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10 Linux Predictions For 2002
Weedstock writes: "In an article on LinuxWorld, Joe Barr is once again making 10 predictions about the success of Linux for the new year." The first of many sets of predictions for 2002, no doubt. And some guy named "Robin" or "Roblimo" or something like that wrote about Linux in 2003 for Newsforge.
As far as I can tell, item #4 has nothing to do with Linux directly. Unless of course you believe it's a matter of MS vs. Linux and that's it.
Methinks Linux is about creating a good operating system, not about killing Microsoft. Or did I miss something?
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
I'm surprised he didn't predict that Linus Torvalds would be elected head of the UN, and linux would be installed ona satellite thus rendering us the ability to communicate to alien species.
I doubt that the CIA/FBI/NSA even uses windows XP for any sort of confidential information. Most like they're still running the nearly bug free Windows NT, or some incarnation of unix.
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
Is that a list of predictions, or just a wish list?
.. but lets call it what it is.)
"let's see, kick microsoft's ass; win in court; make big money; be fFamous fForever; eat pizza"
(not that i have anything wrong with that list
It doesn't matter how wonderful, secure, stable and efficient Linux is--it will never take over the desktop until there are gay little wizards and paper clips talking to you, and both major GUI's can come together and standardize or one of them dies (I'd vote for Gnome biting it). The problem with Linux (really *nix in general) is that there are just too many ways to do something which overwhelms new users. I don't think it is so much just not wanting to learn something new. Also a problem is that most average users are oblivious to MS problems--they just don't hear about them, or if they do they don't know how to patch or just don't care because they think security breaches will never happen to them. Unix types are power users. We want everything customized how we want it to a T. Most users just don't care. If they can get their email--great. Just "point and click."
As for business--I see continued growth. With the addition of things like stateful firewalls and journaling filesystems, more business are going to be installing it in more critical applications.
Having worked with a number of businesses before, I know that upgrading to Windows XP will come automatically to 99% of the general population. I used to work for a company whos programs worked under DOS/Win96/Win98. We'd get calls from companies that used our software and would say "I just upgraded to Windows 2000 and now your software doesn't work." That's right. I'd always ask, what else are you using the system for? "Nothing, just your stuff." Well, then, why are you upgrading to an uncompatible system? Time and again, it was the same story. In another year, it'll be the same again. Users calling in to say their programs won't run under Windows XP. So why upgrade? Their dealer told them to. They'd rather upgrade to a new $10,000 system then stay with something that worked. Also, 99% haven't even heard of Linux and the people I mention it to refuse to switch over (instead of getting a newer Windows version)because they don't want to re-learn their system. In short, Linux has a long, uphill road to walk before challenging Microsoft. People just aren't informed.
This is almost the same article I read in 1995! Back then, I was involved in a newsgroup discussion on usability for Linux on the desktop. Most of the predictions, and complaints from back in the day are still there. Sure, there has been polish added, and some really cool features. The kernel has added lots of new features, but the only interface I have seen that came close to a real desktop has been on a freaking Mac (and I HATE macs). At some point in the future, a group will get together and put together an opensource desktop that my wife could use, and be happy with. After 6 and a half years, I won't hold my breath. Don't get me wrong, I'm already running the 2.4.17 kernel on my Thinkpad. I just wonder if predictions like "Linux desktop will appear in public places" are realistic when it is really an OS for nerds, and will continue to stay that way until a real organized effort takes place to bring about a simple desktop.
Flame answer 1: Yes, Gnome and KDE are great, but they are great for geeks, not moms. Maybe end the political crap and have them get together for a cookout at my house to bury the hatchet and take the best code from both to make KDGnome? That would kick some ass!
Flame answer 2: Because Macs are great for destop publishing, but that is not what I need to do. (and yes, I know it's BSD, and not Linux)
Flame answer 3: Sorry Linus. You have done great things here, and I have great admiration for your work. I know you are not competing with MS here. I would just like to see Linux knock the head off of Bill's empire. It get's predicted every year.
Flame answer 4: I know, I know, I have all the source code. I should write it myself, right? Well I suck at programming C, and I am man enough to admit that I could not write production level code for a project like that.
Spackler
Well, presumably anything significant that happens to Microsoft would have a profound effect on the acceptance of Linux in the marketplace. Although the article does not say this, one would think this is how it relates to Linux.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
not just support, no more directx updates,no more security patches, no more anything from ms.
Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom. But sharing data is the first step toward community
which is a bit silly, really. people have been complaining about computers and hardware and software and fFrankly every aspect of their work place in general, but it usually takes a massive brick to the head to change.
when the industrial revolution hit, and the efficiency experts started moving in, people complained endlessly about not using their own special shovel to move coal and dirt and anything else. It took a fFew really pressing pencil pushers to make anything happen. this my fFriends is what will be required to make linux (or anything else) replace M$.
BUT: I don't see it as a linux win. It'll be a Red Hat win
Would that really be so bad though? If you give Red Hat the market share that MS has right now, do you really think they would be as bad as MS?? The code is still open, and you are welcome to do whatever you want with it. IMHO, Linux is Linux is Linux, regardless of what company manages to push it out.
f you give Red Hat the market share that MS has right now, do you really think they would be as bad as MS??
Of course! Power corrupts!
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
The point is not what Microsoft will do. They never did do support for the OEM versions of Win95 I owned. That is something they left for the vendors. (a note to those of you that buy the OEM versions from your local computer shop: You are the only support you have. Study well.)
What is far more significant to me is that now that Win95 is an unsupported product, no one else feels the urge to make anything work under it. For me, no problem; I've moved on. However, I've spruced up and passed on old Windows boxes to a couple of my relatives. The non-profit for whom I do tech support is running on a donated Win95 box. What are these people going to do when they can't use functional anti-virus software when connecting to the internet? What happens when they can't install the new version of some software to read a document (and the StarOffice import filter doesn't yet cut it)?
These people will be left out in the cold, and I don't see myself recommending they give uncle Bill $99 for an "upgrade" just to be supported for another 15 months. Linux has been and is difficult for someone who is not interested in computers to install. It is getting better and I'm learning more myself. Windows is getting harder to use as it becomes obvious that the software has a time limit on it even without a pre-defined end to the license.
As these two things cross you can bet your bottom dollar I will migrate the dozen people I now support to a better, open platform.
Hey!!! the parentheses are good for something
I say...
1. Business as usual. Linux will continue slowly replace Unix servers. Windows will continue to sit on the desktop. Talk of a mainstream linux desktop will continue for several more years.
"creating a good operating system" and "killing Microsoft" amount to the same thing.
Not at all. The best doesn't always succeed. Consider BetaMax versus VHS.
The original poster made an excellent point. I would rather be *for* something than *against* something. Somewhere the Linux community took a wrong turn and started measuring Linux according to the Microsoft yardstick. This is wrong. As long as the Microsoft yardstick is used, Microsoft will always win. Let's use an objective yardstick and to hell with everyone playing the us-versus-them game.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
My wife now finds it easier to use my Linux box to:
-check web mail
-read and print doc/xls files
-surf w/o crashing browser
-use dial-up
-other business stuff.
...rather than boot up her NT box to do the same.
Now with software we use (Moz/StarOffice/KDE) being so nice, stable, & useful, the desktop is at last becoming a viable alternative for Windoze users--with just a little prompting.
To me, the interoperability with Word/Excel/Exchange is the critical thing for businesses. In 2000, this clearly did not work well at all. I think 2002 will indeed herald the year that linux will be occationally adopted as an alternative in corporate environments. Reading/printing these file formats (and protocols) is now *finally* reliable. Ximian's Exchange connector completes it for most businesses.
I don't think that the desktop not being adopted in large numbers this year was because IT managers didn't want to do it, it was because they couldn't do it.
Now they can.
"As much as people make fun of MS never innovating anything, everything I see in Linux development is meant to bring its functionality in line with Windows. If I see anything in Linux that enables me to do more than Windows, and do it with more stability (sorry, in my experience, Linux with X gives a much more unstable environment than 2k or XP), I'll give it another try. "
Yet another MS troll modded up the wazoo.
Look at where the linux desktop was a year ago. Now extrapolate another year. You see where I am going here. A year ago linux desktop was little more then a dream right now KDE looks and works great. KDE 3.0 will probably be even better.
And you know what it does not ever need to catch up or surpass windows. I remeber a year or two ago anytime a SQL server vs Oracle debate sprang up on usenet the MS people always made the same argument. SQL server is good enough to do what you want and it costs much less. The same argument goes here. As soon as Linux is good enough OS with good enough apps everything then the price factor will kick in.
When faces with a choice of spending nothing and getting 80% of the functionality or spending hundreds of thousands of dollars corporations will start making the switch. Once they switch people will start switching at home.
Having said all that I am still waiting for something in windows that is as elegant as syslog.
War is necrophilia.
1. MS Exchange is a groupware and/or e-mail server, not an e-mail client.
2. Office is a productivity suite, not a groupware suite. A groupware suite is a suite of applications that works in conjunction with a server to enable email, calendaring and collaborative workflow. Such applications are offered by Novell, Lotus and MS.
While it may be the case that the only reason most offices use MS products is because of the entrenchment in MS-Office, it is definitely the case that most businesses use MS because monkeys could be trained to use it.
If you doubt this, just remember - they taught you to use it.
-------
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
Another factor hindering Linux desktop adoption is motivation. Traditionally, open source software is developed by developers for people like themselves. They know what to do and what works for them. What's the motivation of people working on Gnome and KDE "for free"? Making a desktop usable by the Windows/Mac crowd is a labor of love, but even when doing such volunteer work, the Gnome and KDE programmers delight in customizability and complexity, not exactly a good feature in a mass market product.
But that's OK. If I wanted to use that kind of software, I would be using it. God knows, I have paid for it with every PC I bought.
If Linux is ever going to take over large chunks of the desktop market, I think it will be because of some radically and snazzy different new design that that by pure chance catches fire and becomes a fad.
Rob makes a good point in his predictions, and it's something that I see on /. alot. Lots of people out there want to make Linux a Cathederal, with only the 7337 using it. OSS is not about that (or shouldn't be), but it seems that some people on /. ,and in the free software movement don't get that. Not everyone by any means, but just enough to make many people say that they don't want to be involved in this crap. Linux started out in the Bazaar, as did most free/open software, and I think that most of the programmers *get* this, but, I think that many others don't, and they only use Linux because it's not mainstream. So they feel special. There's nothing wrong with this, per se., but by trying to keep linux elite, they put it in the Cathederal, which is not what it's supposed to be about. I think that Linux can be mainstreamed without dumbing it down, and that it needs to be, or the bazaar loses.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Well that's a bit of a stretch. "Dependendts", "Slaves" or "Prisoners" would be better descriptions, IMO.
They will betray and leave Microsoft the first time they get the chance.
After all, like it or not, MS brought PCs into the realm of usability for the average idiot.
Like it or not, but this is plain wrong.
It was asian-hardware makers which brought PCs into the price range suitable for the average person. Remember DOS? Remember high-memory? Remember IRQ/DMA problems?
Usability is secondary and always was. Otherwise the awkard DOS could have never had any chance against MacOS.
Do you really think Dell would be pulling in almost $32 BILLION dollars if we were still using Dr Dos?
Now, let's get clear about something: Microsoft always trailed the computing industry. Windows was late - very late. All other computers (Amiga, Apple and most Unix) had GUIs much earlier than Microsoft.
Yet, everybody pretends as if without Microsoft there would be no GUI. Without Microsoft, the computing industry would be a couple of years farther ahead than it is now.
Welcome to the joys of market share. MS and the "OS-community" are in much different positions. Since most people use Windows, if a hardware manufacturer wants it's product to sell, they have to make it work with Windows.
That's correct now, *BUT* on servers, most manufacturers support Linux as good as Windows and it's possible that a couple of years down the road, Microsoft will have to write drivers themselves for RAID, etc. and will support only a limited selection of server-hardware. (And this will eventually kill them)
You need an example?
Compaq dropped support for the Alpha-platform, because Linux has taken it over completely and Windows only accounted for 5% of new sales of Alpha-systems.
Within a week, Microsoft dropped support for the Alpha, too, because they just can't support it alone, they just can't.
Hell, even on ordinary x86-hardware, Windows is much more complicated to install if the hardware is not preconfigured by the PC-maker for Windows. If you build your own computer, you know what I mean.
OS developers write their own drivers because they have to. Until they have sufficient market share to justify the expense from the manufacturer of creating another set of drivers, this will be their only option.
Yes, but Microsoft does not have that option.
Once, their dominance is in danger it's just a big way down for MS without any hope for return.
Defections from MS office to OpenOffice (probably badged as StafOffice 6) will be the most significant thing to happen next year in both private business and government (national and local, around the world). Why will this happen?
1) Not running Windows on the desktop seriously limits the vendor software that can be run on a desktop.
2) Office is now as expensive, if not more so, than Windows.
3) StarOffice has a big name (Sun) behind it, so the corporation can feel that "the CEO can call Scott".
4) If a big corporation or government starts exchanging documents in StarOffice/OpenOffice formats, their suppliers can meet this requirement without spending cash. Sun do this now.
Why, when most corporations employ loads of accountants to minimise the tax they pay, don't they put any effort into reducing their Microsoft Tax bills?
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
I did not mean microsoft had a better product, or even the first (reference Betamax vs. VHS).
Microsoft is proof that marketing works. Regardless of what you think of their methods, they started at the beginning of the PC revolution, when there were no giants, and built a very large successful company.
Do you really think MS had the clout before Win95 to force PC makers into exclusive agreements?
Mac and Amiga suffered the same fate as Betamax, a better product ruined by mismanagement.
Do you really think Dell would be pulling in almost $32 BILLION dollars if we were still using Dr Dos?
Different subjects. If Apple ruled the world, there would be no Dell, or any other pc maker. Even now, name me two successful Mac Clone builders. Again, marketing rules the world...
That's correct now, *BUT* on servers, most manufacturers support Linux as good as Windows and it's possible that a couple of years down the road, Microsoft will have to write drivers themselves for RAID, etc. and will support only a limited selection of server-hardware. (And this will eventually kill them)
However this was meant, it comes across with quite a bit of arrogance. Once again, regardless of their business practices, MS has quite a few talented developers. (Please, no complaints about stolen BSD code or security vulnerabilities) Did MS force hardware makers to create device drivers for Win95 when it came out? Nope, they rolled their own (which weren't perfect, but neither are OS drivers for linux).
As far as MS dropping Alpha support, if your company had a fringe product(by market share, NOT quality) that was about to start consuming more resources than the sales merit, what would you do?
Once, their dominance is in danger it's just a big way down for MS without any hope for return.
They were once a small company, and i doubt they would fall into oblivion just because they have a decent competitor.