This year will see Linux finally crack the lucrative desktop market as more commercial software vendors tool up and cash in on the operating system and kernel developers improve graphical interface integration says cult hero and Linux founder Linus Torvalds. Computerworld’s Rodney Gedda cornered the penguin power supremo at the Linux.Conf.au in Adelaide.
Torvalds: Linux Breaks Desktop Barrier in 2004
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Eugenia Loli
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65 Comments
2004-01-18 1:12 am
The only way that anyone is going to be able to keep Linux down is by setting restrictive laws. There is no answer out there based on competition. Linux is the fastest growing high qualtiy ‘platform’.
If this year is the year of desktop Linux, it will be on the corporate and educational desktop. It will most definately *not* be in the home user desktop. That transition, if it ever happens, will happen after Linux has a large presence in the business market, and home users start switching to Linux because that’s what they use at work.
“I definitely won’t be moving back to Finland though.”
Why? Sounds like he doesnt like finland much..
“For now I will be working the stabilisation of kernel 2.6 and in a month or two I expect Fedora (the core of Red Hat Linux) to have a release with 2.6 so I expect to get more bug reports”
Isnt he a millionaire now? And he still codes.. Im impressed!
> That transition, if it ever happens, will happen after Linux has a large presence in the business market, and home users start switching to Linux because that’s what they use at work.
I am not so sure that it will even happen then. If most people were buying there first computer, then you would be right. Times have changed and the are buying their second or third computers. What they use at work may not matter because they are already used to Windows at home.
I don’t know, it could happen if they were using it at work. Look at DOS, if DOS wasn’t used at my parent’s job he wouldn’t have purchased it for home.
Good point. This isn’t the early to mid 80’s anymore where you were either a technical user using DOS, or using an Apple, Commodore, or one of the other 70’s/80’s computers.
Linux will be ready for home users this year. Fedora is already easy enough to use and is really nice looking.
I think the question is whether home users will install Linux or not. Windows comes bundled with pretty much every computer sold. It doesn’t give consumers a cost savings to use Linux so it has to stand as superior to convince home users to go through the bother of changing.
I like Fedora. I think that it is very nice, but I still use Windows quite a bit. Fedora won’t play my DVDs. Fedora doesn’t have the iTunes music store (although most people would just rather pirate anyway). Users have to give up a lot of the things that they have liked to move to Linux.
Most technology users are conservative. Think of how long it took for most people to ditch analog cellular. Think of how many users still use Windows 98. Plus, Linux has the reputation of being geeky and difficult (which, until recently, it was).
There are some programmes missing (not much, but a few), there is no cost savings, it is a bit to bleeding edge for most people, and it isn’t really understood by most. That’s why I don’t think that there will be a mass migration to Linux in 2004.
Now, 2005 and 2006 are a different story. People will have slowly grown accoustomed to the idea of Linux and that it is much like Windows and the Macintosh. We’ll probably see some Linux computers at Best Buy (I know that Wal Mart has them, but they are kinda a curiosity). There will be more software for Linux. In general, it will give users a better experience than the very old (by then) Windows XP.
Hey, the sooner the better for me, but I’d rather not get my hopes up. I’ll have a much better idea of what my time schedule would be when Fedora Core 2 test 1 comes out. We’ll see if it has RedCarpet and other Ximian enhancements and stuff like that.
Oh, I know that I subbed Fedora for Linux in a lot of places. That’s because Fedora is the easiest to use, most polished and most home user friendly distro in my opinion (others might tie in certain categories). Plus, Fedora (and RH in general) put on the professional face that consumers feel better about going with rather than Mandrake’s more, well, Linux-y feel. Oh, and SuSE and Xandros make you pay money and I’m cheap ;-). Debian is an amazing project (with great package management), but I don’t think anyone would argue for Debian for their grandmother.
I guess I must not be reading it right, so please help me out. The lead to the story is “This year will see Linux finally crack the lucrative desktop market […]” and “[…] says cult hero and Linux founder Linus Torvalds.
So I read the article in the link, and nowhere do I see Linus saying that.
The closest he comment is:
“Last year was good but I’m seeing a lot more noise about it this year.”
OK, “noise” is not “crack[ing] the lucrative desktop market”.
and:
“Now, the kernel and other pieces are coming together including office applications, games and Web browsers. This has made the Linux desktop interesting to commercials.”
and:
“Right now it looks like the two are closing in on each other, for example, with Red Hat’s Bluecurve interface.”
Color me stupid, but neither of those statements says that THIS YEAR Linux will “crack the lucrative desktop market.” Things are closing in, coming together, it looks interesting to commercials etc. but none of that means they are actually CRACKING. To me, “looks interesting” is what I say when I’m evaluating something in a showroom and definitely not the same thing as actually buying it. Whereas once upon a time I wouldn’t even look at crappy US cars from Ford or GM, I will now take a look – with quality coming up, getting their act together and closing the gap with Japanese cars, I may actually go to a US car showroom, as it looks “interesting” – definitely not the same thing as buying.
And what does Linus ACTUALLY SAY to the question of how those commercials look at Linux:
“CW: What about Linux in the enterprise?”
Here’s the answer!…
“LT: The direction Linux takes in the enterprise will depend on what resources enterprise companies put into it. This is the one thing that will push Linux into the high end.
IBM is the most obvious, and although it is impressive to run Linux on high-end hardware, most of the people who work on Linux don’t have access to it. It’s the regular desktops that get most of the attention by programmers.”
Not a WORD about “cracking the desktop this year”! As has been commonsensically pointed out before, Linux desktop adoption will start with the enterprise, so if it isn’t cracking there AS YET, it isn’t crackig anywhere AS YET. And to a *direct question* about the enterprise market, Linus says NOTHING about “cracking the desktop this year.” If not there, where?
Bottom line, maybe Linux will “crack the lucrative destop market” this year, and maybe it will be 2005 or 2006 or whenever. But whatever the case is, it doesn’t seem line *LINUS* made a claim that Linux will “crack the lucrative desktop market” this year… at least not in the link provided. Or maybe I can’t find it – so correct me. But I claim this is yet another case of journalistic hype of a reporter being carried away in “CHARACTERISING” someone’s statements in a way that is not congruent with what the person actually said – hence the disconnet, as so often, between the lead to the story and the story itself. YMMV. All IMHO.
> Linux will be ready for home users this year.
I have been earing that since 1999.
Not with the developers constantly trying the shotgun approach with a plethora of distros. You want Microsoft’s desktop share? Do what Microsoft did: Spend millions on market research. Ah, the gaping chink in Linux’s armor, isn’t it?
” I was going to say something mean about US, but I guess I won’t
”
Humans spends far to much time worrying about someone elses country vrs theirs when they should keep their mind on their life.
As for Linux, Linux is ok for a home desktop but to be honest it has a lot to become before avg user accepts it. I’m the type of user that is in the mid and see windows and linux as a great OS for that they can do. I can say by being around ppl thoe that LINUX is very behind on desktop. Some of you guys may wake up and say “oh but it is ready or it is almost there” but it’s not. Linux coders worry about making stuff for their selfs and not stuff aim at avg users. In the end the software is complex, unorganized, hard to install, and bloated. Yah Linux is bloated. Even if I strip linux down to just the linux core “on mdk 9.2 thats around 160 megs” and kde 3.1.4 around 450 megs of stuff is installed. Sad thing is a lot of the stuff that is install with kde I dun even use but is needed to make other programes to work, so now when I go and download things I do need, ftp, irc, gaim, gimp, a few other programes, install them and the stuff that is needed to make them work I have a 900 meg install. For what? To listen to some music, surf the net, do some uploading, a lill chatting, yah it’s bloated. You want to install a kde theme by compling it? Sure, install 20 megs of c++ tools and then you can install the 48kb theme. In really linux is as bloated as windows. Windows simply works with everything thoe.
–Idoxash
Functions that will make linux suitable for desktop in the future:
kernel 2.6
d-bus
udev
hal
gstreamer
(maybe a replacement for sysvinit will be developt so service will start parallel instead of serial)
quicker bootup time
some important programmes:
gimp 2
openoffice 2
firebird 1
And I might even take a look at Linux again this year with Fedora Core 2 (might live up to expectations).
But my heart is still pining for Open BeOS/Zeta to come through and rule the Universe. Unfortunately hearts are not very rational beasts (-:
Steps need to be taken to topple the evil empire. IF its not 2004 thats ok, just as long as we’re walking in the right direction.
One factor working against widespread acceptance of Linux on the desktop (single user desktops, not corporate) is the lack of shrink-wrapped commercial applications for the platform. We aren’t going to see them, either, for a long time. The presence of no single dominating distribution and the continuing lack of adherence to a single standard make it doubly difficult to release a product for this market.
Another factor is the apparent widespread disdain of much of the community for anything that involves actual marketing of a product. Couple that with the constant juvenile whining — “Why Should I Pay For It?” — and you create a lasting impression of a community that is defiantly hostile toward business. Why waste time and money on that crowd?
And, Linus, I use Linux and I don’t play games. I’m not interested in 3D or OpenGL. I want better, faster 2D.
My friend said it perfectly: “I don’t care what OS my computer runs as long as I can play my games.” Right now Linux doesn’t do that very well. Of course, that isn’t Linux’s fault, but if it is to truly make its way onto the home user’s desktop, more games need to be ported. That’ll give MS a good run for the money.
“I’ve never had much of a plan for the direction of Linux as I react to outside pressure.” – Linux Torvalds
Right now all these comments are moderated down but I will completely delete them if you continue this inappropriate discussion at OSNews.
I disagree with Mr. Trovalds saying that it will break through the desktop barrier this year because it already has to a certain extent and also because if Linux wants to be widely accepted by the masses of desktop users it will have to standardize instead of having umpteen different desktop environments, text editors and configuration apps.
One of the major things I think Linux needs is one main package manager that install files from source and has a very user friendly interface. That way we won’t need half a dozen different rpm files for all the different variations of the Kernel that exist because of different hardware architectures and different Linux distributors goals. This is especially a requirement for those who write and distribute hardware drivers which often need to be compiled from source for each individual computer.
As Linux simply improves in quality and gets more industry support from the big iron companies, what could happen is that more money will reach developers. The reason for this is that there will no longer be ‘one’ and only ‘one’ framework approach to a software solution. Instead a variety of solutions and technologies, hopefully supporting open standards, will result in increased demand being filled by small business comprised of highly skilled workers. Security through differentation and compatabiity through open standards and quality.
For the home user space, choice is a major factor, and being able to support a competitive environment, attracting developers and users to Linux. The goal of DRM technology, what is it? Linux should support choice, that means free software and non-free software under one platform. Patents are an evil, because they do not protect intellectual property, they remove freedom of competition, however the product, the presentation layer, there is no reason why a company who has invested in the development of a product should not protect their service. In other words what I am saying is that knowledge of a software system must be protected by the GPL so that intellectual freedom is controlled by the people, however the presentation of the software is a private investment and a service, there is no reason why the presentation should not be closed, so that it can be sold as a product. Linux will find a way.
> I don’t know, it could happen if they were using it at work. Look at DOS, if DOS wasn’t used at my parent’s job he wouldn’t have purchased it for home.
Times have changed from the days of DOS. When you buy your first PC, then you may get what you have at work. People are no longer doing that. They have Windows at home. If they get another PC, it will most likely be Windows no matter what is at work because ALL the members in the house knows Windows.
he ain’t bill gates, got no enough ambition and vision to make that happen. Linux will stay only for geek toys.
I am glad Linux exists: it helps programmers to avoid unemployment.
Say, you want to have a Windows driver for your new scanner you want to sell. What do you need? A Windows programmer to code it.
Now, Linux comes- suddenly, there is no ‘one commodity OS platform,’ but two. Linux users drive demand for hardware- you must have Linux driver, too. Solution: hire Linux programmer.
See, now two programmers are employed instead of one.
Linux taking its place on desktop will make more and more companies hire more and more programmers to include support for Linux into hardware they sell. It is definitely good: more jobs, less unemployment.
Windows is not going anywhere any time soon, too.
Extra few dollars you pay when buying hardware, to cover costs of additional programmer coding driver for second OS, is very small sacrifice for having extra hundreds and thousands and even hundreds of thousands more programmers employed.
People who think that Linux steals jobs are wrong. It creates jobs.
Well, Linux certainly isn’t just a toy for geeks even now. Both IBM and HP report more than a billion dollars in Linux-related revenue per year.
Not this year. Maybe by 2006.
I’d also like to note that IBM has many patents. Those patents are about restricting competition. So Linux is the opposite. Linix is a platform which is attractive to competitors because the knowledge base is shared, and vendors are protected in this way, because intellectual property is open and accessible to the customer, the buyer, not one controlling entity. The vendor meets demand by specializing in service and support and presentation of the product. If vendors co-operate with each other than they get further, because they all benefit by open and accessible innovation. The environment demands that sales rely on instigating this change management, in order to have the jump on the competition by being able to supply through presentation, goodwill, and knowledge the customer demand…and being ready for the next transition.
Yes, Linux will never get anywhere on the (home) desktop unless the distro builders start to cooperate on common standards, too bad some ppl in the community fail to understand that..
The typical users arent interested in having 130distros on their computer, each having at least 5 apps of every category. They just want the stuff to work well with as little effort as possible. Thats primarily why ppl use windows instead of macs; its more “standard”, wich means less effort to find compatibility and support for it.
If this year is the year of desktop Linux, it will be on the corporate and educational desktop. It will most definately *not* be in the home user desktop. That transition, if it ever happens, will happen after Linux has a large presence in the business market, and home users start switching to Linux because that’s what they use at work.
Why does everyone repeat this nonsense as if they actually have any clue? I hear the same arguement on OSNEWS everytime a ‘Linux on the Desktop’ article is featured, but in reality no one has any idea if/when/how Linux will claim any real marketshare on the desktop. The landscape is changing so rapidly in computers right now that to claim to know the outcome is ludicrous.
In the end Linux may enter homes through business but to pretend it is fact is just plain dumb. There are many possibilites out there. Computers have become so commonplace and the Internet has revoutionized the way we transfer information. Data and software can be quickly transported all over the world via cheap computers, running free software. Not everyone is going to spend $1000+ on a new computer and then spend another $1000 for software, especially outside the US. Linux’s popularity is already exploding in the global community and it’s entirely possible that that will be the impetus behind more commercial software being written for Linux and also more drivers being written. That, in turn, could attract a larger US market for Linux. But who the hell knows? Not I, and certainly not you.
even if the state of linux will stay the same in the future, meaning multi distro/package management, kde, gnome, not many people think about project as a product & out of the box xperience.
linux is still goin to have more market share in both home/server domain apple didnt since 95-96.
“Why does everyone repeat this nonsense as if they actually have any clue?”
People are strange, silly creatures. It’s fun.
Historically, this is how software has worked. Windows became popular at home because it was popular at work. WordPerfect was displaced by Word at Home because Word became the standard at work. The business market is the biggest spender on IT, and drivers the computer industry. Where the business market goes, the home market follows. Of course, this trend could change, but I don’t forsee that happening in the next several years. Computing is about gradual evolution, not revolution.
Or maybe Linux might never be the dominant desktop operating system. Linux as a home user desktop (GNOME and KDE in particular) is comparable and as usable as Windows XP or Mac OS X, if not better in many aspects.
Unfortunately, Linux has and might always be the underdog desktop operating system. It’s not enough for it to be as good as Windows XP or Mac OS X. It has to be, at least, three times better for it to be even considered worthy of being replaced.
Except out a miracle people begin embracing open standards and transparent software practices, I’m sorry Linux might never accrue desktop dominance.
You should take into account that every new computer comes with Windows installed and is included in the Price. Joe average user does not care what OS he gets as long as he can play games, surf the net, download Pictures from his Camrecorder or digicam, etc. etc.
It will be very hard for Linux to get into the home market, as MS will find ways to stop it. Remember DR DOS? It was superior to MS DOS so MS made sure win 3.1 won’t run on top of it. The rest is history.
Windows NT totally took over business desktops YEARS before anyone was using an NT based desktop OS on home systems. It was not until 2K(for a few) and XP(for most other) home users that the NT based OS’s were ready for home users.
Linux will be the same way… you have to compare Linux against NT4 (eg no direct X for instace, etc) to see its ability for the corporate desktop.
Linux will become used at the corporate level, and then in a few years someone will make a version that works well for home users.
Just like the evolution from NT3.5/4.0 through XP that it took microsoft many years to move NT to the home users.
The only thing that Linux lacks that DirectX has is DirectMusic. DirectMusic is a beautiful API, but nobody ever really seemed to use it, so its not exactly a killer feature.
@mythought
If Linux makes large inroads in the corporate market, home users will start at least inquiring about getting it on their home machines, and PC manufacturers will oblige by offering it preinstalled.
Every year, around the beginning of the year, there are always claims that this year will really be THE year for the Linux desktop takeover, really. Yep this time for real, last year was just practice. I don’t see what the big deal is and I don’t really care either. Linux 2.6 is an excellent kernel and there are some decent distros too making improvements every month. Even with all the advancements and improvements of late, there are still far too many factors keeping a distro with a Linux kernel from having a significant share of desktop usage. Those factors have been mentioned in many previous posts already so I’m not going to repeat them here. I love FreeBSD, Debian, and Fedora but I still like Windows 2000 for a desktop. Linux distros are great for servers and for programmers which I think is pretty awesome but that’s just my two cents.
>…It doesn’t give consumers a cost savings to use Linux
<snip>
>there is no cost savings
<snip>
>…SuSE and Xandros make you pay money and I’m cheap ;-).
—————————–
Am I the only one who sees the contradiction here? Clearly Linux is saving *you* money. Linux is also saving the folks who buy the $199 WalMart PC money, and the folks who buy the Linare $199 PC money. Linux is also saving money for people like me, who always assemble their own computers from parts, and so never pay the Microsoft Tax in the first place.
Okay, all these are relatively small groups of people so far. And I take your point – if you buy a new computer from one of the big PC vendors – Dell, Gateway, Micron – you’ve already paid the Microsoft Tax and have no money to gain by switching to Linux. Until, that is, the next version of Windows comes out – have you priced Windows XP Pro lately? Or a new copy of Office XP Pro?
Okay, now let’s forget about all the folks who started out with Windows on their computers. But how about Burlington Coat Factory, Amazon.com, Google, various Wall Street offices? How about the huge use of Connectiva Linux in Brazil? How about an entire school district switching to Linux in Extremadura, Spain? How about the roughly 15,000 Linux comuters being rolled out by the city of Munich? How about India, where there have been estimates that 10% of computers being sold have Linux installed?
It’s already happening, folks. The growth of desktop Linux is happening quietly for the most part, especially if you only read American publications, but it’s happening all the same. It’s happening first in the poorer countries – Spain, Brazil, India, China, and so on. I fully expect that the USA will be the *last* country where Linux makes significant inroads on the desktop, precisely because people care less about saving a hundred dollars here because there is more wealth. Not to mention Microsoft itself is located in the USA, the Microsoft lobbyists who pay millions in election contributions to rather corrupt government officials in excnange for favoritism in high places are in the USA, and for a long time the US government, legal system, and culture has placed the success of US businesses above the quality of life of its people – meaning that if a legal decision needs to be made on whether Microsoft will lose money or people will lose access to Free software, Free Software will get the short end of the stick, no ifs, ands, or buts.
The US – like some other first world countries – is also in the interesting position of being a post-industrial society. Things are no longer valued for their intrinsic quality, but rather for the power of their advertising campaigns. So people will pay more for, say, a big, ugly, slow, ill-handling, gas-guzzling, rollover-prone SUV than an attractive, fast, good-handling, economical, safe sporty car. In a climate like this, most people will choose Microsoft and Apple products over Linux, because the advertising campaigns tell you that they are better. (You can be a Pepper too!)
But in cultures less saturated with advertising messages, people are often better able to judge things for what they are, not what they’re advertised as being. And these people will judge Linux, and find that it is far cheaper, stable, does most of what they want, and improves at an amazing pace. It is good enough – and more than good enough – and getting rapidly better – while being far, far, cheaper than the alternatives. How can commonsense reject that combination?
-Gnobuddy
IBM’s been working recently at doing the first full roll-out of Linux for the business desktop.
It should work out all of the serious bugs in deploying Linux on the desktop; after that, everybody else will be playing catch-up footy, more or less.
It will make for a few very interesting years, I expect.
“USA will be the *last* country where Linux makes significant inroads on the desktop, precisely because people care less about saving a hundred dollars here because there is more wealth.”
I dont think money is the main reason govs in countries like germany and japan are switching to Linux, mind you theyre GNP is actually higher than the US. Ive heard rumors about the chineese being concerned about possible spyware in MS software. The US has been spying on european countries too so I certainly can understand why they are concerned about that.
It will never be ready for the desktop, no quite yet. It will requires years of work from the Open Scourge ‘so called’ brainiacs. With that in mind, they will be crying because in the meantime, MS rules the desktop.
Who needs Linux anyway? Mac OS X is superior in many terms including usability. I’ve been using Mac since 1986 and I’ve used both Windows and Linux both are inferior compared to Mac.
Until recently I would have agreed with that. Now I’m not so sure. After having heard so many wonderful things about OS X, I recently purchased an i-Book to check it out. It does have a lot of cool features I like, but all the same, I’m finding it awkward adjusting to it. Perhaps it’s just a matter of having to spend enough time with it to get acclimated.
Strangely enough, my preferred environment these days is Gnome, which surprises me as much as anyone. My first reaction to Gnome was that it was horribly inadequate and that it wouldn’t even be decent competition to KDE, let alone Windows or MacOS.
True, it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles other environments have, but it makes up for it by being clean and simple to navigate, and in my old age and dotage, I’m coming to appreciate clean and simple a lot more than I used to.
Note that this refers mostly to my home use, Windows is going to remain my preferred work environment for the immediate future, mostly because there are still applications I need that don’t have functional equivalents in the Linux world yet.
But I think Linus may be right, after over 5 years of saying, “Well, it’s almost there, but not quite!”, I’m now looking at Linux as at least adequate for most uses. Really, the only thing that keeps me from switching over entirely are a few highly specialized 3rd party apps. And if Linux starts gaining a bit more popularity in the corporate world, no doubt they’ll be made available.
Hey, it could happen this year!
1997…….every year is the year for Linux……don’t get me wrong….I’m not a ms lover……but come on who is he kidding.
I don’t think we’re talking about a big market takeover. GNU/Linux has evolved to a state where it’s capable of satisfying even users that are not interested in the ability to change everything or do everything with an OS. Think of the upcoming KDE 3.2 and the later to follow GNOME 2.6, the available good office applications, the steady growing amount of good multimedia software.
For a lot of people GNU/Linux is allready ready. This includes not only geeks and hobbyists. It depends to a certain degree on the distro used, Debian (which I use) would due to it’s level of manual configuration not be a distro for the “normal” user. But other Distros _can_ fulfill the needs of a lot of users. Of course one cannot expect users to rush to GNU/Linux just because they _could_ do the same stuff on it as they would do on Windows.
I think 2004 is the year that GNU/Linux will mature to a degree where it is an _option_ to Joe User. This will not include a gigantic gigantic user base that switches to GNU/Linux.
And as for the past, GNU/Linx has too allready been able to fulfill the expectations of a desktop OS but for most Joe Users it was not an option due to man things that were to be done by yourself. For me (read: on my machine used by myself and my sister) Debian Sarge is not only able to replace Windows XP but is for _me_ the better operating system. Yes, it can be the other way round, Windows would need to offer more to make it an alternative to me.
I use that system for DVD, tv (tv tuner) and video playback and some editing & compression, audio playback, ripping, editing, compression. I use it to write, edit, print, mail typical office documents (no, I don’t use .doc format). I use it to burn CDs. I do some HTML stuff and digital image manipulation. I use it for internet access etc. I like GNOME 2.4s look and feel over that of Windows (9x/XP). And my sister is happy wth it too and sometimes uses it (this without trouble; she hadn’t to configure the underlying system).
I assume in 2004 GNU/Linux desktops will come with even more automated configuration and polish. But for a lot of users this would not be enough, more hardware drivers would be needed for them to change OS and it’s unlikely that these would need to be Free Software. Games are a very important factor for younger (ca. 12 – 25) computer users.
But I guess that is when you round anything above 0 up. That’s about the marketshare Linux has on desktop… but counting that way it’s also on Par with Syllable, MenuetOS, BeOS, Any BSD, QNX etc.
So if Linux doubles it’s users… where will it be? 1%?? If lucky, 2%… now ain’t that some LoL.
Without some serious Usability engineers which removes chaos and replace it with logic comes around Linux will never see the light of any desktop share above 2%… but on the other hand as shown before in RMS comment sections etc… that will never happen as that will surely eliminate any business opportunities for the players who offer Linux today…
>Without some serious Usability engineers which removes chaos and replace it with logic
And where do you see this chaos?
Don’t be fooled — market share does not say much, if anything, about wether some OS is “ready” for desktop. It is not relative either, since that would imply Windows is 20 (just a number) times more ready than OSX and that’s not even an example which shows the flaw in that way of thinking in a hilaric way. Think about even less popular OSes than OSX! Such assumption also implies 100% of users know what they need. They don’t.
Just because 80% of the people like soccer doesn’t result in soccer being a better sport than ice skating. Such are plain fallacies; argumentum ad populum.
But I guess that is when you round anything above 0 up. That’s about the marketshare Linux has on desktop… but counting that way it’s also on Par with Syllable, MenuetOS, BeOS, Any BSD, QNX etc.
So if Linux doubles it’s users… where will it be? 1%?? If lucky, 2%… now ain’t that some LoL.
First of all, Linux has a marketshare at least as much as all of the other OS’s you mentioned combined. In fact, more and more people seem to be using it all the time. Even an employee at CompUSA the last time I went there was using Red Hat. To be fair there are no real statistics to determine the percentage of Linux users but that makes your statement pretty much conjecture anyway.
Without some serious Usability engineers which removes chaos and replace it with logic comes around Linux will never see the light of any desktop share above 2%… but on the other hand as shown before in RMS comment sections etc… that will never happen as that will surely eliminate any business opportunities for the players who offer Linux today…
I think Microsoft is the one who needs some ‘usability engineers’, but that is a personal opinion, much like yours. So what was the point of you post again?
Linux 2.6 is an excellent kernel (…)
Everybody and their dogs is shouting about the new kernel, saying it is wonderful, fast, etc, etc…
I just installed it here, and i honestly feel very little difference in the responsiveness. And my machine isn’t very fast (Pentium III 700, 128MB). The new kernel seems to be good with scalability, but i don’t need scalability to run desktop applications. I just want them to open faster.
Honestly… i feel a little disapointed with the new kernel.
Victor.
“I dont think money is the main reason govs in countries like germany and japan are switching to Linux, mind you theyre GNP is actually higher than the US.”
Are they really? Do you have a link for these? I find that impossible to believe. Japan, maybe, but Germany? I believe that costs DO have something to do with it in both of these countries, and also they want to support their own industries and not the United States of America’s software industry. If a country has the option to produce wealth within its own borders, it is imperative that it at least tries that option.
No I dont have links to prove anything, it doesnt matter whether they have 10% more or less GNP than the US, the point is that claiming that these govs would switch to linux to save a little pocket money is clearly not the main reason.
Amen to that. Can’t believe some of you turned this into a Europe vs. America thing. Really now people.
Sorry to disappoint you, but at 10,5T$US the U.S has about three times the GDP (GNP being deprecated) of Japan, and five times the GDP of Germany. China, which comes second, has a bit more than half of the US’s GDP.
Note that the GDP has little to do with government spending or a country’s cash flow. The U.S. may have the largest GDP of the world (representing about 21%), but it also has a monstrous deficit (which we won’t get into because this would quickly turn into a political discussion). Fact of the matter is, responsible governments would appreciate reduced IT-related costs, since this means that they can either use the money elsewhere (i.e. education, health care, etc.) or reduce taxes (always useful before an election).
I see no problems with government switching to Linux in order to save money. In fact, I’d be really happy if my own govt. switched to Linux because: a) it’s my money they’re spending; and b) it would be better spent on Linux than Windows, IMHO. That’s not the reason I use it, but if it’s that what it takes for governments to wise up and it saves me money (or I get better services, either way, after all I live in “socialist” Canada ;-), then fine!
You can get these, and a whole lot of other informations about the world, at the CIA Factbook web site:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.htm…
“Sorry to disappoint you, but at 10,5T$US the U.S has about three times the GDP (GNP being deprecated) of Japan, and five times the GDP of Germany. China, which comes second, has a bit more than half of the US’s GDP.”
Sorry but being from a non-english speaking country I must have messed up the words here, of course the US makes more money per year than Japan or Germany as a whole, what I was talking about was how much one average person earns per year, I doubt the US average is 3 times Japans/Germanys then.
Anyways that is important because it tells how much the person who uses the computer earns. In a country like Germany, the person obviously costs much more to hire per month than the cost of the OS he/she uses. In a poor country however, the cost of the OS might be a substantial cost of the total office cost, thus switching to Linux for economical reasons makes sense.
Ah, I see your point. Indeed, this does make a difference, but on one hand labour costs are hard to reduce, while IT costs are easier to reduce if you go with open-source. But I see what you’re getting at. Interesting point, I’m not sure how much of an impact it has, though.
“I’m not sure how much of an impact it has, though.”
Yes reality is always infinitely more complex than theory…
Considering that Windows costs far less in many poorer markets, and that piracy is typicly very high (at least in small companies I guess) over there, assuming that there will be a big push towards Linux is probably a wild estimation at best. But if MS starts to employ better copy protection and piracy control in these markets things might change.
Whether Linux will make it or not on the desktop might finally depend on what MS has in plan for pirates in the future.
Software copy protection can not stop people from using Windows. In Russia one of the most profitable and active area of software business is business of breaking copy protection. People make living by making AutoCAD, Photoshop and MS Office Professional available to everyone for $5 a copy.
Linux goes well when governments start to enforce anti-piracy laws. Do not expect polite auditor knocking your door at 2 pm in Russia to count how many valid Windows license you have. Do expect stormtroopers in masks with machine guns breaking through your door at 2 am (or any time that pleases them).
It is funny to see how Linux The Liberator makes huge gains in countries that Americans would probably refrain from calling democratic: China, African and Latin American countries. Linux can not bring democracy to these nations, but it can bring less money to America. This is completely different story, and while Americans may bark on their trade deficit, less money going to USA means more money staying in other countries. What is bad for America is good for Russia, for example.
Bottom line: don’t expect Microsoft software copy protection make people use more Linux, expect BSA and RIAA and US government make people in other countries use more Linux and OpenSource by pushing governments of these countries to enforce copyright laws by any means possible.
Bottom line: don’t expect Microsoft software copy protection make people use more Linux, expect BSA and RIAA and US government make people in other countries use more Linux and OpenSource by pushing governments of these countries to enforce copyright laws by any means possible.
Really interesting view on what is happening. I think you might have a point here. I think there’s also another route that people might choose. The route of staying behind.
When you buy a PC, the OS itself is quite cheap/bundled and affect you very little… so HW is a cost. And on old HW, running X for instance is not very nice.
MS did give Win3.11 away for free (am I mistaken here?) when they considered it just too crappy for the times we’re in… if they consider doing the same with W95/w98, many of these older boxes might use that instead, since so many games are available.
I mean even if a viable open source OS comes around for old HW, they still have this problem of games. If the old HW would launch on a 2.0 Linux Kernel or 2.2…. what games are around working that far back? not to many aye?
Enough ranting, your views are interesting Russian Guy…
“Software copy protection can not stop people from using Windows. In Russia one of the most profitable and active area of software business is business of breaking copy protection. People make living by making AutoCAD, Photoshop and MS Office Professional available to everyone for $5 a copy.”
You probably know how it is exactly better than i do, but you forgot to mention that afaik there’s no “copyright” in Russia. It’s legal to copy the software you mentioned, it’s legal to copy music.
barebones desktop systems are a reason 2004 will be a good year for linux.
$100 per m$ XP or downloaded iso of linux.
thank you linus for giving us a choice.
“thank you linus for giving us a choice”
Yeah, lord knows we didn’t have *ANY* choices before ;P
BSD, Mac OS, Solaris, etc.
Whatever would we have done without Linus?
>there’s no “copyright” in Russia. It’s legal to copy the software you mentioned, it’s legal to copy music.
Yes, and Russians drink vodka on Red Square while hugging dancing bears.
If you would like to know about copyright in Russia, you should ask these guys: http://www.copyright.ru/english.html
There is copyright in Russia, FYI.
The government was not paying attention to copyright violations until foreign powers convinced it that copyright violations steals tax money from the government and will be a problem for Russia if it would like to join WTO.
These days Russian government goes after flea markets selling pirated software and after local businesses using it- because of the pressure from USA and Europe.
Yes, you still can get software, music, video in Russia cheap but not as easy as few years ago. People do consider Linux, mostly in businesses that face customer- like Internet cafe, and in government offices.
Few more machine guns waiving auditors visiting major Russian banks- and Linux may finally make it, forced down the throat.
Thanks
Oh yes, the WTO.. There’s even patents in Russia… quite astonishing info!
There is practically no advantage to loading Linux on the desktop. Cost isn’t a significant factor. People spending $500 to $1500 on a computer aren’t going to balk at $50 to $99 for an OS; especially an OS that will run all of their favorite applications and games. Stability isn’t much of a differentiator, either. Windows 2000/XP are pretty much as stable as Linux (despite what ABMers claim). And security is a dog that won’t run. The next service pack will turn on the firewall by default and turn on automatic update (http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5120138.html“