South Africa native and current London resident Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical Ltd. and the Ubuntu Linux distribution, told DesktopLinux.com Friday in an interview that widespread adoption of Linux on the desktop - so long-awaited by many people. "Yes - I think Linux will be the dominant platform. It already defines the landscape in the server space (from supercomputers to YouTube). The desktop is just a matter of time."
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-03-31
"The apps for most people or a great deal of the computer-using population are there."
Personally I feel if open source had its killer app to woo over a significant segment of the computer industry, then Linux would begin to enter more significantly into the mainstream commercial world (and I don't mean as servers). For example there aren't any decent open source replacements for Adobe products. If there was an open source project that was superior to Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign, there would be a lot more interest in Linux amongst graphic designers and desktop publishers. A single license of Adobe's Creative suite goes for something like $1000USD. If there was an open source alternative, think of all the organizations switching over to save those kinds of software costs.
Member since:
2006-01-28
The ease of use of Linux is there. The apps for most people or a great deal of the computer-using population are there.
Now it is down to a war of words between people who have too much at stake in keeping the windows monopoly around because that's all they know and that's where their bread and butter is.
Freedom always triumphs. Sometimes, it takes 5 years, sometimes it takes 10, but it always does.
For those that talk about the Linux desktop and how it's been around for ten years, I'd say stop rewriting history. The first serious desktop was KDE, a project which was started in late 1996/early 1997, one that now has thousands of apps. KDE didn't release something which the average user could use reliably until KDE 3. That is the date for the beginning of the Linux desktop.
Even then considering it took Microsoft 25 years to deliver WinXP, which is still insecure and not all that user-friendly, I'd say the Linux desktop is doing just fine.
The refinements in the current KDE release and the upcoming ones are truly breathtaking. The amount of innovation and code written since the release of KDE 3 are also what has Microsoft and its apologists busy trying to rewrite history.