OSNews

Although I see some people here religiously protest about Linux, the fact remains that, after having a look at some of the projects that are out there, Linux as a "home and work desktop solution" is atleast 1-2 years away. Unfortunately, what is holding the development back is the splintering of development.

I can understand when a fork is necessary, for example, epiphany is a great example of a fork producing a much more focused result, however, then we have a situation like Scribus and Passepartout where the two are re-inventing the wheel.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think it is great to have multiple projects with each working on their passion, however, one must also accept the fact that with more forking the net result is a smaller mind share, now, in some cases it could mean either more people are attacted and thus more "focused" and "committed", however, the other net result could be that neither side gain and either one or both stall.

As for the other projects, OpenOffice.org is making great progress and I am eagerly looking forward to OpenOffice.org 2.x, JDS for Solaris x86-64 and Solaris for AMD64 to be ready.

As for the direction of these projects, all to often we have nay sayers here claim there is very little direction. Incorrect. If you take any time to read the mailing lists, there are very passionate debates over what technology is superior and should be included. There is alot of thought over what should be incorporated, not because it is necessarily neat but because it fits into the over all grand scheme of things.

Now for me, Linux is ready if you don't need things like Photoshop, Dreamweaver or you don't have 100s of USB devices, however, if you need support for those 100s of USB devices, the unfortunate thing is that the majority of the problems lay with the hardware vendor and not with Linux or you, the end consumer. Hopefully with enough protests, these companies will actually work WITH the Linux community.

As for the software lacking, I've had a quick browse and sure, don't expect an exact InDesign clone within the next year, however, what you will see is atleast some applications for those who use Publisher, Word, Quicken/MYOB. If the OSS applications get to a good level, and start attacting users, the next step hopefully will be commercial software companies will jump on board and start offering their software on Linux along with Windows and any other platform they may support.

As for the author of the article, I think his expectations are alot lower than what the customers are. The fact remains that if the customer can't get the applications they want, their hardware is not supported and no large OEM's offer it, out of the box and configured, the end user is simply going to stick with the status quo, however, with that being said, the catalyst for change will exist with in the corporate desktop environment. If the net result is atleast 1/2 of employees of a company who have moved to JDS, get JDS installed on their computer, that could very well mean a rapid increase in the number of installations of Linux resulting in those valuable ISV's jumping on board.