Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 18th Nov 2006 18:23 UTC, submitted by editingwhiz
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."
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Member since:
2005-07-12
The person siting 1/2 of 1% market share is way off base. Those surveys are very unreliable.
In fact, Gartner's stats in 2004 said Linux had 5% market share, and had exceeded MacOSX.
That's quite a difference. Is either one right? Probably neither one. Those surveys are very unscientific, and have very large margins error.
Another important factor is that those surveys only count units shipped (sold), either as a boxed, over the counter version, or a pre-isntall (like 99.999999% of all Windows installations).
Well, Linux is sold in boxes over the counter, and Linux is pre-installed in some PC's. But that is an extreme miniscule amount of the over all usage of Linux. The fact is, the very vast majority of Linux usage comes from free downloads, or as free discs in magazines or books, or CDs passed out at LUG meetings. That is stuff that the Gartners of the world are completely incapable of tracking.
Thus, those market share surveys don't even come close to estimating overall Linux usage.
And to others saying that Linux doesn't work, or it's too hard - I say POPPYCOCK!! All the Linux desktop oriented distros are so easy to install and use it's pathetic. You can literally get say, PCLinuxOS (only one example of many super easy distros), installed in 10 minutes, with all hardware working, all media codecs working, flash and Java working, games, Office suite, multi-media programs, programming tools, and graphics programs, all working 100% out of the box. No fuss, no muss. That is an irrefutable fact, except for in some very rare cases.
This is much much much much easier than Windows, by a long long long margin. Professionally, I've done so many Windows installs (of all versions and designations and languages), that it's impossible to count. I've also done many many many Linux installs. So I know exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm absolutely not saying all this as a "Linux zealot", or geek, or hyper idealist, or whatever. I'm saying all this from a completely pragmatic point of view, from someone who simply likes great technology, from whatever source.
Mr. Shuttleworth is exactly right. Linux will be a major desktop player. It's only a matter of time. The only things holding it back is end user inertia and constant Microsoft FUD.
Edited 2006-11-18 23:59