Linux Making Inroads, But Not At Windows' Expense

zaphod123 writes "According to this article, the stories about Amazon (and others) switching to Linux have been misrepresented. The Linux install has replaced a proprietary Unix system, not a Microsoft Windows product. This is still "A Good Thing" for Linux, but not the downfall of Microsoft that some have foreseen."

Comments

Re:Try it on grandma.

[einhverfr]

Hmmm....

It is true that the majority of Linux wins are at the expense of UNIX, which explains the support of Sun and IBM (if you can't beat them, join 'em). However, there is a little more to this that meets the eye.

Proprietary UNIX is great in some niche markets, but it does not compete cost-effectively with Linux or Windows. If the migration costs were the issue, why would people be moving both to Windows 2000 and Linux from UNIX, not just Linux? This trend is also evident when one looks at the Netcraft numbers (and actually reads their comments).

The real issue, though, is that adding Linux servers IN PLACE OF Windows 2000 servers for certain tasks may also be happening. If people are already switching from UNIX to NT-based OS's, then Linux's wins are definitely at Windows expense, in denied market share rather than in lost market share (Windows never had the market share to begin with). All of this is on the server.

Also, the data in the article was out of date (about 2 yerars old). Linux currently has about 2% desktop market share in the corporate environment accordign to the IDC as of last Feb. (I assume that most of these are technical workstations). But again, this may deny the 64-bit XP some market share as time goes on.

Now for the ease-of-use question:
in other words, after you get done with the hassles of Linux, and the hassles of Win2k, the hassles of Linux are a little bit more. time=money, so the cost of that extra hassle is the same as the cost of Windows & its apps.

On a corporate level, yes. On an individual level, not so sure. I have watched people who are not computer gurus struggle endlessly with the insanity of WIndows. So it is not really newbie friendly either. In fact the only newbie friendly OS is arguably Mac OS!

However, I have found that newbies that get started with Linux learn much more rapidly about their computer because it is more transparent. A good example of this is my parents, who went from being lost on Windows 95 to being lost on Red Hat 6.1. Funny thing, if I set up the desktop with their use in mind, they had fewer problems than they did with Windows 95. They started using their computer more, and now (even though they no longer use Windows) are able to help all their friends use Windows. So I think that Windows is "user friendly" because that is what people have struggled with and put a lot of effort into learning. Not that it is innately so. Expect Linux to take more of the desktop in the next few years...

This raises an important issue for OpenSourceLobby

[mikosullivan]

This article begs an important question for OpenSourceLobby and other organizations devoted to public education about open source: how adversarial is our relationship with other closed-source OS's? Our relationship with Microsoft up until now has been clear: they're the adversary. That isn't going to change. However, there are other vendors of closed-source OS's and open source is competition for them. The strange part of this equation is that many producers of closed-source OS's also push open source products. IBM and Sun both come to mind.

So the question is this: how much effort should we devote to pushing Linux and BSD as alternatives to close-source OS's?

My answer to that question is "not much". We need to focus on our main adversary: Microsoft. John Q. Public and Buford T. Congressman are probably not going care much about which version of Un*x somebody ought to choose, but will care very much about whether to use Windows.

In short, "open source Un*x or close source Un*x?" is simply not on the political map, and doesn't need to be.

-Miko