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.

Comments

Some of these have nothing to do with Linux... ?

[Geek Dash Boy]

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?

Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[hooded1]

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.

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[Squeeze Truck]

I'm more sure that those three organizations are most likely running their own home-brewed OS so at least they can have the sources under their control and their security levels can be assessed in the intrest of national security.

I believe that OS is called "Wildcat". I have no sources on that, I heard it from someone.

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[nathanm]

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.

You're right. They use certified "secure" operating systems, like Trusted Solaris (based on 2.5, although a version based on 8 is now out, it'll be awhile before anyone switches over), HP-UX Trusted (based on 6.5 or 7.0) , Trusted IRIX (based on 4.0 or 6.5), Trusted AIX, Trusted Oracle (based on 7.2.3), and other systems that have been thoroughly audited and tested by the DOD.

Also, the government's secure systems are not even connected to the internet. They're on a completely separate network, the SIPRNET, which is highly encrypted before it leaves the buildings. So, for his #5 to happen, some agency would have to adopt Windows XP early in its life cycle (not their style at all), connect it to the internet (doesn't happen), or inadvertently let someone into their server room (yeah right).

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[Bastian]

I'd add to this that, if I were an admin worth his salt and was told that security was my prime concern, linux would never even cross my mind. If I were to pick any open source unix-like, it would be OpenBSD, hands down. About 10 minutes looking through Bugtraq should be enough explanation for my reasoning.

No offense, Mr. Barr, but the idea of Linux running on sensitive CIA or FBI computers seems patently ludicrous to me.

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[einhverfr]

Hmmm... The mars rover has one of its computer systems running Linux... Does that count?

Anyway, some the facts behind the predictions seemed a little behind the times. For libraries, Linux is a good option (desktop prediction) but not at this point for corporate workstations.

Also, did AOL not already release a beta for Linux?

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[HiThere]

Speaking as an outsider (I don't administer anything secure):

If security is your primary concern, then forget the OS and secure the network. While you're at it, also secure the floppy drives (remove them? lock them? Probably remove them.). And make sure that nobody comes near it with a Jazz or a Zip drive. Etc.

Once you've got that done, THEN you can worry about the OS. At this point, you are worried about insiders. Linux might be good enough. The NSA version, perhaps? But probably something tested for a few years would be a better choice.
.

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[Syberghost]

I doubt that the CIA/FBI/NSA even uses windows XP for any sort of confidential information.

It's amazing what one word can do. People are telling you you're right, because they're not seeing the word "confidential", which is what made you wrong.

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[Syberghost]

XP, would most certainly NOT be used for any confidential info.

Witnesses have posted that it is.

Re:Given the abusrdity of the predictions...

[Syberghost]

Yes:

this very Slashdot discussion.

"predictions"?

[skotte]

Is that a list of predictions, or just a wish list?

"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 .. but lets call it what it is.)

Predictions

[sydb]

1. Tux will fly
To this day flightless like other penguins, Linux mascot Tux will shake the world by flying into the Eiffel Tower, prompting a renewal of the 'war on terrorism'.

2. Slashdot will be free of trolls
CmdrTaco will utter the regexp to end all regexps, and the lameness filter will finally work. Forever.

3. RMS installs Windows
RMS, leader of the Free World, will renounce GNU purity and follow the temptations of Microsoft by installing Windows 2.0. From the horses mouth: "Freeware like GNU just doesn't cut it when stacked up against real software made by real programmers with fat wallets. It's a moral choice really - the corporations deserve our dollars. Freedom shmeedom."

4. There is no prediction 4.

Re:Predictions

[Bastian]

5) Steve Ballmer will be chased out of Redmond and forced to become a male stripper after he is accused of "penguin lust."

(Sorry, Berke, couldn't resist)

wishful thinking

[javaaddikt]

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.

Re:wishful thinking

[jgerman]

That is completely and utterly ridiculous nonsense.

Yes it would help to have a PRIMARY desktop that comes by default for new users, but you gain absolutely nothing by limiting choice. A small percentage of normal users become power users and will want to switch to a more powerful desktop, and a larger percentage of normal users think they are power users and will want to do the same. The argument that choice is going to prevent Linux from taking over the desktop.

All this being said real power users use the desktop for opening shells 90% of the time so it doesn't really matter anyway .

Re:wishful thinking

[big_hairy_mama]

And Linux doesn't have the same problem, but worse?

You want to copy some text. After selecting the text, do you:
* Rely on the stupid bug in QT 2.x to copy it by only selecting it
* Right click and select copy
* Use Ctrl-C
* Drag and Drop (unlikely)
* After you do one of those, figure out which of the 15 different X clipboards it actually ended up in and retry once you realize that the app you want to paste into doesn't support the same one

Copy a file to a floppy:
* Mount the floppy:
@ Double-click the icon on the Gnome or KDE desktop
@ Right click the icon and select mount
@ Mount manually from a command line:
+ type into XTerm, another virtual terminal, Konsole, Gnome Terminal, etc.?
+ mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
+ add entry to /etc/fstab and mount /mnt/floppy
* drag and drop
@ Midnight Commander
@ Konqueror
@ one of a dozen other file managers that don't work
* command line
@ again, figure out which terminal to use
@ cp file /mnt/floppy

So you see, your argument is completely lost. Windows has a long way to go in order to please the true idiots out there, but Linux has far, FAR farther.

Re:wishful thinking

[Mawbid]

...but you gain absolutely nothing by limiting choice

Yes, you do. Here's an example. I'm looking for a good gui database front-end. You know, the kind of thing you use to design tables, set access permissions, enter sample data, browse, try out queries, etc. Many people have written such tools for Windows and Linux. On Windows, there's basically one variable: the database server. Each tool may or may not work with the database server I'm using. On Linux, there are more variables.

One is the package format/distribution support. Some frontends aren't packaged for Debian so getting them to work on my system is a little harder (I may need to manually satisfy some library dependency or whatever).

Another is the application framework or widget set. One tool uses Gnome, another uses KDE, there's one using Tcl/Tk, and an old one uses Motif. Only some of them really fit my Gnome desktop. I can still use the others, but that's not the point. The point is that one developer has learned Gnome programming and another has learned KDE and they're not ever going to work on the same GUI together. One guy's choice of a desktop has prevented another guy from contributing to the project.

The end result of all this is that I've spent hours browsing freshmeat, downloading software, compiling it, and finding that none of it is really good. (BTW, I'm still looking, so suggestions are welcome.)

I believe choice in software is a good thing, but it's wrong to say that it doesn't come at a price or that the alternative has no merits at all.

Re:wishful thinking

[Alex]

Gnome bite it?

Is this the same Gnome that Sun and HP have chosed as their next generation UI or some other Gnome?

One of linux's greatest problems is the KDE vs Gnome "issue", sadly I think it is pretty unlikely that either of these will bite it. They are both great desktops environments, but the conflict/split between them diverts efforts away from any real chance of desktop dominance.

The fact that these two groups compete is great for linux users, but not for the "linux market" and I would have thought is a major factor discouraging companies porting software to linux.

Alex

Re:wishful thinking

[jgerman]

So what, get a tar ball don't get a package. You have to manually get in there to make Windows work as well. My CD-Writer worked out of the box for linux and took two hours to manually find/install the dll's needed under windows. My tv capture card STILL does not work under windows.
Secondly differing widget sets work no matter which desktop your using, I run koffice on my gnome desktop regularly. That is the point. It down't matter if every developer that comes down the pipe can work on a particular project, a greater percentage can thatn can jump in on a windows project.

Furthermore, you are crossing the, admittedly, blurry line between a newbie user and an experienced one. It's probably safe to say that NO newbie users are looking for database frontends.

No choice has absolutely no merits above choice. The standard Linix desktop will be able to meet Joe Blows needs, and that is where the desktop market lies. The fact that there are alternate choices for desktops has absolutely no bearing on that fact.

number 6

[banky]

I think you'll see this happen more than once, in some form or fashion; someone will kick W2k or XP out of the datacenter, and it'll be a high-profile linux win.

BUT: I don't see it as a linux win. It'll be a Red Hat win, or an IBM win (or Suse, or Debian, whatever, I'm not playing favorites here). Linux will not, per se, win the day. The services and "value adds" and all that crap will be what gets written about; the pundits (read: ZDNet) will talk about how so-and-so (Red Hat, IBM, whomever) sent in armies of consultants, promised to tailor things to their hardware, etc etc. In other words they'll downplay Linux.

It'll be a win, but everyone (most of all MS) will try to convince the world that it was a different game.

Re:number 6

[thesolo]

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.

Re:number 6

[Anonymous DWord]

Red Hat Linux Professional is a complete package featuring Red Hat Linux 7.2 plus 6 CDs of Linux server and workstation applications. In addition, you get 60 days each of Red Hat Web- based support, Telephone-based support including two incidents and 180 days Red Hat Network Software.(My bold)

That's why.

Re:number 6

[Squeeze Truck]

Yes, but as soon as the first company kicks XP out of the datacenter (or off the desktop, why not?), that is the beginning of the end for MS.

Can you imagine if people in that company's, say, IT department recieved an email attachment from a vendor in OfficeXP format, and then called that vendor up and told them to re-send it in some cross-platform format?
Chances are it would prompt that company's vendors and business partners to switch OS's also.

And so on,

And so forth.

And since "compatibility" and monopoly are all MS has going for it, MS will disintegrate like an loaf of bread in a warm bath.

Re:number 6

[einhverfr]

In that case, download the ISO images and burn them. All except the CD's with proprietary tools... Then you are not paying for the support you will never use.

Re:number 6

[HiThere]

But at least a few versions ago the support was only good for installation problems. Nothing else. Which makes it quite expensive.

Now if I could ask them, e.g., how to get kppp to work when in the KDE desktop (Yes, it works with the current version. But there were several where I ended up using the Red Hat dialer, or wvdial, or some such [it varied]) then it might be worth the cost. But this wasn't covered. And if I could ask them how to get wxPython working, when all it says is it can't work (my guess it that it's looking at /usr/python, which is Python 1.52, instead of Python 2.2.1 which is the default python if you don't specify the path) ... well, that would be worth a periodic resubscription.
.

Hmm... I love these prediction lists

[glwtta]

Computers will become faster!

And will have more RAM!

Linux will continue to develop!

etc... What would we do without this sage guidance?

Oh come on

[jonnythan]

I really don't think that Microsoft discontinuing support for old versions of Windows will make anyone switch to Linux.

When was the last time you called up MS for tech support for Windows? Most people just don't care, or are even aware MS will provide any tech support at all.

I don't anticipate a large exodus to Linux when MS stops providing support. There's no reason at all to think that people will move to and learn a new *operating system* that doesn't provide them anything new over Windows 98 with no official support.

Everyone has been predicting that Linux will explode any minute now for *years*. This won't make it happen any sooner. Fact is, Linux doesn't provide anything over Windows for the vast majority of people, and MS has massive marketing muscle. Linux isn't poised to overcome that at all. Linux will need a ton of marketing money, and do something WINDOWS DOESN'T.

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.

For the moment, for me, it's XP on me desktop, 2k on my laptop, and OpenBSD on my server.

Re:Oh come on

[cha0sadddddddd]

not just support, no more directx updates,no more security patches, no more anything from ms.

Re:Oh come on

[Zillatron]

I really don't think that Microsoft discontinuing support for old versions of Windows will make anyone switch to Linux.

When was the last time you called up MS for tech support for Windows? Most people just don't care, or are even aware MS will provide any tech support at all.

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.

Re:Oh come on

[Malcontent]

"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.

Re:Oh come on

[Malcontent]

The fact that SQL is a standard has nothing to do with anything. Both SQL server and Oracle are databases. Neither one obeys all the SQL standards, both have their own extensions to standards. A database is a database, a word processor is a word processor. They are compared on price, features, looks, speed, etc. Linux and it's open source competitors to Windows only have to be "good enough" and free for them to win. If they can achieve 80% of the functionality at zero cost they will win. No ifs ands or buts about it. Most IT directors I know of are idiots but even the most moronic person on the planet has to eventually wake up to the fact that their users only take advantage of 20% of the features of any software and can easily subsitute a linux/openoffice desktop with a windows/office desktop. As for the "choice" of desktops that's baloney. Nobody on the corporate desktop has any choice. The software is dictated by the IT staff and that's that. The IT staff could just as well say "we will use KDE" and voila the choice is gone.

Once Mr. Joe idiot luser starts using openoffice he will want it at home. He will not want to learn word trust me.

In a nutshell. Linux desktop is already approaching the 80% mark pretty fast. Eventually some corporation some place is going to start implementing it. This will start a trend. Linux desktop use will explode. I figure linux should reach 10 percent in two years and over 40% in four. At the point which it reaches 20 to 30% the world will change. The software developers and the hardware manufacturers will jump aboard at about 20% I think.

Re:Oh come on

[Squeeze Truck]

I agree.

I don't get this "Linux doesn't offer anything" crap. I seriously think people who say this just aren't keeping up with where we actually are (today, December 28, 2001)

Redhat 7.2 and Mandrake 8.1, IMO, are easier to install than any kind of Windows. And smoother, (much) better looking, faster...

I don't get it, I can't think of anything wrong with it other than that it isn't windows.
(I'm talking current versions here.)

Anybody could deploy Mandrake 8.1 in the workplace and be up and working in a heartbeat, and that's the truth.

Re:Oh come on

[Jason Earl]

I certainly agree with you that home users are not likely to migrate en masse to Linux anytime soon. In fact, I think that OpenOffice is much more likely to become a major problem for Microsoft than Linux. Linux's primary advantage for the home user is cost, but home users almost certainly already own a license for Windows. It came with their computer. OpenOffice, on the other hand, would give them nearly all of the functionality of MS Office (and MS Office file compatibility to boot) at a fraction of the cost, and it even runs on Windows.

That, my friend, is likely going to prove a very enticing offer. In fact, I wouldn't be one bit surprised to see major OEMs offering StarOffice pre-loaded. It would be a very straightforward value-add, at a rock bottom price.

Re:Oh come on

[jon_c]

well, i installed a fresh redhat 7.2 last week on my new campaq 1720us laptop. it found the d-link wireless card ok and seemed to like my video card (radeon mobility) but the eepro100 driver didn't work right.

the scroll button things on my laptop was unknown to linux, windows didn't know about them either, but compaq provides drivers for win32.

Besides the network cards being flaky things worked ok, but i actually configuring anything became a complete nightmare, like trying to compile the latest kernel with redhat, trying to get some wireless hacking stuff, etc..

Right now i'm trying out freebsd which so far has worked out a lot better, it doesn't have the same problem with the network card, it saw the wireless, though it didn't know about the video card right off, but getting XFree to figure it out wasn't that bad. Generally i find freebsd to make a lot more sence, being at it's only one operating system and not a collection of things packeged together. when people talk about freebsd i know what there talking about, unlike linux where your distrubution really does matter (at least with redhat).

anyway, maybe if i really knew the in's and out's of how linux worked it i would find it workable, but to me, i can't imagine making it a primary OS, i like linux, but thats mainly because i like fucking with computers, and it's no fun if computers just work right, there needs to be a lot of effort to make it feel worth while.

hmm.. better add this

Re:Oh come on

[rseuhs]

Everyone has been predicting that Linux will explode any minute now for *years*. This won't make it happen any sooner. Fact is, Linux doesn't provide anything over Windows for the vast majority of people, and MS has massive marketing muscle.

First, no, not everyone has been predicting that.

Second, Microsoft's OS takes a higher and higher percentage of total computer costs.
15 years ago, Apple dominated the desktop and the PC won because it was maybe 20 to 30% cheaper. Now, we already have reached 20 to 30% of the price of a desktop-system that will go to MS (when you buy retail), which means that a Linux system could be 20 to 30% cheaper if it were preinstalled.

Because of OEM discounts, Windows-machines are still competitive, but as hardware costs continue to fall, Microsoft's fraction continues to rise and soon alternative computer makers will be able to offer significantly cheaper "naked" or Linux-preinstalled systems than the big OEMs and that will help Linux very much.

It's just a matter of time.

Re:Oh come on

[blakestah]

I really don't think that Microsoft discontinuing support for old versions of Windows will make anyone switch to Linux.When was the last time you called up MS for tech support for Windows?

I think you misunderstand what it means when M$ discontinues support for old versions of Windows. It means there will be no new drivers. It means all new software will be certified to run on XP, and will probably fail in interesting ways on older OSs. It means that if you depend on new applications or new hardware, you will be coerced heavily into upgrading to XP.

Then you are in a tough place. You need to accept the new licensing plans. Or consider switching. Personally, I don't hink many people will switch to linux.

This is a classic Microsoft tactic to coerce people into upgrading. The basic policy is
1) Coerce OEMs into preloading.
2) Stop support for old operating systems
3) Make subtle compatibility changes in Office file formats. DOC format is extensible, so this is easy to do.

If you combine the effect of all of these, and take into account interdependence of Windows users, Microsoft can coerce EVERYONE into upgrading. Most people will not have a choice - they have to be able to exchange documents with others who use Windows.

Re:Oh come on

[richieb]

I dunno, maybe actually pay for something instead of freeloading? I'm sure that's an unheard of concept, but you should try it sometime. Its very rewarding!

But what if these "freeloaders" are running a food bank and use donated machines. They could spent $300 to upgrade to Win XP, or they could feed a homeless/poor family for a month. Which one would you pick?

Re:Oh come on

[Lumpy]

therefore you need to shut up and quit lying to people.

when they ask about support you say, It's great, and identical to what Microsoft offered on your win95 you love.. X dollars per incident.

Yes it is EXACTLY like all microsoft support. if you say anything other than that you are lying to people and creating/ feeding FUD.

the #1 cause of FUD about linux is people who dont know squat acting like experts and spouting lies to people asking questions.

Re:Oh come on

[sheldon]

"3) Make subtle compatibility changes in Office file formats. DOC format is extensible, so this is easy to do. "

The DOC format has not changed dramatically since Office 97.

Either has XLS.

I don't even think PPT has changed.

The one which has changed in a major way is MDB, with each revision. But why is this bad? The reason was to improve performance, stability, etc.

Re:Oh come on

[blakestah]

The DOC format has not changed dramatically since Office 97.

Really. So you've never had a problem trying to open a doc file created in Office2000 with Office 97. If so, you haven't tried it very hard.

Doc is not really a format in the standard sense. It can include any object that is defined by DCOM. As DCOM changes with each revision of Windows, you can create things in Office97 under Windows2000 that are unreadable in Windows95 with Office97 !

This is in some senses a strength in that you can use anything defined by your object manager in your Word documents. The downside is the guy trying to read it needs to have the same set of objects defined on his side. This makes it a practical impossibility for anyone to make a "perfect" doc import filter. The DCOM objects keep changing, so the import filter keeps breaking. As do older versions of Office.

Re:Oh come on

[Malcontent]

If you re-read my post you will see that I am talking about businesses adopting linux first and then the consumers following suit. Businesses certainly know exactly how much they pay for windows, office, sql server, and NT clients.

Re:Oh come on

[Malcontent]

"Linux has been "good enough" for years, at least by your standards. How come they haven't won yet? "

Linux has been good enough for the server market since kernel 2.4. At that point it became 80% as good as solaris and NT at server tasks and started capturing market share. In the year or so since that time it has achieved over 20% market share in servers.

"Perhaps if you compare it to Win3.1, but compared to modern environments it's more like 20%. "

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Fortunately it's not you who will be making this decision. It will be somebody who is forking over serious money for MS licenses. Pretty soon now openoffice + KDE will be able to deliver 80% of the functionality of windows + ms office.

"I actually rather suspect Linux desktop use will decline from it's position today. Perhaps you meant .10% in two years and .04% in four? "

I suppose you can "suspect" anything you want. We'll see who is right in time.

Re:Oh come on

[sheldon]

"Linux has been good enough for the server market since kernel 2.4. "

So all those arguments I heard back in '98 that Linux was good enough for the server market... what were they? lies?

"Fortunately it's not you who will be making this decision. "

Actually it is me.

"We'll see who is right in time."

We've already established you as extremely over optimistic. Almost as bad as R.E. Ballard.

Re:Oh come on

[Malcontent]

"So all those arguments I heard back in '98 that Linux was good enough for the server market... what were they? lies?"

It was the truth just no the whole truth. It was good enough to be a DNS server, it was good enough to be a web server serving moderate loads, it was good enough to be a ftp server, it was good enough to be a file server. It was not however 80% as good as solaris or NT. After 2.4 it breached the 80% mark started gaining market share as a general purpose server for real life loads of most businesses. Up to that point it was a great server for smaller businesses.

"Actually it is me."

Actually it's not you. You have already made up your mind and are trolling slashdot expounding it (I am giving you the benefit of the doubt here and presuming that you are actually in a position to make that choice in the first place). Right now in most businesses there is already a ripple of enthusiasts for linux. In small to medium businesses enthisiasm is even higher. It's just a matter of time.

I for one believe we can move this process along greatly by turning in every small business who steals MS software to the local AG, MS, the SPA or whoever else is willing to make them stop stealing software. When businesses are forced to buy windows software they will give linux a harder look. As long as businesses are stealing MS software of course they have no insentive to actually try anything else. It's not enough to appeal to their sense of morality or ethics are most business people are slimy and would sell their grandmothers if it meant a little extra profit.

Doubling workstation/desktop marketshare

[tcc]

from 0.24% to 0.48% :)

Seriously, this may sound funny, but heck, if amiga would have 0.05% TODAY it would mean more machines out there then all of the machines put together back in the early 90s.

Even 0.1% of the market IS a market, I'm not in marketting but with the number of computers out there, if you can create some killer app for that 0.1%, I'm sure you can get under the spot light pretty easily.

Re:Doubling workstation/desktop marketshare

[mlinksva]

Very important point. Desktop share doesn't even need to increase for Linux to be an important desktop market segment, because the absolute number of desktop Linux users will continue to grow rapdily along with the absolute number of computer users.

I think the 0.24% number arrived at by WebSideStory may be a bit low, but they're probably right about Linux's desktop market share not increasing over the last few years, though the number of desktop Linux users certainly has increased (for every geek-like entitity I know that has migrated to Linux, dozens of people became first-time computer users, running Windows almost invariably).

For desktop share to increase, three things need to happen:

1. Best of breed web browser. Mozilla is real close.
2. Nearly seamless MSOffice replacement. OpenOffice is probably a year or so away.
3. Easily available hardware pre-installs. Don't know what will make this happen. #1 and #2 would help.

OPS general ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Yeah, right

[W2k]

This should be under "It's funny. Laugh", not "Linux Business".

Both pure Linux and dual-boot Linux/Windows machines from top-tier OEMs will start to appear in the marketplace...

Yeah, right. TheRegister might think Mandrake is easier than Windows XP to install, but actually running even this the most simplified of Linuxes is still beyond the average joe sixpack user. This is the only thing really keeping Linux from desktops at the moment - well, that and hardware/software compatibility - but I don't think it's going away any time soon.

The Microsoft/DOJ "settlement" will be tossed out by the judge as being completely one-sided ...

If both sides agree on it, why would the judge toss it out? As for the hold-out states, more of them will drop off once the settlement goes through and the ones that remain will be stuck with Microsoft for another year or so, eventually having a very limited impact.

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 ...

This is just hilarious. Firstly, I doubt that any "three-letter intelligence agency" (there aren't that many) are running XP at this point, or are planning to start doing so. If they're running Windows at all, they'll be on 2000, which is getting pretty secure now that it's been out for a while.

At least one global megacorp will announce a complete migration away from all Microsoft Windows platforms ...

This is quite likely, actually; as Linux becomes more usable and more well-known to big businesses looking to save money/improve security, some companies will undoubably decide to move. Others will decide that Linux/Mac/whatever they were on before wasn't right for them, and switch to Linux. Stuff like that happens all the time. I am thinking Joe was running low on ideas at this point :)

AOL will stun the world by releasing a beta AOL client for Linux ...

Yeah, sure. And Tux the Penguin will be replaced by Joe the Wannabe Journalist.

(I don't have a sig)

Re:Yeah, right

[Darth Paul]

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 ...

MSN?

Oh, wait. Intelligence, you said ... :)

Re:Yeah, right

[NutscrapeSucks]

Both pure Linux and dual-boot Linux/Windows machines from top-tier OEMs will start to appear in the marketplace...

Can anyone explain where the market demand for dual-boot OSes is?

I can see a small number of Slashdot MCSE-types that want to play around parttime in Linux but are too lazy to install it, but I can't see what good it will do in the real world. It would increase support costs and therefore the total price of the system, though.

The only argument is that it would be good for advocacy reasons, but, sorry, that does not cut it.

(As a datapoint, IBM shipped all of their corp machines dualboot OS/2 and Windows 3.1 for a while back in the day, and both the OS/2 and the Windows customers bitched to high heaven.)

On the other hand, we're already seeing pre-installed Linux for the corporate market, and that's only going to get bigger. You just need to be a big enough account that you have the right phone number over at Dell or whatever, but I'd bet that it will be come a mainstream OS choice shortly enough. But the last thing corporate MIS wants is their users choosing which OS to boot!

Re:Yeah, right

[snake_dad]

Yeah, right. TheRegister might think Mandrake is easier than Windows XP to install, but actually running even this the most simplified of Linuxes is still beyond the average joe sixpack user.

But so is running Windows! You don't want to know how many questions about windows I have to answer from friends, familie and neighbours, how many machines need reinstalls that they cannot do themselves, how many windows machines are crashing all the time because the owners don't know how to find and install all the latest drivers and patches, and how many virii, trojans and spyware I have removed from those pc's! And let's not forget all the unsecured windows boxes on broadband, happily serving DDoS attacks...

There may be a common perception that Windows is easy to run, but it sure as hell ain't easy to run right.

Re:Yeah, right

[redcliffe]

You may laugh at preloaded Linux-only, or dual-boot machines, but I work in a computer shop and have already sold several preloaded machines with dual-boot linux systems. Why do they want them? Most want to just learn about the OS and because many of them want to get away from Microsoft.

Re:Yeah, right

[cnkeller]

This is just hilarious. Firstly, I doubt that any "three-letter intelligence agency" (there aren't that many) are running XP at this point, or are planning to start doing so. If they're running Windows at all, they'll be on 2000, which is getting pretty secure now that it's been out for a while.

I count five. That's a decent amount.

FBI, NRO, CIA, DIA, NSA.

And yes, some of them have migrated various orginizational desktops to XP; and to linux as well.

Re:Yeah, right

[Syberghost]

As a datapoint, IBM shipped all of their corp machines dualboot OS/2 and Windows 3.1 for a while back in the day, and both the OS/2 and the Windows customers bitched to high heaven.

The Windows customers may have bitched, but most of the OS/2 customers didn't, because WinOS/2 worked better with Windows under it.

If you define "better" as "applications were less likely to go down in flames".

Even AmiPro worked better on WinOS/2 if you had Windows under it, and IBM liked shipping that even before they owned it.

Re:Yeah, right

[NutscrapeSucks]

Let me clarify - these were corporate machines (PC300 and ThinkPad) that shipped with the full version of OS/2 (with Win-OS2) and a seperate install of Windows 3.11 and IBM DOS.

The OS/2 customers (real, live MIS people, not Teamers) were unhappy with this (according to the IBM rep) because it meant there was many megabytes of duplicate Windows code and utilites that they had to delete. They might have like OS/2 but not the extra work, or the free opportunity for thier users to buck using their standard OS.

It was an interesting experiement, especially because OS/2 was the default boot, and you could only get to DOS with a commandline utility (and even finding the command prompt icon and the reboot command was non-obvious in OS/2's jumbled UI).

But ultimately, whatever the (arguable IMHO) merits of WinOS2, the dualboot config was big clusterfuck because the OS/2 install didn't include networking software and therefore was useless in a corporate setting.

This is NOT a troll...

[Spackler]

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

Re:This is NOT a troll...

[xtremex]

Hmmmm..my mom uses Mandrake 8.1...she has no problem. ZERO. I just installed the new ELXlinux for a friend of mine (who FEARS Linux), and I'd have to say ELX has got the right idea. Go to their website...look at the screenshots.Then make a partition and install that sucker. I'm a 7 year Linux veteran and I was AMAZED at what they produced.

Site is slashdotted,so here's the guts of it:

[thesolo]

1. Linux business sector will emerge from slump

   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.

2. Linux desktop will appear in public places

   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.

3. Linux preloads will follow suit

   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.

4. Landmark antitrust case will drag on

   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.

5. U.S. spy-secrets will be revealed

   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.

6. Microsoft will be expelled, Linux will be installed

   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.

7. Linux in prime time slot

   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.

8. You have (secure) mail

   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.

9. Darker Image PR firm to debut

   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.

10. The revolution will continue as scheduled

    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.

Re:Site is slashdotted,so here's the guts of it:

[Black Parrot]

> 5. U.S. spy-secrets will be revealed

> 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.

Not quite the same thing, but this interesting note appeared in Risks Digest 21.83 (available on newsgroup comp.risks) -

Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 00:59:00 +0000
From: "michael e. goldsby"
Subject: Wiretapping equipment compromised: FBI, CALEA

A recent series of four newscasts on the Fox Network alleged that
U. S. telephone call records have been falling into the hands of
international organized crime. Call records allow traffic analysis but do
not disclose the contents of the conversations.

However, the newscasts further alleged that the equipment used by the FBI to
do the wiretaps authorized by the CALEA legislation (1994) has been
compromised. It is said to contain back doors that allow unauthorized
persons to obtain access to the contents of telephone conversations. The
back doors were not put there by the FBI and are not under their control.

Partial transcripts of the newscasts are available at
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40684,00.html
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40747,00.html
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40824,00.html
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40981,00.html

The second newscast cites an example of a 1997 Los Angeles drug case in
which access to telephone call records was used to "completely compromise
the communications of the FBI, the Secret Service, the DEO [sic] and the
LAPD."

Alas, the links now say "this story has been removed". Insert your favorite conspiracy theory as required.

Da Mods

[Snowfox]

"YEAH! Go Linux! Windows sucks!!! eat my r3d hat, M1CR0$OFT!!!"
SlashPh3ar +1 Insightful! bojoH4X0R +1 Funny! eliteboss +1 Informative!

"Though it's hard to beat Visual Studio for rapid application development."
l33t0r -1 Troll! bsdnut -1 Flamebait! bojoH4X0R_2 -1 Overrated!

"Except that it constrains you with heavy licensing for the end user."
h4ckerrocket +1 baaaaah! linuxd3wd +1 InMyLittleWorld!

"Which probably doesn't matter, since 90%+ of your customers already have Windows installed."
supercod-R -1 NotMyBag! CmdrTac0 -1 Heretic! superHaK -1 Blasphemy! C0deG0d -1 KarmaTorch!

Sorry about that. Sit on my hands, no more rum before posting.

Linux on the Desktop (flamebait I'm sure)

[ender81b]

Is it just me or is he (and everybody else) prediciting that linux will become a desktop os because someday (maybe) it just might come true and they don't want to miss it.
Linux is no closer to being a user-friendly, capable desktop app than it had been in the last 3 years. Try telling the 12 o'clock flashers about compiling a kernel and mounting hard drives and they will give you the "blank stare of doom".
In truth, MacOS X is what Linux needs to become if it ever wants to succed as a desktop OS for the average joe (i.e good apps, nice interface, seemless hardware support, and a good unix command line just in case).

Re:Linux on the Desktop (flamebait I'm sure)

[Graymalkin]

It'd be damn near impossible to sell Linux to 99% of the people buying computers from retail sources. Even if you pushed it with millions of dollars in marketing you couldn't sell it to most people. If they couldn't call up a single number to get support if they have problems they won't buy the computer. It is that simple. No one wants to be refered to newsgroups and some crusty HOW-TOs when they run into a snag trying to get on the internet or when a program won't open because of some obscure library being in the wrong place. People are definitely not going to buy a system when they ask if they can edit some home movies or play video games and get laughed at by a sales person. Where's Linux's capability at? It doesn't matter if it can run for a year without rebooting. If there's nothing to use for a year for the retail computer buying public nobody's going to buy it.

Re:Linux on the Desktop (flamebait I'm sure)

[Graymalkin]

Linux will never be like OSX because all of its zealot users are too anal. They clamour about choice like it's going out of style. With MacOS you write a program using one of a small number of APIs (Cocoa and Carbon specifically). If a program is written for OSX it just works. Linux folks want 20 different graphics toolkits. It is a natural tenent of the whole Bazaar concept that a good portion of all work overlaps in function. You're never going to see something like OSX come out of any completely open source project. The skill might be there but then to are the egos which make everybody go off and do their own thing.

Re:Linux on the Desktop (flamebait I'm sure)

[nels_tomlinson]

Linux is no closer to being a user-friendly, capable desktop app than it had been in the last 3 years. Try telling the 12 o'clock flashers about compiling a kernel and mounting hard drives and they will give you the "blank stare of doom".

In truth, MacOS X is what Linux needs to become if it ever wants to succed as a desktop OS for the average joe (i.e good apps, nice interface, seemless hardware support, and a good unix command line just in case).

I'm not really disagreeing with you, I think. The ``12 o'clock flashers'' can't handle Windows any better than they can Linux, and the Mac isn't a whole lot better.

The folks who have a fear of learning can be taught button sequences, but they can't be made to learn what it all means, and they'll sell the computer at the next garage sale if you tell them that they have to take that learning and reason with it. You have to reason to troubleshoot, or to secure a system, or do anything for the first time, whatever the system. The folks who find a vcr boring and intimidating just won't do that.

If you give that sort of user a preconfigured Windows box, you'll get a few support calls, which can be answered by an equally clueless tech support guy with a script. If you give him a preconfigured Linux box, you'll get the same calls about the same problems: ``the internet is broken'', `` I pushed the button and it doesn't come on'', and so on. These guys are very unlikely to want to change the hardware in their refridgerator, or their computer.

Kudzu and those install/configure wizards seem to work pretty well on Mandrake. I wouldn't bet that dealing with new hardware is a whole lot harder under Linux, though I haven't used Windows in a long time.

The first time I tried to reinstall Windows on my laptop, I spent a big chunk of three days on the line with Dell tech support. Installing Windows was HARD, and getting the right drivers installed was REALLY HARD. I was reinstalling because I had repartitioned to install Linux. Linux I was able to install (my first time ever, too) in about four hours, no support calls needed, and except for sound, everything just worked. Sound required finding and reading a page on the linux for laptops site, which took up about half of the four hours. That was Redhat6.0. It's gotten better since, despite the fancy graphical installers.

The point is that no OS is ready for the ``12 o'clock flashers'', and probably there never will be such a beast on a general purpose computer. Remember, these are the guys who electrocute themselves with toasters! I agree that Linux is quite unready for the masses; but so is Windows, Mac, VMS, DOS, CPM and everything else I've used.

I think that the right question isn't ``can grandma install, configure, and maintain it'': she can't, whatever ``it'' may be. The better question is: ``Once it's set up, will it keep working for grandma, even if she pushes the wrong button?". I'd be a bit more confident about saying yes for any of the unixes than for Windows.

Re:Linux on the Desktop (flamebait I'm sure)

[discogravy]

The sad, sad part of this is I first installed linux when it was at kernel .4 (i think)... and things haven't gotten that much better since then.


What?! I don't know what system you're installing on, or what distro you're using, but I have installed SuSE twice (on two different machines) by doing nothing more than booting from CD and hitting the 'enter' key repeatedly. If the only improvements between the early releases and current distros was the cd booting and gui installs, there's been an exponential increase in ease-of-installation. (easier installs are possible, of course, and some Unix-alike distros are traditionaly Not Fun To Install -- e.g. Debian and FreeBSD, but that doesn't mean they're impossible, just harder-than-average for newbies.

The hardest part about installs these days are generally
-new bleeding edge hardware
-partitioning

the first isn't a problem for newbies (usually,) and the second isn't a problem for those who dedicate their whole HDD for linux/BSD (at least SuSE and FreeBSD do automatic repartitioning for you if you give them the whole HDD, i'm pretty sure other linux distros too.)

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[CentrX]

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.

Seamless Integration

[Bob_Robertson]

Back in 1997 running Samba, I didn't find any problem with 'seamless integration' for my two Windows game (mostly) machines to use the Linux box as server, or for the Linux box to work perfectly well along side of the other two as a peer machine.

If I may elaborate on your point, I think you mean "seamless MS-Office integration."

It takes a serious shift of my perception to think of MS-Exchange as "email". It's an email CLIENT, one of many. So is Netscape Mail. So is elm. Elm doesn't read Netscape Mail folders (ok, maybe it does for someone who wants to take the time, but we're talking seamless here), that doesn't stop someone from using elm to "seamlessly" talk with someone in the same office using Netscape Mail.

MS-Office is a monolithic group-ware package that works (well? at all?) only with itself. As such, there never can be "seamless integration" because Microsoft doesn't want there to be.

Microsoft has won the perception battle with MS-Office. Many managers think that in order to be compatable with anyone else, they must use MS-Office, and that only runs on MS-Win.

If "we" are going to open the desktop market, "we" must change that perception. I am very, very glad to see OpenOffice, KDE-Office, and all the other suites being built. The Noosphere is being homesteaded at the office application layer, and I couldn't be happier.

BTW, my last two jobs have been in shops where the one and only reason they use MS-Win is because they are entrenched into using MS-Office.

Bob-

Re:Seamless Integration

[squiggleslash]

Yes, the flat text file format is not optimal, but that depends on what your opinion of "Optimal" is. I consider the fact that I am not restricted to any email client in order to read the mail folders to be a really good thing. Quite optimal, actually, since if anything goes wrong I can read the mail without an email client at all.

That's making a presumption that one thing must imply another (kind of like terrorism means nationalisation....)

There's no reason why the standard email folder format had to be a single flat file. The standard way of representing USENET for instance would be, in my view, a prefered model and work a hell of a lot better.

The success of gun control and central planning advocates in ensuring the success of the September 11th attack is a done deal. Those particular restrictions are merely reaching their logical extremes now to no effect what so ever.

Wait. Is this an illuminati style conspiracy thing, 'cos I can't see another interpretation that makes sense. It certainly puts things the other way around from that suggested in your .sig, but if anything it's even more unexplainable. Are you one of the loons that thinks it wouldn't have happened had all the passengers been armed with guns, guns that would have caused the planes to crash anyway? And what does central planning have to do with it - what was nationalised to make this happen? Indeed, what's been nationalised in the last 20 years?

Don't worry about "aspects of dictatorship", since the ones you note are already greasy stains on the road. What use is it to continue to advance disamement when there is so much more to do? The other party is so good at disarmement and centralizing of control that the present party doesn't need to address it at this time. And obaying the laws once in a while gives the all the sheen of "legality" while they slip the knives into your back with their other hands.

Nope. Completely bizarre. You'll have to reword it for it to make sense. What "other party"? How are basic human rights "stains on the road"? What did they centralize?

Problem with Number 8:

[thesolo]

AOL won't make any significant number of people move from Windows to Linux. 99% of the people on AOL are there because they don't know a lot about computers, and they don't care to. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but how many average AOL users could you see understanding "./configure, make, make install"?

Linux is still very much a geek OS, and since most geeks want broadband or real PPP dialup, I wouldn't see AOL making a huge dent if they did release software for Linux.

Re:Problem with Number 8:

[rlowe69]

AOL won't make any significant number of people move from Windows to Linux. 99% of the people on AOL are there because they don't know a lot about computers, and they don't care to.

... and this is why Linux isn't getting anywhere. People still see it as a geek OS, regardless of the significant progress Linux has made in the past year.

The Mandrake installation is just as difficult (or easy) as a Windows install. Putting AOL on top of this is just as difficult as Windows - put the CD in and press GO.

Now imagine this - when AOL sends you a CD they now send on the disk:

1. The AOL client.
2. The Netscape suite of free products.
3. And the operating system to run it - a customized AOL distro of Linux.

You don't need to buy Windows. You go out and get a computer, use the 4 disk package AOL sent you in the mail (as "junk" mail) and you have a fully functional computer in no time - and no $150 for an OS!

What AOL needs is a very simple install procedure and they are golden. I predict an AOL distro of Linux ... you wait and see!

Re:Problem with Number 8:

[CtrlPhreak]

"Oh won't somebody please think of the children?"

Seriously, how many of you were very good at computers but your parents or other siblings had no clue? So your parents are part of the "I don't want to know" crowd with aol. You as a geek kid try out this new interesting thing called 'linux'. You struggle (or not) and get it installed. Then you find out you can't get online because all you have for access is AOL. Which your parents are too computer illiterate to know the difference and won't pay for something else. You as a kid have no money to pay for any other ISP. You soon get discouraged and leave linux for windows because you need the internet.

No matter what other applications there are out there the internet is the killer application. It is the best tool for learning the OS and its intricacies at the beginning.

Re:Problem with Number 8:

[aralin]

This comments about geek OS piss me off. Sorry for the foul language, but thats just a blunder. Did you ever install a default instalation of Mandrake or SuSE lately? Its way easier than install Windows on clean computer (and I am sysadmin who installed windows since Win 3.0) and you get a computer that boots to a nice GUI with Logon screen same as in Windows.

Further, did you see Loki installer? Or did you ever tried some GUI interface to apt? Some other gui installers? You just go through a list of software and checkbox which one you want, then press a button. Its downloaded, checked for depenedncies, installed, set, ... by now its easier than installing most of Windows stuff.

Its people like you constantly repeating that Linux is a geek OS that prevent its adoption. Its just a bullshit.

Re:...have nothing to do with Linux... SAY WHAT?

[darkPHi3er]

Boy, it's an amazing world...

I was pretty sure that ALL of them had to do with LINUX, even if not directly...

#'s 1,2,3,6,7,8 and 10 are directly about LINUX

and #'s 4, 5 and 9 are about the competitive PC/ MS v LINUX marketplace...

though i suppose that you could argue that even though number 9, the Darker Image is about taking a shot at MS too, it's principally a good natured poke at some of the less "user friendly" members of our community....

after all guys, it IS LINUX WORLD magazine....

IMHO, i'd say that #'s 2,3 and 7 are serious blue sky

#'s 1,6 and 8 are mulligans

and that 4 and 7 are karma bets

9's a gag and

10 is probably the most accurate of them all

BTW, Joe, stay away from Theo for a while

What can you predict about this?

[Snowfox]

More and more sites are relying on embedded closed-source media players which don't work and play well with most free-as-in-speech browsers. It's tough to get a proper feed from many of the major news sites anymore.

Similarly, a surprising number of online banking services, auction houses, etc are putting Windows-centric code on their sites, limiting site usability for many potential customers.

I'm looking forward to seeing if there's going to be a backlash against that in the coming year. When sites realize that a good chunk of users are being cut off, could we see "platform agnostic" and "Linux-friendly" become marketable buzzwords, causing sites to leap on the bandwagon and to start performing real Linux usability testing?

And if "Linux-friendly" logos, icons and similar start to appear on sites, could the alternative operating systems enjoy even more visibility as a result?

Re:What can you predict about this?

[Bastian]

Problems:

"platform agnostic" refers to the kind of agnosticism you get with people who are unsure whether they agree more with the Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox churches. Every "platform agnostic" system I have seen lately still requires IE, meaning you get a choice between Windows and MacOS.

"Linux-friendly" is something I have seen many businesses put up just to get business, but aren't willing to back up. Take Netgear. I bought a Netgar FA411 PCMCIA ethernet card a while ago. It said it works with Redhat 6.2. Didn't come w/ drivers on the CD (what, did they run out of space!?), so I had to download them. Precompiled module refused to work with any kernel I had, and the source version refused to work with gcc. Called tech support, and they said they didn't provide support for linux installs. Some "linux friendly."

We don't need platform agnosticism and linux friendliness, we need a return to thinking of "industry standard" as an agreed upon standard that everyone can use, rather than a piece of intellectual property that happens to be owned by the company with the most popular product.

Only, that prolly won't happen 'cos we're all so busy playing copycat that we get more excited about figuring out how to decode Quicktime or Windows Media files than we do trying to push the success of the Ogg project or anything else that might save the open source community from its rapidly approaching death at the hands of incompatibility.

Number 6: I'm not a number, I am a FREE MAN!

[Bob_Robertson]

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-

What will actually happen

[ellem]

Nothing will change:

Linux will improve. No one will care --
A third desktop will emerge and really confuse everything (KDE and Gnome being the other two .. I know there's more)

OSX will barely maintain Apple's market share and everyone will agree that it is the best OS ever.

Windows 10wnU will be released. Despite massive security flaws and a wicked licensing scheme will continue to rulle the desktops.

2. Linux desktop will appear in public places

[kubota]

This will be true only in ISO-8859-1 (or ISO-8859-15 with Euro) world or at least 8bit simple encodings world.

For other billions of people (Chinese, Indian, Arab, and so on), Linux desktop (with XFree86, GNOME, and KDE) is far from usable for average people.

In other words, there are still remaining large market for such billions of people.

One prediction to rule them all.

[Darth Paul]

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.

Re:One prediction to rule them all.

[grytpype]

I'll add: Linux will gain ground on the desktops of cost-conscious businesses and government agencies, but consumers who buy whatever Gateway and Dell are putting out will continue to get Windows, by default, not knowing what it's costing them and not knowing what they're missing.

Under the covers

[SomeOtherGuy]

1. More samba shares on the local networks at work as Comm Tech managers get bigger bonuses for saving oodles of Microsoft license dollars.

2. More IIS web servers replaced with Linux and apache as Web Group managers get bigger bonuses for saving oodles of Microsoft license dollars.

3. More Tomcat implementations as said managers save money on the Weblogic license dollars.

4. More failed companies who think they can "cash in" on this Linux thing....

5. The people that started in the garages and basements....(went to work for a few months at various linux startups and got bitter when the stock dipped below a dollar...and they got layed off...) --> will return to the garages and basements...God bless them.

6, VA decides that the only way to pay the /. bandwidth bills is to replace all content with one great big banner add on /. .... and when that does not work they will be bought out by x10.com -- and www.slashdot.org will resolve to 10 popup windows for mini cams.

7. The end of world peace.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Arandir]

"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.

I was right!

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Back in December 2000, I made a prediction that in December 2001, trade rag writers would be publishing articles making predictions for 2002. Looks like I was right. Damn I'm good!

That's a tough one!

[G-funk]

"Should I keep using windows98, even though microsoft doesn't support it any more, or should I switch to this lie-nucks thing that I don't understand, nobody supports it, and bob's son down the street can't fix for me?"

Hmmmm

Desktop adoption.

[Bobzibub]

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.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Malcontent]

" I would rather be *for* something than *against* something."

All fine and dany until someone loses an eye. You may be "for" something but have no doubt MS is "against" you. And in case you haven't noticed they play dirty. I know many people are perfectly content with turning the other cheek but don't for a second think that MS will not smack you in the other cheek with a shovel.

There is a war going on just realize that. MS is better armed, better financed, better trained, has more allies. If you are not careful you will be carpetbombed into dust.

Joe Barr's Track Record for 2001

[Gleef]

Joe Barr did a similar article for 2001. Here's how he did:

1. Linux Kernel 2.4 will be released, and will trounce Windows in the benchmarks
Half right. 2.4.0 was released, performance was good, but not as good as it could have been. It's gotten better since. Nobody that I know of has done comprehensive benchmarking. I'll give this one a half point.

2. MS Findings of Law overturned, Findings of Fact stand. Ordered back to lower court. DOJ loses zeal for case
Almost perfect. The Conclusions of Law stood, but the Final Judgement was overturned. Everything else was on the nose. I'll give this one a full point.

3. Consolidation and attrition of Linux companies. Fewer distributions. RedHat & VA merge. SuSE & Atipa merge.
Didn't happen. There were some mergers, but no big ones. There was much attrition, but primarily on the fringes of the Linux world, the rest of the computer industry was much harder hit attrition-wise. There are more distributions than ever. There are no superdistributions, in fact, I'd say more people realize today that RedHat != Linux than a year ago. No points.

4. KDE and GNOME continue as separate projects.
Easy point.

5. Linus stops heavy kernel hacking, focuses on community leadership.
You've got to be joking. No points.

6. One of the big five computer retailers offers a Linux boot (or dual boot) for a retail desktop machine.
Nope, didn't happen.

7. Widespread government desktop adoption of Linux
Nope, didn't happen. More servers tho.

8. Bruce Perens shakes up HP.
If it happened, it was completely behind the scenes. From out here, it looks like Compaq's pleading to be eaten had much more effect on HP's management than Bruce did. He has had some effect, and he's still there, so there's always next year. No point.

9. Linux stocks will thrive.
Ha. Hahahaha. Hahahahahaha. Seriously, they didn't do badly compared to the rest of the tech stocks, but I would hardly call it "thriving". No point.

10. Another great year for Linux
Easy point.

So, last year, he got three and a half out of ten. One was a complete giveaway (#10), and most people would say #4 was a giveaway too. Not the most impressive set of predictions.

Re:Joe Barr's Track Record for 2001

[Ami Ganguli]

6. One of the big five computer retailers offers a Linux boot (or dual boot) for a retail desktop machine.

Didn't somebody just announce a Crusoe based dual-boot machine a little while ago? It might not be shipping yet, but I'd give a half point for that. (I wish I could remember who it was).

7. Widespread government desktop adoption of Linux

There have been reports of various French, German, and Finnish government bodies 'seriously considering' Linux. Even if they're just using this a bargaining tool with MS, I think that still deserves a half point. My own prediction is that these pioneers will lead to widespread government use over the next year or two.

Re:Joe Barr's Track Record for 2001

[Otter]

So, last year, he got three and a half out of ten. One was a complete giveaway (#10), and most people would say #4 was a giveaway too. Not the most impressive set of predictions.

And I'd quibble with the half point for #1. As he says, predicting the release of 2.4 is trivial and the real prediction, that it would unambiguously "kick W2K's butt" was completely wrong.

By the way, along with the medals Joe has awarded himself for his accuracy last year, I'd like to throw in a "Pot, Kettle, Black" award for the bit about "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." Anyone who has read Joe Barr's postings on LinuxToday message boards will figure he's in line for Darker Image's board of directors.

Linux desktop will appear in public places

[sharkey]

Anyone know what Goodyear is running for their POS machines in the retail garages? I bought new tires this week, and noticed that they had an X screensaver running. Looked like 101-key keyboards as well.

Re:Linux desktop will appear in public places

[omega9]

Circuit City is moving in the same direction. They're headquartered here in Richmond, VA. An acquaintance of mine is a lead programmer on a team responsible for creating custom GTK apps for their POS systems. I don't know all the details, but I believe they're using Red Hat as their base distro (which, I guess, isn't that suprising).

Other people that are deploying Linux are Home Depot, Burlington Coat Factory, and The New York Stock Exchange. Of course there's also IBM, but they hardly need mentioning.

I think it's fair to debate how well Linux fits certain needs, but so far there has been solid proof that it fits some very large needs for some vary large companies. By 2003, I think the outlook is nothing but positive. Shooting for world domination is a grand goal, and capturing the desktop world would seem to be a huge piece of completing that goal. As much as we talk about it, I think we all understand that our grandmothers won't be using Linux anytime soon. In the meantime I'll be perfectly happy knowing that Linux is being used for the high-scale, back-end systems, while Fischer Price My First Operating System hangs out on the desktop.

Re:Linux desktop will appear in public places

[Soko]

Anyone know what Goodyear is running for their POS machines in the retail garages?

Good god, man - this is /., where trolls feed on the unwary. Choose your TLAs carefully - POS is a no-no, when you mean Point Of Sale, not Piece Of Shit. ;O)

Soko

Re:Linux desktop will appear in public places

[Mandelbrute]

Anyone know what OS all of those NCR automatic teller machines run on? It's certainly not an MS product, probably some breed of *nix, but I'm sure it's not linux.

My point is that most people will not notice if linux boxes appear in public places - unless they are plastered with penguin stickers.

1.0

[mlinksva]

Re: Barr and Roblimo predictions. VERY BORING.

I'm excited about several potentially significant projects that may have their first "stable" releases next year. Everyone knows about OpenOffice, Apache 2 and Mozilla (I'm surprised that neither article mentioned the last two). Here are a few others:

• Subversion version control rethought, could replace CVS as free software tool of choice
• E capability secure programming
• Reptile reputation-based content aggregator

I want real money idea futures for all predictions!

Re:...have nothing to do with Linux... SAY WHAT?

[ninewands]

1 and 6 maybe mulligans, but I'd call 8 more of a "gimme" ...

I've seen screenshots of an official (and not even alpha quality) official AOL client for Linux.

Given AOHell's recent decision to join the Liberty Alliance, could it be that AOL's partnership with Sun (as in Sun is the center of the Netscape iPlanet world now) has addicted AOL-TW to the need for open standards???

Linux will be 3rd in Line

[XBL]

First of all, I want to state that I think Linux will continue its growth in the server market. With IBM and other major companies now pushing it in their products, there is no going back on its growth. Linux is here to stay in the business world for many years to come.

As for Linux on the desktop, I have to remain skeptical of its success. If MacOS X never came about, I'd say their are definite possibilities, but now there is just too much going on besides Linux. Here are reasons why Linux is not going to succeed on the desktop anytime soon:

• Software companies are currently devoting a good chunk of resources towards updating their applications for XP, and also exploring possibilities of using new XP "features".
• .NET will also consume more software company resources that could possibly be focused towards Linux desktop software.
• Apple is going to be releasing faster, more appealing hardware along with an improving OS X. Software companies are going to get distracted into doing new Mac versions of their applications.
• A high-end multimedia explosion is about to hit the computer industry. Over the past several years, multimedia has been a joke in my opinion, but now hardware and software is actually capable of doing some useful and cool stuff. When I read about wireless IEEE-1284 (Firewire), see new media features come out like DVD-RW+, and video software that does a million things in a simple package, I don't even begin to think about Linux. Sorry.

If Linux was where it is now, two years ago, I'd say it had a good chance. Now the future is looking even more bleak. I don't like saying that, but it's the current reality. A bronze medal is still not that bad though, when you think about it...

Re:Linux will be 3rd in Line

[msouth]

Hey moderators, read the parent's sig, and mod it up as funny!

(Ok, that was more or less just humor, but, seriously, how is Mozilla going to be the future (that was the sig when I read this post, anyway) when all this multimedia stuff is so important? Is Mozilla going to be able to handle it? Then why won't other open source apps be able to handle it? Serious question, not a flame. (I have an iMac, and I don't look for any applications like iMovie to be coming out for Linux any time soon, but if desktop video is ever really that important, I think the open source world will find a way to support it. Yes, it's possibly an order of magnitude harder than word processing, but we have an order of magnitude more contributors...I don't know, I'm just guessing.)

Re:Linux will be 3rd in Line

[XBL]

Umm, maybe because they want to get the web browser part finished before moving on to other things...

Moz's capabilites will grow as needed. I don't think anyone will ever want to watch DVDs or whatever in their web browser, dumb ass.

Linux in 2002: More security, high-end computing

[mlinksva]

So says Red Hat's Michael Tiemann in yet another Linux in 2002 article at CNN. "There's no doubt that high-end graphics are going to be Linux-driven, as is high-end computing"

Re:"Loosening of Microsoft License"?

[Publicus]

Well, Bob, it seems nobody answered your question, so I'll have a go at it:

Microsoft makes deals with the computer manufacturers, forcing them to ship nothing but Windows and only Windows on all new PCs. In some former democracies courts found this anti-competitive and said Microsoft can't do it anymore. Well, they're still doing it, but the hope is that somehow we can force them to stop, so PC manufacturers (and I mean the big ones) can ship stuff other than Windows, possibly dual booters. That way people would get a chance to find out about other OSs, possibly linux :)

My Predictions for next year

[Cardhore]

• Debian will become harder to install.
  
• Rock Linux will become popular for Slackware fans.
  
• Mandrake and RedHat will need to use 4 or more CD's for their next editions of their distributions.
  
• Marcelo will release many Linuxes. He will call them 2.4.18, 2.4.19, 2.4.20, 2.4.21, 2.4.22, and perhaps even 2.4.23.
  
• Windows XP will get 3 service packs.
  
• Gnome will release gnome 2.0 in the second week on June.
  
• OpenOffice will be released 3rd week of March, after StarOffice. They will become extremely popular.
  
• Ogg Vorbis will see its 1.0 release in the first half of September.
  
• Mozilla 1.0 comes out April 5th, exactly as listed in their timetable.

Re:My Predictions for next year

[MAXOMENOS]

What the hell, I'll throw these in:

• KOffice and Gnome Office will agree on a standard XML-based file format for documents, spreadsheets
• Mono and dotGNU will start to make serious and obvious progress towards a fully-functioning system.
• Python gets serious mainstream attention as a Java-killer. PHP practically replaces Javascript. Nothing ever replaces HTML.
• IBM buys a large chunk of VA; staff cuts hit Slashdot, Newsforge.
• By the end of 2002, Linux either reaches or is building up anticipation towards a 3.0 release
• The Glade and Glimmer projects will merge
• Ximian either starts or takes leadership of a project to build an Access-like and/or FoxPro-like front end for any relational database that has an ODBC API
• Amazon and Yahoo! report strong 4Q and 1Q earnings. Venture capital returns for dot-com business ventures.
• Unemployment rates for computer professionals drop back down to 4% by mid-2002, from a high of 8% in late 2001.
• FBI scores major busts of warez and terrorist rings based on IRC, MUDs, and on-line game networks.
• Ashcroft starts major cryptography crackdown; privacy activists are bitterly disappointed.

Re:My Predictions for next year

[dasunt]

FBI scores major busts of warez and terrorist rings based on IRC, MUDs, and on-line game networks.

Sure, that's what I mud for.

Its the ease of going to an IRC network, hunting down the first channel that is simular to #cablewarez, and using the @find command that I avoid. To simple for me...

Compare this to a mud.

race Hey, I need a ress.
You echo (elf channel): "Hey, I need a ress."
t shogrot That was a good pk.
You tell Shogrot: That was a good pk.
Shogrot tells you: Shutup, elf newbie
t shogrot Got Photoshop 6?
Shogrot tells you: I'm going to kill you as soon as you get ressed again, if you don't shut up.
think
You think.
t Erafridel Do you have Photoshop 6? I need something to do while I wait for a ress.
You tell Erafridel Do you have Photoshop 6? I need something to do while I wait for a ress.
Erafridel tells you: Nope.
t Syralos Do you have a copy of Photoshop 6 I could download?
You tell Syralos Do you have a copy of Photoshop 6 I could download?
Syralos tells you: What weird magic is this 'Photoshop 6' you speak of?
sigh
You sigh
t Herasth Got Photoshop 6 Warez?
You tell Herasth: Got Photoshop 6 Warez?
Herasth tells you: Yep, but I'm in Australia on 56k dialup.
scream
You scream

Much more entertaining then IRC

Re:My Predictions for next year

[rlowe69]

PHP practically replaces Javascript

I believe Javascript is client-side and PHP is server-side. PHP is an excellent replacement for Active Server Pages, CGI programming and Java Servlets.

IMO, Javascript will never be replaced on the client-side. It's the only thing that all browsers can agree on (thanks to the DOM and the W3C). It will take a serious rethinking of browsers before a new language is needed (and then made a standard by the W3C) on the client side.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Squeeze Truck]

Ummm...

I use both.

The linux decision was more expediency-driven than hate-driven.

Steve Ballmer as a male stripper

[Squeeze Truck]

Developers!

(bump bump, grind grind)

Developers!

(wiggle wiggle shake shake)

Developers!

(oooh yeah!)

Developers!

Proper definitions of terms, please!

[Random Feature]

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.

-------

Re:Sounds like 10 ten pipe dreams to me

[omega9]

You haven't done much (if any) research, have you? Actually, if you were half-way involved in a corporate environment that took linux seriously, you might have had a clue in the first place. So let's start building a reply:

The linux desktop is going nowhere fast, and for most of these projections to come true there would have to be a mass migration to the linux desktop which will not happen.

Debatable. But you are probably correct that there will not be a mass migration to a Linux desktop, at least in a short period of time. But you can't deny the efforts being made to push in that direction. With a few moves in the right direction I think Linux has a pretty good chance.

OEMS are stepping away from the linux desktop not towards it, so you will not be seeing "dual boots".

OEMs screwed it up all on their own. I recently ordered a Dell i8k laptop back when they were still "offerring" Linux preinstalled. If I chose Linux, Dell told me it would take 2-3 weeks to ship. However a Windows version could be shiped the next day. And do you seriously think Microsoft would let a OEM ship anything dual-booted with Windows?!?

I look back at the NT 4 domain model, and it wasn't great, but its better than anything in the linux camp.

You haven't played much with Samba, have you? Samba can completely replace NT4, Warp, and Netware services. That's the server side. On the client side there's Pam_Smb which can allow Linux to authenticate to NT/2000 domains. Red Hat 7.2 even gives you this option during install now.

And now with AD you have highly scalable enterprise ready directory services and no way to truly integrate linux.

We can argue about your definition of "truly", or I can go back to my Perl scripts that work with AD just fine.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[rseuhs]

Not at all. The best doesn't always succeed. Consider BetaMax versus VHS.

The problem in a market with networking effects is that an unsuccessful product is not good at all.

Only the open-source nature of Linux made it happen and somewhat outweigthed the big disadvantages like lack of software and drivers in the past.

While there are still a couple of blank spots (like AutoCAD, games or WinModems) the mainstream business hard- and software is there.

As soon as Wine is ready for primetime (always remember Win98 compatibility is enough, the Win32 API is *NOT* a moving target) Linux will truely take off on the desktop, too.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[rseuhs]

There is a war going on just realize that. MS is better armed, better financed, better trained, has more allies. If you are not careful you will be carpetbombed into dust.

What allies do they have?

Everybody hates MS, now after MS started a war with Sony, there are not many companies left that a friends with Microsoft.

I also don't think that they can even remotely match the open-source community in development-capacities.

The OS-community wrote almost all drivers itself, while Microsoft is dependent on the hardware manufacturer to do that.

Up in here

[Graymalkin]

What the fuck is this guy smoking? Like so many others have said this ought to be 10 pipe dreams for 2002. Not one thing he said made much sense at all and in general sounds like a half baked article he came up with at 6am to meet a 7am deadline.

1.) Purple twinky induced fantasy.
2.) Yet more fantasy, this time assuming users of Linux GUIs will be able to paste text between different applications written by different people. Back when there was growing dissatisfaction about IBM's licensing yet they are still the biggest computer company ever.
3.) This has been said for the past three years and has yet to happen. Why? Apps developed to scratch an itch are often not too broad in scope and have little intention of starting a paradigm. Apps intended to replace closed source counterparts rarely if ever achieve said couterpart's functionality. You end up with a system that doesn't talk to itself with a quarter of the features you could get for paying for something.
4.) People woken up from being cryogenically frozen for the past year could fucking tell you this.
5.) Right. Do you know what sort of systems REALLY classified data is stored on? Probably not. Three letter agencies don't exactly order their super secret computer systems from Dell with Windows 98 installed on them.
6.) No. That is just retarded. Unless several dozens apps somehow get ported to Linux magically this will not happen. No one is going to prepackage and OS they can't sell software for. Case in point BeOS.
7.) Maybe. Leo Laporte likes Linux but I've never heard him actually say anything he has really used it for. Wow you can replace a small handful of Windows programs with it that is sure to impress alot of people. A Linux TV show would be like a live action freshmeat.
8.) What the fuck? That is the most ridiculous thing in the entire article which in itself is notable. AOL on Linux would be like putting a vinyl interior in an Abrams tanks. It's asthetic vinyl...fitting to a fucking tank.
9.) *bong sound*
10.) see 9

Linux desktops will flop--and that's OK

[markj02]

I think Linux desktop efforts will largely continue to be a flop when it comes to the consumer or corporate space. Oh, the Gnome and KDE GUIs are about as good as Windows at this point (my mother doesn't even see much difference between KDE in Windows mode and Windows), and the basic applications are fine for home users. But Windows is a money machine for small software houses, which can sell all sorts of expensive little add-ons without fear of being cloned out of existence; these people make up a cottage industry of Microsoft advocates and supporters. And corporations believe they can't live without Outlook and Word because that's what everybody else in the world is supposedly using and because the people in them have invested too much of their careers in it already. These basic dynamics are largely unaffected by the few other developments in Linux GUI space (Mono, etc.).

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.

kerneljanitor.org

[Error27]

The kernel janitor project is pretty cool.

Dave Jones and Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo gave a talk on irc about it earlier this month. You can find the transcript at http://umeet.uninet.edu/umeet2001/talk/15-12-2001/ arnaldo-talk.html


Btw. I don't understand why Slashdot puts the extra space in URL... Is that supposed to protect someone from accidentally highlighting the URL and then middle clicking in mozilla and being miraculously transported to the page?

Re:kerneljanitor.org

[GigsVT]

It's to protect the table formatting from being blown out of whack by a long unbroken line. It would break the whole page and you would have to do a lot or horizontal scrolling otherwise.

Roblimo--Cathederal & Bazaar

[blkros]

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.

Re:"Loosening of Microsoft License"?

[baptiste]

I predict that if Staroffice 6 really does kick some ass, and Ximian's exchange plugin works as promised...

Good point. I've found SO 6.0beta to be wonderful. I run it on both WIn 2K and Linux and am very happy with it so far. Any noticable quirks for me are minor (like why does auto spell always come up disabaled, etc) The filters are night and day better than anything before them. No, its not a 100% replacement for Office, but I'm not lookin gfor that. I'm looking for a client which the 90% of my users who don't need all teh features of Office can use. Even at $40, if Sun decides to charge, it'll be worth it in volume (since I'm sure the price will drop for the enterprise)

That said, I think Sun would be better off not charging for 6.0 They need on kick butt Office release which folks can adopt and few will adopt ian unproven suite if they have to pay for it. Get them hooked, then maybe with 6.5 or 7.0, charge for the upgrade. Folks that are convinced will pay while those that want free as in beer will stick with 6 It would help the penetration of Linux into the desktop. Of course I wonder if distros like RedHat will just pay Sun some cash and include SO in their distros. Only time will tell.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[richie2000]

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I agree. Anyone got the GPS coordinates for Bill's office? :-)

Linux needs to support ACPI

[MtViewGuy]

I think the biggest thing that is hurting Linux is the fact that ease of hardware support and upgrades are still major issues.

What Linux desperately needs is Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) automatic configuration support, something that a group of Linux programmers are working on right now. Imagine automatic and/or menu-driven system configuration for GNOME or KDE like you see in Windows 2000/XP, but working as part of the Linux kernel (2.6.x kernel?). This will at once lift Linux out of hacker toy status and into something that most computer users can comfortably use.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[rseuhs]

Well, regardless of highly restrictive OEM agreements, I'd say many PC makers (Dell, HP, Compaq to name a few) would be allies of MS.

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.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[ScumBiker]

One point here, Compaq still supports Alpha, they're just phasing it out in favor of Itanium. We run Tru64 on Alpha's here for all of our enterprise level computing. Stuff like Oracle and other demented products. I'm _really_ trying to get management to let me even test Linux on x85, I'd love to run Linux on Alpha.

He missed defections to OpenOffice

[dunstan]

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

Re:...have nothing to do with Linux... SAY WHAT?

[Lumpy]

I have used and so has over ten thousand people that bought an AOL connected pad from Gateway an AOL client for Linux.

And the client can be removed from that midori linux install and ran on a regular linux install.

it's just that anyone with those abilities dont WANT to run an AOL client.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[rseuhs]

Of course they still support Alpha, but they dropped support for Windows on Alpha in 1999.

Re:...have nothing to do with Linux... SAY WHAT?

[Ewan]

I've seen the linux box a bank in Spain gives away with accounts that runs an AOL client to allow people to do Internet banking.

Whether it will ever be released as a seperate client is highly doubtful in my mind, think of the support retraining costs AOL would have to justify.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[nm42]

Let me clarify a couple of points...
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?

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.

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.

[straying OT] Re:Linux will be 3rd in Line

[msouth]

I wasn't criticizing Mozilla's progress. You said (in your sig) that Mozilla is the furture, but you were arguing (in your post) that Linux on the desktop was not the future. I thought that the combination of optimism and pessimism was amusing.

Following that I posed the question that underlay what I thought was funny.

Moz's capabilites will grow as needed.

I agree, but you don't think the other linux desktop apps will (or so I got te impression from your post), and I wonder why you think one will grow as needed and the other won't.

I don't think anyone will ever want to watch DVDs or whatever in their web browser,

I don't know why not, necessarily. But the ability to read and display the formats is related to being able to edit and save them, and if these multimedia thingies matter, then people will probably be using them on the web, and the browser will need to understand them. If "Mozilla is the future", it will be need to keep up with multimedia content. And that's not so colossally far a step from having video editing.

dumb ass.

LOL. indeed. good thing that my hoof-sized keyboard doesn't require opposable thumbs, or I wouldn't be able to communicate much at all. Not that it appears I'm having any success as is.

Re:[straying OT] Re:Linux will be 3rd in Line

[XBL]

OK, I see your point now. Sure, anything is possible... but what is more possible?

Maybe you use hee-haw recognition?... ;-)

Re:[straying OT] Re:Linux will be 3rd in Line

[msouth]

Yeah, I agree tht Mozilla is in a much better position to be relevant and in widespread use than probably anything else that runs on the Linux desktop.

But still, the stuff people do at work is pretty mundane, and that's a big part of the desktop market.

I would still say that there's hope for some corporate migration as the office suites continue to improve. Maybe when the first round of XP licenses begin to expire or something. For them, multimedia capabilities are not tremendously relevant.

Maybe you use hee-haw recognition?

Well, not yet, but IMB ViaBray is supposed to be out any time now.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[rseuhs]

Microsoft is proof that marketing works.

Microsoft marketing is good, but it's not the reason for their success. For example Apple has and always had better marketing.

Because the majority of system costs were hardware costs, it made perfect sense to go away from a closed hardware / relatively open (Unix) platform to a open hardware/closed software (Wintel) system. With the advent of Linux that changed, now you can have it all.

Do you really think MS had the clout before Win95 to force PC makers into exclusive agreements?

Yes. For example they nearly killed Vobis for preinstalling OS/2

Mac and Amiga suffered the same fate as Betamax, a better product ruined by mismanagement.

I don't consider any closed hardware platform better than the open PC platform (even with Windows)

And when I say "better" I mean "best bang for the buck" and good investment safety.

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)

Irrelevant.

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?

The same. That's why closed source software is not a save investment.

They were once a small company, and i doubt they would fall into oblivion just because they have a decent competitor.

Aproximately 30% of MS-revenues come from Windows directly, 40% come from MS Office and probably another 20% from the other Win-software they sell.

About 90% of revenues are dependent on Windows. Of course they have huge amounts of money and will continue to exist as an investment-house virtually forever, but as a software-company, I have my doubts.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[SoftwareJanitor]

The best doesn't always succeed

Absolutely true, but it is more complex than that. There are always differences of opinion as to what is "best" and what criteria are used to make that decision.

Consider BetaMax versus VHS

Everyone always brings that up... But Beta wasn't better than VHS in every way. Beta did have slightly better picture quality than VHS, but VHS had a larger tape capacity and slower tape speed modes that let people record more on the same tape. A lot of people were willing to sacrifice a little picture quality (especially given the fact that most TVs weren't that great back then, so you might not notice that much difference) in order to be able to fit a whole movie or a whole week's worth of their favorite soap opera on a tape.

But I personally believe the real reason Beta lost to VHS was licensing. The licensing for VHS was much cheaper and more open, so lots of companies built them and made tapes for them, so they came down in price faster. I only remember Sony and Hitachi making Beta decks, and a lot fewer choices on tapes too.

Now, Linux is more like VHS when it comes to the money -- even more so, it is essentially license fee free, whereas Microsoft is all about collecting ever more and larger license fees. So I am not sure the Beta vs. VHS comparison works. Linux is both cheaper AND better.

I do agree that spending a lot of time trying to kill Microsoft isn't necessarily productive. I personally just want to see a world where there are a number of viable competitive choices in every market. Building the best alternatives you can, and when possible giving them away for free is probably a good place to start, but I think Linux also needs to answer needs Microsoft isn't able to or interested in filling.

That being said, a certain amount of 'us-versus-them' is inevitable and checking your products against the competition isn't always bad, it is just a matter of making sure you put that to productive use rather than wheel spinning.

Good chunk? Small chunk.

[judd]

I'm sorry. I graft web front-ends on to other systems for a living. No matter how much I talk up the benefits of a bigger customer base, or point out that people with Macs or Linux desktops probably have more money to spend, clients say that gaining the last 5% is not worth another 20% in time. (Non-Windows = 5% of browsers. And there's variation there between IE for Mac, Netscape flavours, and various Mozillas).

We try to write standards-compliant code that will work on most platforms, but if a customer really wants some client-side voodoo, 9 times out of 10 they only want to pay for, say, IE 4, 5 and up. Maybe Netscape 4.7* if you're lucky. And PCs only. Where there's little extra effort to be compatible, we can sneak it in and everyone wins. But sometimes DHTML/Javascript/CSS/streaming media issues make it impossible to justify the cost.

Having just spent last night wrestling with xanim and mplayer to try and get streaming WMP going, I can sympathise. But in the end, we can only do what clients pay us to do.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[rseuhs]

I just said (for at least the 3rd time now) that the reason for Microsoft's success was H-A-R-D-W-A-R-E, and had not much to do with software or marketing or whatever at all.

If the PC would have stayed closed, even if MS would have created the greatest OS on earth, it would have died.

Microsoft was just lucky that IBM awarded them the x86-dominance, *ANY* other company would have been successful with that.

that's a problem with the kernel architecture

[markj02]

I think the biggest thing that is hurting Linux is the fact that ease of hardware support and upgrades are still major issues.

I agree that that's a big problem. At the root is the kernel architecture. What we need is a flexible component architecture that allows people to distribute drivers and other kernel components without being tied tightly to exact version of the kernel. If the Linux kernel developers are unable to do this, maybe the Linux kernel needs to go--unlike GUIs, there are many open source alternatives available.

Re:that's a problem with the kernel architecture

[MtViewGuy]

This is why I think there should be a centralized authority on how everything in Linux works.

If the Linux crowd can get the Linux Standard Base to have some teeth in standards conformity, that would eventually make Linux far easier to install, use and upgrade.

Re:that's a problem with the kernel architecture

[markj02]

I think that's the wrong direction. Standards and authorities are what got us to this point. Rather than having a kernel into which anybody can plug anything easily, we have, on the one hand, a kernel that cannot easily be extended "from the outside", and, on the other hand, a small group of people that exercise tight control over what goes into the kernel.

Standardization and centralization create bottlenecks. What we need is a more flexible way of putting together lots of different drivers and kernel modules to make a kernel, something that doesn't involve a top-level makefile and a big include tree and lots of version numbers and symbol addresses. Think of how any command line program fits into the shell environment and can potentially be used with any other. That's the kind of composability we need for the kernel. It's what Mach tried for (whether it achieved it is another matter).

Re:Basic things need to happen first

[SoftwareJanitor]

Seriously, nothing against SuSE or RedHat (Slackware is unapologetically old fashioned, so I don't know why you'd use it as an example for desktop ease of use), but Mandrake beats both of them when it comes to ease of installation and configuration for desktop GUI users. Mandrake includes most of the things a desktop user would want, comes more preconfigured and pre-set up and includes more little GUI utilities to configure things than most other distros do.

It also doesn't sound like you've tried StarOffice 6.0, it is a big improvement over 5.2.

Seriously, if you want a hand-holding Linux distro for Windows orriented newbies, I think Mandrake is the way to go right now.

Re:...have nothing to do with Linux... SAY WHAT?

[ThatComputerGuy]

Remember the alpha Linux AOL client that was posted on /. quite a while ago? There was a binary rpm which was supposed to be exactly that, an alpha AOL client for linux.

I installed the RPM, and it definitely looked like the real thing.. I even tried logging in, but of course it told me my screenname wasn't authorized to logon.

AOL rolls their own Linux.

[Vegan Pagan]

Consider the facts: AOL wants to rule the information biz, AOL wants to topple Microsoft, AOL's client causes all sorts of havoc on Windows and MacOS because it wants to be the OS, AOL wants their wants their client to be simple, and AOL wants their customers to get off the internet and stay on company grounds. All this could lead to only one thing. Actually, it could lead to many things, but here's one that could make a splash in a hurry:

AOL will make their own Linux for the sole purpose of logging on.

It's simple. AOL could pack their own OS (possibly based on Linux because it would be free and take only a bit of tinkering) on every one of those millions of CDs they hand out each year. It would not only make the whole computing experience much "simpler" (for their own purposes, of course) but by giving away the OS, AOL would wipe out MicrosoftÕs market share as quickly as Microsoft wiped out NetscapeÕs (sweet revenge). It would be little more than a client, but it would have just enough offline functionality (for composing e-mails and pictures, etc.) to not tie up the phone line. After giving out a few million copies of AOLinux (they'd probably just call it AOL 9.0), they'd start selling PCs with it preloaded, which would be cheaper than Windows PCs because AOL wants customers spending money on subscriptions and content, and because theyÕd cut back on unnecessary hardware (just how game console design works). For the millions of Road Runner customers out there, theyÕd build a card reader (credit, debit, smart, or whateverÕs popular) into each AOL PC for video on demand. In fact, just for Road Runner customers, they could sell a special version of the AOL PC with a small hard drive, no monitor, and shaped to fit into the entertainment center and watch streaming movies from the couch. Then, with Windows and its metaphors declining, they could start packing in new user interface features like a touchscreen and voice activation (into the self-contained iMac-shaped AOL PC), then start downplaying the keyboard and mouse. ThereÕd be no OS conflicts since AOL would be the OS, and getting customers to upgrade to later versions would be so simple: it would be mandatory, automatic and free! For customers on 56k modems, the OS would just lock up and wait for them to get a free upgrade CD.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[HiThere]

I'd rather be for something than against something too, but I have to use MS at work. So I ended up being anti-microsoft before I discovered Linux. (Funny, I was never anti-Mac, though I've been anti-Apple a few times.)

Actually, up through around 1997 I was moderatly pro-microsoft ("They aren't as bad as you might expect a monopoly to be."). Then I was switched to using their OS. (Well, I allowed myself to be bribed with a new computer. But no way back was provided.)
.

Re:First impressions

[HiThere]

Given your self description, Red Hat is probably a better starting point than Mandrake. Mandrake automates a bit too much.

OTOH, perhaps you should wait for Red Hat 8.1. That will give gcc 3.0 time to become the accepted standard, so you won't need to worry about any small incompatibilities (gcc 3.0 is less tolerant of deviations from the standard, and uses some different linkages).

That said, I understand where you are coming from. It's largely lack of accessible documentation, but I have also had trouble with config files.
.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Malcontent]

"What allies do they have?"

Mmmm let's see now.

Dell, Compaq, HP, evry software company that writes windows software. But those are nothing compared to Most of congress, George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, and most of the press.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Malcontent]

"I find it sad that there are people using Linux for no other reason than that it isn't Windows."

There is nothign sad about this at all. People like to buy dolphin safe tuna because some ethical compunction drives them to pay more for the same amount of tuna. People pay more to buy organic vegetables even though they are not as shiny as the commercially grown ones. As a consumer you make choices based on many criterea. Some are purely ethical (ooh this apple is so shiny and flawless looking), some are based on price, some are based on marketing, some are based on a perceived image. For a (unfortunately) minority of the consumers the ethics of how that product was made and how the manufacturer of that product behaves plays a major factor.

I don't know why anybody would see this as "sad". I choose not to pay my hard earned money to a company which behaves in an unethical manner. I also encourage other people not to give their money to the likes of Bill Gates and his mafia. I am sorry you think this is "sad" but I see it as something wonderful. I wish more people would take the ethics of a company into consideration when spending their money. It would make for a better world.

Re:First impressions

[Malcontent]

If you re-read my post you will see that I am predicting the adoption of the linux desktop in corporate environments first. In thos environments the user does not mess with configuration files. The will log into a pre-configured system running KDE and openoffice and whatever else the corporation chose for them. Eventually when joe blow decides to get a new computer he will want the same thing at home.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Arandir]

I'm afraid you didn't understand me.

People by organic tomatoes because they are tomatoes, not because they aren't radishes. A tomato is no substitute for a radish. When people choose Linux solely because it isn't Windows, they are asserting that one is a valid subtitute for the other.

I know many Jews who follow a kosher diet. Pork is forbidden to them. Yet I know some who find nothing wrong with fake ham made from turkey. I find this ridiculous. It may be a suitable substitute when drowned in mayonnaise and mustard, but why would a Jew want a ham substitute anyway? I don't want to get into any theological discussions, so don't bother answering that last question. Choosing Linux just because it isn't Windows is like using turkey-ham for instead of real ham. I don't want ham. I want a roast beef sandwich. I don't want a ham sandwich that doesn't have real ham in it. Yet all I hear from the Linux community is that their favorite kosher OS needs to be more like that forbidden pork butt.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Malcontent]

"People by organic tomatoes because they are tomatoes, not because they aren't radishes."

What the fuck? Are you saying that linux is not an operating system? Both windows and linux are operating systems. Both open office and MS office are productivity software. How is one a tomato and the other a radish?

Your anologies are simply irrelevant. People want an OS they want apps. Some people use the more ethical OS and the more ethical apps despite the fact that they are not as shiny and heavily vaxed as the commercial apps. Like I said I wish more people thought about the ethical consequences of their purchasing decisions.

"Yet all I hear from the Linux community is that their favorite kosher OS needs to be more like that forbidden pork butt."

Microsoft has relentless stolen every good idea that anybody came up with and incorporated into their apps and OS. There is nothing wrong with letting them do your research and developement. Let them spend the money researching and we will implement their ideas if we like them. This is just business as usual. Like I said they have done it a million times and so has every other company on the planet.

BTW. Turkey is not ham no matter how you shape it or flavor it. The rules of kosherness have nothing to do whether something "looks like ham". If it does not come from a pig and it's slaughtered in a kosher manner then it's OK.

Re:Some of these have nothing to do with Linux...

[Billly Gates]

It will be a cold day in hell before any OEM's try to piss of Microsoft.

%95 of all customers use and prefer windows. If they can't have there precious MS-OFFICE and run their windows apps then they will switch to a competitor. WindowsXP is very stable and many users prefer and even like Microsoft. Users will not complain if they have a stable OS and office is given to them at a cheap OEM rate. Microsoft made a great pr marketing campaign and according to us newsweek and cnn polls, %80-%90 of users have a positive impression of microsoft and microsoft software. Users except computers to crash on a regular basis and credit the modern information age as Microsofts own invention.

I am sure I pissed of alot of people who are reading this but lets not ignore the truth. We are not normal users and normal users have only known Microsoft for all their lives.

To OEM'S, being in bed with microsoft = money from %85 of users who equal joe six pack. The rest of the customers are corporate who are %100 pro Microsoft who must use windows weither they want to or not due to win32 only software they use( cough MS Office and vb apps). Corporate users have in house software wriiten with mfc under visual c++ or Vb. They can't leave even if they wanted which was Microsoft's goal since day one.

One last thing. If there is a shortage of licenses for Ms-Office and Windows, who do you think ms will give them to? Their in bed OEm's or the ones that flirt with competition?

OEM's also must depend on Microsoft to sell new computers when a new version of Windows is out. WindowsXP did help compaq and dell alot.

I do not mean to start a flame war but rather just state the obvious. We all know better but the market they sell for does not or doesn't care.

Linux will not be popular on the desktop in 2002.

[JamieF]

How many consumer type people (meaning non computer weenies) do you know who say things like, "my computer has Windows 98 on it now but I want to get a new one with Linux on it soon"?

Most people don't actually like messing with their computer; they want to use a few applications and get off of it. IM, Napster, email, Word, Excel, and a web browser are the kind of thing that make people put up with computers. They also don't like shopping for computers.

So the most recent Linux distros are marginally faster at some tasks than Win2k? Well gee, switching would make your 1.7GHz P4 run like a 1.8GHz P4! What a compelling selling point. That's worth about $30 right now based on dell.com's pricing.

On the other hand, a consumer is going to have a lot better chance finding someone to help them install Windows apps than Linux apps. Also, take a look at apps like InstallShield, and compare that to rpm or gnorpm. It's no contest, the Windows or MacOS installation experience is so much better.

AFAIK, nobody is trying to make Linux easy to use. They're trying to make one app easy to use, and there's no UI consistency. MacOS, Windows, and even Java have user interface guidelines that application developers follow. Apple and Microsoft also look at the whole system and try to make it more usable overall. Windows falls down in the "installing a new network card driver" department, for example; don't get me wrong. But with Linux, everything requires you to learn a whole new skill set. Want to install software? Maybe it's ./configure make make install. Maybe it's an RPM. Maybe it's a tarball with a shell script that you have to run. Who knows?

Until Linux does something that a whole lot of people really really want, which Windows doesn't, it won't become popular. The threshold of how cool that something has to be is set by the extremely poor usability of Linux.

I dare anyone to put Windows, MacOS, and Linux (pick your distro) in a room and time a computer newbie trying to get all this done:
- install the OS from CD onto an unpartitioned brand-new 60GB IDE hard disk.
- install a CD burner, network card, digital still camera, digital videocamera, 2 monitors, USB optical mouse, USB MP3 player, low-end laser printer; perform a basic test to make sure each is working.
- install Microsoft Office or StarOffice or whatever app suite you like; launch each app to make sure it works
- connect to an existing e-mail account and download an attachment in Excel format. Print it.
- install a browser that has 128-bit crypto
- connect to an online banking site that requires 128-bit crypto, and print a current statement
- Create an MS Word formatted document and save it.
- install a chat client for AOL, MSN, and Yahoo; send the new Word document to a friend on each of AIM, MSN, and YIM.
- install a USB webcam; have a chat session with a friend on YIM.
I predict that Linux won't be the OS on which the newbie will be able to get all this done most quickly. That's the kind of benchmark that Linux needs to win in order for ordinary people to care about it.