“It wasn’t so long ago: 1999 and 2000 saw a great deal of innovation and interest, not to mention hype, about the Linux open-source operating system, and by extension, open-source software in general. This year the focus has been more on other technologies, such as application servers, portals, distributed component models and Web services. Does anyone still care about Linux? And if so, why the seemingly deafening silence? It seems that the open-source system moves past hype to serious implementation.” Read the rest of the interesting editorial at SDTimes.
All’s Quiet on the Linux Front
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
For me, it was a year of less fights to get Linux used on projects (not that I pushed it where it wouldn’t fit – I mean fights where Linux/BSD was the best tool for the job). The interia felt years in the Linux community is finally starting to hit the managers – and finally they’re starting to demand open standards. For me, it’s quiet on the Linux front because it’s accepted just like any tool now.
GNU software has provided useful and stable tools for the UNIX community for more than 15 years now, and even GNU/Linux systems have been around for ten years. But it has only been in the past year that Linux systems have included the powerful, scalable, and flexible kernel. This Linux kernel can now scale from wearable devices up to Beowulf clusters capable of predicting weather, crunching new mathematical formulas, helping locate oil, manage hospital data, and operate some of the world’s fastest and most active Web sites.
You are indeed right that GNU/Linux systems are getting down to business. If anything, the pace at which new versions are coming out is accelerating. Just since this spring, Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE, three of the largest GNU/Linux distributers, have come out with TWO new versions, each. The GNU/Linux kernel, which finally reached version 2.4 early this year, is past 2.4.15 – I haven’t checked recently, so I’m SURE it’s past that, too.
GNU/Linux is fueling rapid development, and people are working. The desktop environments, which run, not just on Linux, but also on BSD and even commercial UNIX systems, are accelerating at an equal pace. KDE 3.0 should be out before long – it’s already in testing, and it rivals other desktop environments, yet it is freely available.
So is it the “same old Linux”? No way, it’s the DIFFERENT new Linux – it is continually changing, practically with nightly builds of something or other. This is good. It promotes change and innovation. If some more commercial ventures invest some of their own resources back into this community, it could unseat any incumbents, given the proper resources. That may happen anyway.
That’s the way I see it.
Brian W. Masinick
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