Alan Cox: The Battle for the Desktop

richjones writes: "There's a new interview with Alan Cox up. I think he's right on the money with how Linux is going to spread into businesses, but he seems to think Internet applications are going to be big with consumers... I can't really see it... but he's Alan Cox, so he must know :)"

Comments

bad editing of interview?

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Check out this weirdness in the interview:

"How militant are you about which licences people use for their software, and how they use them?
People who are not following the (free software) licence are pirates, it's as simple as that. It's no different if you take GPL (GNU Public Licence) code and don't give people the source code, or if you make copies of movies and sell them to people, it's the same thing. In terms of other software, it really depends on the people who write it. I don't think you have a right to dictate how somebody controls their own work, apart from the very, very basic standard you'd expect."

Was this a bad cut and paste job or other bad editing or what?

For the first part of the question it's almost like they asked him about that recent askslashdot
where the guy was asking about his company's dodgy "interpretation" of the gpl, abusing it
for pleasure and profit.

In the last half of his answer, he appears to be on topic, but just take the question and the first
sentence of the reply and it makes Alan Cox look like some kind of idiot...

graspee

Internet Applications

[Wells2k]

...he seems to think Internet applications are going to be big with consumers... I can't really see it...

I can see it, and here is why: As technology spreads throughout the world, the devices are going to become easier and easier to come by. Soon they will just be a part of life for everyone. Look at how televisions are in every household now, and a radio in every car. This is just standard progress, and the devices that are based on the technology will just get simpler and simpler to use.

I was particularly enamoured by Alan's example of the Black and Decker equipment, "So I could see in a few years' time owning a home PC becomes kind of like the Black & Decker DIY kit -- it's something people have because they enjoy that kind of thing, not something people have because they want to get on with certain specific tasks."

It's still about the apps...

[MissMyNewton]

Here's two: Office and the Bloomberg service...

Just a couple of the critical apps we need. If I can't even coax an OS X version of Bloomberg out of them, how can I persuade them to do a Linux port (even though it'd be easy, since they do/did a Solaris version).

And we still *need* Office. OpenOffice (which I burn CDs of for employees' home use, after they get sticker shock at the cost of Office) isn't a sufficient replacement. (hopefully this is just a -yet-)

We need apps. Big ones. How do we get there?

Re:It's still about the apps...

[Jeffrey Baker]

Bloomberg exists for Solaris, and it doesn't use most Microsoft interfaces. The user interface for Bloomberg is a weird text and graphics terminal that reminds one of a 1980s Textronics terminal. Free software cannot be foreign to Bloomberg, as the Bloomberg application embeds Gecko from the Mozilla project. Little effort would be needed to run Bloomberg on a Linux machines, and because Bloomberg distributes controlled hardware to some customers, they have a good channel to slip in Linux without anyone taking notice.

I observe growing Linux use in finance. My firm uses Linux for everything but accounting and desktops, and many large firms use Linux in their servers. A Bloomberg terminal running Linux should be well accepted.

Linux Infiltration

[D.A. Zollinger]

I think we are going to see a shift in thought about what computers are, and what they can do for us. As Alan stated, users want services, if their computer messes up, they want to hit the power button, and have it all come back like it was. Users don't want to have to deal with hardware issues, they want their computer to work like their phone. Plug it in, and it works - it just works.

Perhaps what Alan was unconsciously advocating was the promotion of terminal services like those being developed by LTSP and perhaps companies offering terminal/computer services to employees, and perhaps in a broader sense, 'computer utilities' who would offer computer service to residential and small business customers.

Compared to Microsoft, which requires 3 (count them, 3) licences for one user on one thin client to connect to one terminal server (one for the terminal server OS, one for the client OS, and one for the Client Access Licence), Linux can provide better functionality at a fraction of the cost. Linux opens this market, where Microsoft has sufficiently stifled its growth by making it more difficult than it should be to enter that market.