Slashdot Mirror
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.
Red Hat will continue to increase market share, sales and profits, leading the ragtag band of open source survivors out of the wilderness of the recession to the land of black bottom lines.
The Linux desktop will achieve a measurable market share on consumer machines and an even larger share of desktops for business and government. The growth will be fueled by both continuing refinement and improvement of the desktop, the growing dissatisfaction with Windows performance, security, and pricing, and the easing of Microsoft licensing restrictions.
Both pure Linux and dual-boot Linux/Windows machines from top-tier OEMs will start to appear in the marketplace as Microsoft ever so slightly begins to loosen its death-grip on the preload marketplace.
The Microsoft/DOJ "settlement" will be tossed out by the judge as being completely one-sided and the court will compromise between the demands of the holdout states and the DOJ. Microsoft will appeal the new finding to the Supreme Court since it would -- unlike the terms of the current "settlement" -- actually prevent them from continuing many of their illegal business practices.
A major three-letter intelligence agency will suffer a public and catastrophic breach of classified data because of exploits in Windows XP and ban its use completely. Previous security incidents involving the loss of classified data will also be revealed. Eyes (and heads) will roll.
At least one global megacorp will announce a complete migration away from all Microsoft Windows platforms to an interoperable mix of Unix, Mac and Linux platforms.
TechTV will add a pure Linux show to its lineup. Hey, it couldn't hurt. They laid off 135 employees in November, some say as the result of losing touch with their geek side. Leo Laporte has been Linux friendly for years, to the point of having Linus Torvalds as a guest. In 2002, Linux earns its own spot in the lineup.
AOL will stun the world by releasing a beta AOL client for Linux. This event will be marked by both howls of protest and celebration. Command-line interface (CLI) diehards will proclaim it to be the death of Linux. Most will simply acknowledge its growing popularity.
Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD fame, Arpad Gereoffy of the MPlayer project, and Brett Glass will team up to form a new PR firm called Darker Image. The concept is simple, like reverse psychology. For a fee, the team will act as advocates for your competition. Rumors have it that the dynamic trio is already in discussions with Redmond about championing the Free Software Foundation.
Just like last year, my final prediction drives home a simple point. Whether any of the previous predictions come true or not, it's going to be another banner year for GNU/Linux. It's popularity in the server, desktop, and embedded spaces will continue to grow.