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Bob Young says Linux won't rule the desktop
Wee writes "I just came across this interesting Yahoo interview with Bob Young
in which he says that Linux won't rule the desktop but will instead focus on replacing legacy Unix systems and enhancing Linux's embedded presence. He makes some pretty good points. The oddest quote: "So our opportunity is not to replace Microsoft on the PC. If you've got a perfectly good working PC, why you would go through the angst of replacing it?". Not sure where to start answering that one. My wife (a dedicated Win32 user) liked his car analogy. I need to get her to read 'In the Beginning was the Command Line'..."
Bob Young continues to demonstrate a good grasp of the market, and the position linux can best dominate in it. Red Hat has been distinguished by better management (from what we can see) than the other linux companies so far, and Young's ability to move to the market instead of the hype is setting Red Hat apart.
You know what's funny? I've been saying that the desktop was doomed, that it was going to be replaced by specialty devices, for a long time now--far longer than I'm willing to admit. I've now become convinced that we're just not going to see it--entirely. What I think you'll see instead is something not at all far from Apple's digital hub strategy. In 10-20 years, we'll probably use PDAs for many of our documents and our scheduling, we'll use digital cameras for photos, specialized players for audio and possibly movies, consoles for video games, and so on. But you have to make those all talk together some way. This is the whole point of Apple's newer computers, the reason why they're spending so much time on i* software. That's where Linux ought to be headed. And for that, the desktop is still very important.
As for embedded devices, I'd actually really rather not see Linux there. I'd rather see a kernel better geared to embedded devices. Something extremely small, modular and effect, similar to 3DO's now defunct M2: extremely compact, fully reentrant kernel, a unique memory design where applications could read memory everywhere but write only in their own space, a file system similar to the Newton's, etc. Then let Linux be the digital hub. Hell, Linux already makes a good server, and is that not what we're looking at it becoming in the future? Imagine a world where your house is wirelessly networked, and the job of the desktop is essentially to keep everything syncrhonized. That's a server job. It's also one where you still need good desktop software. Sounds like an ideal place for Linux to me.
So the desktop wars may be in some sense over, but we'll still be using desktops for a long time to come, and I think that if Linux wants to compete, it needs to ensure it can go there.