reason a commercial desktop Linux vendor is doomed - any derivatives get the aggregate efforts of the original without paying for those efforts, meaning they can distribute it for less with only as much additional effort as they want to put in (down to zero in both cases if they choose). The original vendor makes no money for their "value added", and doesn't survive.
That may sound like a knock against open source projects, but it's not. It's a knock against people who naively think they can make money selling the open source software itself, rather than support, training, enterprise integration, etc that a company like Red Hat does to earn their income...
Re:the one and only (Score:5, Insightful)
So what the hell does "Slackware, still the best after all these years" tells me? Nothing at all. Why is it best? What do I gain by using Slackware? How would it be better for me than using OSX? Steve Jobs understood this. He cared about user experience and clearly told people why it is good. Even Ubuntu fails to do this. And no, people aren't going to spend time trying to research such things unless there is absolutely need. I enjoyed tinkering with these things as teen. Now I have better stuff to do. Either tell me what I gain from using Linux, or I'm not even going to try it.
Re:If its not RedHat... (Score:5, Insightful)
RedHat can (mostly) handle an in-place upgrade. Sufficient numbers of RH users *cannot* when something 'weird' happens, therefore it is simpler for them to tell everyone to clean install since RH actually has to answer the phone and handhold all the users and can't tell them to go away when they lack the resources to sort it out on their own.
Debian can (mostly) handle an in-place upgrade. When a debian user can't figure out how to make it work again after dist-upgrade breaks it, well tough. Google and forum around, and no one *has* to deal with it, even though usually someone does. If debian were forced to hold the hands of some of the users I've seen, they'd stop talking about dist-upgrade too.
AIX is extermely conservative, moreso than *any* linux distro will ever get away with. Given the scope, conservative development, the expected customer skill level, and the resources behind it, of course they can achieve *both* commercial support *and* robustness of in-place upgrades.
FOSS, including Linux, does have a killer "app" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting that the Department of Defense in the US is using more and more open source software, even while lots of people are saying "My data? Who cares?" Once control is worth something to you, there's no real alternative, ultimately, to FOSS. Or writing your own custom software.
Re:OS's are... (Score:5, Insightful)
Users didn't like package managers until a couple companies had the bright idea to make versions that were more than a glorified command line.
Steam and the Apple App Store are to dpkg (and similar tools) what an office suite is to notepad. Things like visual previews, robust searches and categories, and comprehensive descriptions are more than cosmetic improvements. They are the difference between a good idea and a mature implementation.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd have done it myself if my mod points didn't vanish yesterday. I've certainly been the sort of geek who hasn't done well in communicating with others when it comes to technical matters. Despite years of bugging friends and family members to "just get a Mac" every time I had to give out free tech support, no one ever did because I didn't/couldn't articulate the reasons why this would be a good idea. I think I've learnt my lesson, and have been able to get people to at least start playing with *nix by actually *showing* how it's not so scary to use and how easy it is to run plenty of Windows software through WINE.
But showing users that it's (almost) as easy to use as Windows isn't good enough. You have to convince them that it's enough *better* for *their particular use case* than Windows and MacOS.
For most users, the fact that a whole bunch of stuff works right out of the box with little or no effort to bring it up is a huge selling point. The ability to buy almost any software title and have it work on Windows is a huge selling point. What's a few hours of lost work (or play) time worth to you? To the average user, it's worth more than the price of a commercial OS.
Re:If you want the short answer (Score:2, Insightful)
... to go for full-out evolution, those same people immediately reject it. So it goes...
Because it's not their idea of evolution.. Some would want third hand instead of second pair of ears for example ;)
Re:the one and only (Score:4, Insightful)
Most female geeks I know take home 6 figure salaries..
Most Male geeks I have met struggle to make rent.
imho, the reason most male geeks don't meet female geeks is women on 6 figure salaries don't mingle with guys who struggle to make rent.
How the world has changed.