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Is Linux Dead?
TunkeyMicket writes "It appears MSNBC is reporting that Linux has failed as an operating system. By citing the large Linux hype as reason for Linux to be dominating the market, they draw the conclusion that the "open source" alternative has flopped as an operating system. They briefly mention the success of Linux in the server community, but really the article gives Linux as little credit as possible."
Where am I gonna find a penguin shaped coffin?
MSNBC says 'Linux is dead'
;-)
/. says 'Linux r00l5'.
An exciting discussion to follow, I'm sure...
...MSNBC also stated that Microsoft is actually a charity set up by Mother Teresa just before her death, Windows is more robust than UNIX and Bill Gates is the Messiah.
Sheesh.
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
And in other news, MSNBC reports that apple smells like poop.
Aside from the IBM infrastructure commercials, Linux has received no advertising whatsoever. Word-of-mouth is good, but to reach millions, more work is needed in getting the word out in print, radio and TV.
Appealing to to pricing aspect would be a good first advertising angle.
I am the evil aardvark!
Modeled after Apple's "Proudly going out of business for twenty-five years now.", I give you: "Almost dead for ten years now."
Stéphane "Alias" Gallay
Now, where did I put this witty quote?..
I don't think that is what the article was saying. It praised how well Linux was doing in the server market, taking on the older more established *NIX big boys. The only failure the article mentioned was how it has not make a significant impact on the desktop at home. Well Duh! When a company such as Microsoft has a monopoly, I think it is going to take more than just a few years to crack a hole in that shell.
Who is John Galt?
It gives props to Server based Linux installs, and states, like many others have, that desktop Linux still faces an uphill battle. Not really the flamebait of an article like /.'s headline would indicate.
if it includes a quote from HP: "Linux is becoming more and more mainstream everyday?"
Go read the article. It's actually pretty reasonable and well-balanced; the same can't be said of the /. summary.
If linux has failed, you should prolly reboot and send any information on what processes were running, what your compile options and all to linus@linux.org
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Did you hear the news? We've been defeated. Dang, I thought we were doing just fine. Well, I'm glad that I found out now and not years from now. I guess I can go back to my day job.
Can corporate horn-blowing get any more blatant. Microsoft made this deal with NBC because it was cheaper than printing up their own press releases. Of all the people to write this piece of tripe, a freaking Sr. Producer! His job is specifically to keep NBC and Microsoft happy. This means: A) Make money. B) Say whatever MS and NBC want. This is just intolerable.
--
(sourceCode == freeSpeech)
It's Official - MSNBC Confirms - Linux Is Dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when MSNBC confirmed that Linux market share has not risen significantly in comparison to others, less than 5 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent MSNBC survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share to Windows, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent MCSE comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.
Fact: Linux is dying
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
So, we're switching most of the servers to Linux at my Day Job because it's a failure.
We're shifting our development to Java because there's no need for interopability.
Reading this guy's note, the reason why Linux has failed? Because it hasn't taken over the entire Desktop market.
Um...duh. Isn't there a whole trial about why you can't get Linux/BeOS/OS//2 in the marketplace today?
So Linux hasn't won the Desktop market. Maybe it will, maybe it never will. But last I checked, it's moving very well into the server marketplace. It's doing well in colleges. More companies are supporting it every day (and not just little nobodies - folks like Sun, IBM, HP, etc).
I'm patient. I personally use OS X for most of my desktop stuff (IMHO, the best Unix operating system I've worked with), and still rely on Linux on the server side.
Perhaps the whole Pallendrom-thing from MS will shift more companies over to Linux-based OS's for the desktop (hm...we can either spend money to register our custom made applications so they'll run with these new computers and Windows XP Stranglehold version, or switch our computers to Linux and spend the money in development. Hm....)
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Click here or here.
I think it would be obvious to anyone who read the article (instead of gasping at the MS in MSNBC) that its content was fair. Linux has been making inroads into the server market, but it continues to struggle in the desktop market.
I have not seen any evidence to indicate that Linux is making significant inroads into the home, and all the wishful thinking in the world isn't going to change that. The article does say that Linux is getting better (in terms of usability, compatability, etc), and I don't think anyone can dispute that either. It just ain't there yet.
I've been reading Slashdot for a while...this whole time, I thought it was *BSD that was dying...
:)
Or so many people at -1 keep saying, anyhow...
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
From his article, I soaked in two points basic points.
Linux is dead because the huge Wall Street hype machine has died down, and Red Hat isn't making any money.
First, Red Hat != Linux. There is constant innovation and development in Linux, and while Red Hat is a significant force, they are not the whole.
Linux survived for 9 years before Wall Street dildoheads ever knew that it was the next big IPO craze.
Finally, Microsoft is terrified of Linux (which makes the article kind of interesting given the source), even more so today than ever. You can probably find an article on Slashdot on any given day on how Microsoft is trying to do something to kill open source: linking it to terrorism, embrace and extend, incompatible hardware standards, lobbying, etc.
In my direct work experience, the number of systems I deal with running Linux is increasing, not decreasing.
The article didn't say it was dead. They said it hasn't made a dent in the home market yet. For it to have failed it would have needed to be adopted and then abandoned and I didn't see where the article claimed that tons of people were dumping Linux.
They also plug MS products so it's definitely biased and more advertising for MS shrouded in a Linux article in an attempt to get geeks to read it.
I think the poster deserves to me marked as flamebait more than the MSNBC article. After all, who reads MSNBC tech news anyways?
In other unbiased news ORCL-CBS has declared MSSQL untrustworthy, NOVEL-ABC has declared Windows 2000 server unstable, and LNX-FOX declared that Windows has no future on the desktop.
[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...] - Larry Wall in Configure from the perl
"Still, Linux evangelists like Fedor say that, as long as new PCs come pre-loaded with Windows, the open source community faces an uphill battle spreading Linux beyond corporate IT departments into the home."
Maybe the Microsoft partnerships and service agreements that prohibited retailers from selling computers preinstalled with non-MS operating systems had something to do with it.
Created by Finish college student Linus Torvalds, and continually updated and improved by a loose confederation of programmers who aren't paid for their work, Linux is available without the steep licensing fees that come with commercially produced software.
... it seems IBM pays people to work on the Linux kernel, as we all know already.
Hmmmm
High on the list of headaches is incompatibilities with files created with Microsoft products like Word.
Eh? OpenOffice.org reads/writes Word/Excel docs perfectly. Aside from some bullet-point font issues, Powerpoint handles perfectly as well.
I know people have said MSNBC was good at cracking back at Microsoft, but the author doesn't seem to be going anything other than spraying the same ol' FUD we've all grown obvlivious to.
"More organs means more human." - Zim
First Windows, now Windows sales... When will they reboot the world?
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
actually, that's exactly what the article says. the frontpage blurb is the usual /. overreaction.
...who helps small businesses upgrade to Linux.
Notice he said "upgrade"...
-twb
I suppose some people will enjoy arguing whether MSNBC is spreading BillFUD, or is just completely clueless. Seems rather a waste of human potential though.
...an article in today's Jersualem Post details the failure of the Palestinian Authority.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
A Linux-based open-source program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop.
Or, maybe, it resembles an e-mail/groupware application a bit.
Little slip-ups like this show that the author just might not have even looked at Linux at all.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
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Personally I think Linux will suceed on the server way before it ever suceeds on the desktop. I think in the future we'll see a 20% market share of Linux on the desktop - but it'll be many years before that realistically happens.
In short, it was over-hyped. Now is the time to be realistic and not fall into the same trap again. But writing it off, is a tad premature.
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Enough said.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No, no, that's Linux has not yet succeded as a Desktop OS. Just wait.
I read the summary then promptly read the MSNBC article. The summary and the article do not have anything in common. The article was fairly well balanced, while the /. summary was biased and drew faulty conclusions from the article. In the future it would help if the person submitting the article would read it first. That goes for the /. editors as well.
I have been running Linux almost exclusively for over five years. Sure it's not quite as streamlined on the desktop as MS, but it'll get there when Linux users decide that's what they want. I don't even run X, so I could not care less.
In another 30 years, when people are still saying "Linux is Dead", people still won't get it. But it'll be there and it'll be thriving. And you can tell your kids about what it was like when you were a kid and there was an OS monopoly.
The temptation everywhere here will be to write this article off as it comes from MSNBC (the article notes this itself). This is known as the genetic fallacy, so let's get over that angle right away. The article has some valid points.
First, it is true that as a commercial venture, Linux has largely been a failure - the problems of VA, RedHat, and many others simply cannot be ignored. But as many have pointed out, this doesn't mean Linux itself is dead at all.
Second, Linux still has not gained any major inroads in the personal computer world. Yes, I know WalMart sells Linux-able PCs, that many embedded devices run Linux, and many people use Linux on their PCs, but there still aren't many/any desktop PCs shipping with Linux.
The article mainly focuses on the commercial aspect of Linux, which as I have already mentioned, is a valid point. However, most people here know that Linux can be a useful desktop OS, does have a large following, and is excellent for embedded applications and servers.
The point? Take this article in stride, and take its criticisms to heart - Linux has failed in 10 years to make any strong inraods into the personal computer market, commercially speaking. If Linux hopes to ever make it past the server/embedded market, this should be a huge focus (and judging from projects like KDE and Gnome, that effort is well underway).
I know this is a fantastically novel idea, but did anybody read the article instead of knee-jerking "OMG MSNBC IS GOING TO SUPPORT MS ALWAYS" ?
The first half the article praises Linux for being a low cost server solution that a LOT of companies are using. There is even a quote from a HP exec who says "Now Linux is becoming more mainstream every day."
The second half does go into the desktop area of Linux, which they say is lacking, and then it goes on to say it IS getting better with things such as Star Office and OpenOffice, but it still needs to overcome the problem of Windows being installed on pretty much every pre-built computer sold.
Nowhere in this article does it say anything about Linux being dead. It's more of a "What's Linux up to?"
...should tell you all you need to know.
No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar. -- Prof. Donald Foster
I don't know if somebody switched links or something, but I must've read a different article than whoever submitted this. The article was actually right on track IMO.
It's hardly mentioning it as a failed operating system, rather saying "A recent survey of 800 companies in North America and Western Europe found that some 40 percent said they were either using or testing Linux, according to the research firm IDC. With some 27 percent of the market, Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers, supplanting the decades-old operating system UNIX..."
It continues with more info, but mostly what we've all heard before...Linux faces an uphill battle in the desktop arena, does well in the server arena, etc.
Oh, wait. I'm sorry, I'm completely mistaken in this post. The article came from MSNBC, a "Microsoft-NBC joint venture". Therefore it must slam Linux at every possible turn. It's not possible that it actually might report information we'd agree with.
Get a grip people, jesus.
--mh
Oh no! I have Linux on my Mac!. Where do I go from here?? I'm so scared. mommy?
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I know anything that isn't explicity anti-MS is heresy, but here we go. . .
I don't see anywhere where he has said Linux is failed in the article. He's merely pointing out a fact that most of us know: Linux is fantastic for servers, but "not ready for prime time" when it comes to the broad-based desktop market. Like it or not, Linux is still harder to use than Windows for a huge percentage of the population. While I don't agree with his characterization of the command-line stuff as an "archane vocabulary," there is some merit to the point that a lot of people can't handle the command line. Overall, I find it a well-balanced article about facts: Redhat was pushing Linux as a replacement for Windows on everyone's home and office desk. It just hasn't reached that point. His point seems to be that it doesn't even NEED to reach that point because it's gaining so much ground in the server market.
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
Sure, this guy who is a reporter hasn't heard much about Linux lately. I'm not surprised. He's a reporter. I haven't heard much about the latest in print media, so it must be dead. That's my totally uninformed and ignorant conclusion of the state of the print media business.
Point is, this guy didn't do his research, his article is based off of the fact that he hasn't heard much about Linux lately. I've heard a lot about it, perhaps it is because I work in this industry? Perhaps it is because I stay on top of the latest news in my industry? Apparently he doesn't, that's fine, but what makes him think he should write an article about it?
... their OS is outperformed even by a DEAD Linux ;)
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
It's fairly obvious that this article is a Microsoft-funded troll. But there's something much more sinister going on here.
Microsoft's best defense against Linux these days is that it is un-American (or worse, an illegal violation of intellectual property rights) to use free software. This article seems to me to take for granted the idea that all software must cost money, no matter what. Hence, they focus on RedHat (who is currently losing money) as a representative of all Linux users. They also assume that Linux has failed simply because it hasn't taken over the desktop market completely.
Articles like this aren't dangerous because they declare Linux dead. Even my computer-illiterate friends can explain to me why no article on MSNBC will ever say good things about Linux (or Solaris, or OS X, or FreeBSD, or BeOS, or OS/2, etc). This article is dangerous because of the ideas it gets into people's heads. For example, that all production-quality software is commerical. Or that open source is an affront to capitalism. Or that open-source is insecure, or that it violates intellectual property rights (not in this article, but in other places).
The question is, how do you fight against such widespread assumptions?
The difference is, we're the community (users, developers, administrators) and M$ is the source. A better analogy would be if Redhat put out an article detailing how Microsoft is failing as an operating system.
We are allowed to feel any way we wish. But at least our bias doesn't come from a hunger for new revenue streams.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Sometimes (often!) I wish Slashdot let you moderate the articles and not just the posts; this one would have been (-1, Troll) very quickly.
I have a Dell Latitude CPx that I use for development of my opensource projects. Solaris support for laptops is extremly lacking and Windows would cost way to much considering the cost of the OS and development tools. After the initial install of Linux I had a whole development environment at my disposal for 0 cost. How can you beat that?
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Part of the reason linux is moving slowly is that almost everyone has used windows. While those of us experienced with more reliable and open OS's may find this a reason to avoid windows in the future, it nonetheless makes managers comfortable. There are also umpteen trillion "certified" MCSE types out there, who are ostensibly capable of managing the microsoft systems. Linux certs are fairly rare -- which is unsurprising, because demand for them remains relatively low. It's a classic case of Microsoft having a 'Mindshare'.
That said, things are improving. The support of IBM and others and their initiatives is coating linux with the candy coating of acceptability. If large groups begin to adopt linux on the desktop with open office, we are then on the verge of a true potential transition. Desktop use will translate into server comfort.
Finally, it hasn't helped that the last milestone release, 2.4, was a colossal mess. My 2.0.x and 2.2.x boxes were totally, utterly rock solid as servers. I upgraded one to 2.4 -- and it is now an unreliable piece of crap. It fails with kernel panics at any time (albeit infrequently), and almost always dies ~45 days into uptime. Every box I ever tried to use ext3 on died a horrible death, and that didn't make me particularly happy. FreeBSD and I are now getting well acquainted.
Despite all this, Linux has continued to make inroads. And of course it has hype -- it has become, and remains, the primary alternative in the minds of IT people everywhere to the monopolists from Redmond. Since they are a multi-hundred-billion-dollar company, and are tied into every aspect of the industry, saying something might challenge them is a bit like suggesting something might shift the Earth off its orbit -- it will cause ubiquitous change. And Linux is hardly down and out. The sad thing is that venture capital is so dead. NOW is the time of opportunity for fresh linux companies to step up and replace microsoft in places that really want to keep their budgets down. A return to the boom days just means that hundreds of dollars of windows upgrades and office software and such is no longer a big deal...again. Get in there while the gettin's good, I say.
It's official -- Slashdot editors and article submitters now regularly stoop to trolling, and most of the early posts in this discussion need to be slapped with -1s for stupidly flaming MSNBC after not reading the article (not the pointless non-summary), but the actual linked article.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
However, Linux on the desktop has not been successful. That's the reality. "Mom and Dad" PC users - who make up a large demographic of typical consumers - are not using Linux on the desktop. Big corporations are not using Linux on the desktop. There are lots of reasons for all this, but in the end they boil down to:
Case in point: I am currently developing a strategy on replacing 23,000 OS/2 platforms in my company. I have 2 basic choices for these desktops - Linux and Windows. Both have pros and cons around cost, stability, app availability, support, etc. Even though could save us millions of $$$ in licensing costs alone, Linux will be an uphill climb given the perceived lack of maturity and support in the vendor market. Linux needs a big-ass corporation (like IBM or HP) to really drive the momentum into the desktop.
Otherwise, it feels like the OS/2 saga all over again....*sigh*
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
Good. Remeber; every word that comes out of the Microsoft camp is part of a strategy. They never ever say anything without a script.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
The article doesn't say that Linux is dead, nor does it criticize Linux particularly. The summary of this slashdot article is rather misleading, IMHO. I'd advise slashdotters to read the MSNBC article before posting. To be honest, it's just one of those say-not-very-much "where is Linux up to" type articles. But it's more positive about Linux than most such pieces.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
do any of you expect that a company like MSNBC partially sponsored/owned/whatever by Microsoft will openly admit that linux is gaining popularity? Come on folks! :)
however, the important thing is that - Microsoft has made its first, big, noticeable step into the media. What's next,
Let us not forget that the media are those who forge a public opinion, and a public opinion can push a law or elect certain politics that -guess what?- are sponsored by the same sponsor of the media. And the DMCA is just the beginning.
Lobbying must be made illegal. But it's impossible because those who would make it illegal are those who benefit most of it. Cool, the dog has eaten his own tail.
Frustrating.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
The Disney Channel (aka ABC) aired a 1 hour special about the magic of Lilo and Stitch last Friday.....
If you still doubt that big business owns the airwaves, you're silly!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Is Linux dead?
Is OpenSource better?
Natalie Portman: Hot or Not?
Cowboy Neal?
For the last time - it's BSD that's dead. Man, don't these guys read slashdot?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
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However, I can't use Linux on the Desktop. I just can't. XFree86 with GNOME and KDE just doesn't cut the GUI mustard. That's not a bad thing. Just means the Linux Desktop folks are going to have to do more work...someone will get it right. When you think about it, a bunch of unpaid people scattered around the world actually built a consumer OS...for free, for anyone! Amazing progress.
Its not that people are afraid of a UNIX/UNIX-like OS for their desktop. Microsoft has been shoveling that FUD BS for the last six months. Mac OS X has done very well in its 1 1/2 year of existence in gaining market share. Linux on the Desktop folks ought to take a hard look at Aqua and Quartz and think if XFree86 and Window Managers are still the way to go for GUI on Linux. As the Marketing Department at Apple says, "Think Different". "Think Differently" for the grammatically anal.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
From the debian fortune program
Would it be acceptable to debian policy if we inserted a crontab by default into potato that emailed bill.gates@microsoft.com every morning with an email that read, "Don't worry, linux is a fad..."
And in other news, Larry Ellison is a poopyface and Bill Gates's dad can beat up Linus Torvalds's dad.
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The worst thing that happened to Linux was the pre-bust notice it got in the press and all the insane IPOs that followed. The hype is dead.
_ _
That does not mean that Linux is not continuing to be deployed across the IT landscape. Will it quickly become a Windows-killer replacement for XP in end-user's homes? Hell no.
Does it mean that linux is useless on the desktop. Heck no! There are geeks that live primarily in an Unix world for development jobs, System Admin jobs and other IT positions that need a cheap *Nix desktop to work from. This is where linux with a large number of applications and stability shines on the desktop. To bad, that the linux distro companies have no clue about this. If this was not a viable way to make money then desktop X packages like Exceed would go out of business and Unix workstations made by HP and Sun would never be built.
As for the server outlook anytime someone needs an inexpensive machine running for a project critical task that does not require some oddball COTS product Linux will be considered. I know because I work for Software Development company and I see the uses everyday.
Linux is not dead. Windows is not dead. Mac is not dead. Hyperbole is alive and well and living at MSNBC and many other news organizations.
_______________________________________________
ACK
MSNBC:
Said Linux has made great strides in the server arena - TRUE
Said Linux has not made a noticable impact on the desktop market - TRUE
Said Linux user apps are improving - TRUE
Slasdot:
Said MSNBC reported Linux is dead - FALSE
Said Article gave Linux as little credit as possible - FALSE
Why are they asking what happened? Linux is just now finally getting support from OEMs, what the hell did they expect when all their time their parent company has been blocking any competiting OS from even being able to compete on the same ground as them.
So now Lindows, Mandrake, Redhat and others are getting OEM contracts and what the hell?! Now MSNBC decides to come out with an article about how Linux has failed right when it hits mainstream?
This reminds me of the BS Sony did to Sega, back when Dreamcast was a success, Sony would slowly take their developers away, and hype vaporware PS2 just to keep them from selling, then spread rumors about how DC would fail and not to buy it.
Its FUD. Microsoft is trying to keep Linux from going mainstream which Linux is just now starting to do, by talking about longhorn constantly, and manipulatnig the media.
Yeah tell them Linux has failed, and in the next article, in depth (hype) article on longhorn, and palladium, interviews with bill gates, etc.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The article itself was reasonable, fair, and pretty well-balanced. Reality is that Linux isn't a mainstream desktop platform right now - Windows is. Linux is improving and becoming viable as a desktop, and the article reflects that. It also pays more than lip service to Linux's strength in the server arena, and it talks about the Linux/open development model with only minimal oversimplification for the non-techie audience.
/. regulars say so.
I really wouldn't call it FUD at all. The only thing that I see in the article that's even near being a goof is how GUI's for Linux are a recent development. They've been around for years, though only recent versions of KDE and GNOME have become good enough to keep users almost entirely from the CLI.
The reality is that Linux is a great server OS, a great desktop OS for the hardcore techie, a barely acceptable OS for the mainstream desktop, and a thoroughly mediocre OS for the average home user. It's improving constantly in all these areas, but Linux won't be replacing Windows in the mainstream market anytime soon, if ever. No matter how many of we
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
No worries though. Open source is a revolution and it will continue build a place in the industry and people everyday lives. Flattering pieces didn't make OSS/Linux and hatchet jobs won't break it. End of story.
-- I am not a fanatic, I am a true believer.
Oh come on now, we all knew from the beginning that this open source thing wasn't going to fly.
Since decade is plural, we can assume 2 or more decades, right? Which puts us back to at least 1982. Is this "journalist" actually trying to say that PC sales are lower than they were in 1982? I know the C-64 and the TRS-80 were popular machines, but surely any store that sold computers in 1982 and are still selling them today would testify that sales today are higher than they were in 1982.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
If you read the article, the slashdot headline is crap.
If you read MSNBC alot, like I do, you'll find:
1. It's a hell of a lot more responsible, journalism wise, then abcnews.
2. They are not shy about printing articles that put MS in a bad light.
Sections like letters to the editor (where they frequently publish letters from people who sharply disagree with them) and their Ombudsman (currently the position is unfilled, the last guy moved on after a year) used to publically evaluate their journalistic practices and comment or criticize them, by their own employee, has caused me to respect them a great deal.
Say what you like about MS, but MSNBC is a great news site.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
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Linux on the Mac? You're double-fucked.
Better install WindowsNT-PPC.
Its called, build hype for your product while spreading rumors and doubt about the competiting product.
Sony has done this against Sega and Nintendo.
Microsoft has done this before as well.
What you do is, you tell everyone you are coming out with a new product right when your competition is about to go mainstream. (PS2 hype begins when DC begain to sell more than 5 million systems)
Then you get articles printed about how your competitions product is doomed to fail, you pick it apart. While not everyone will believe the article, thousands of people will, which can turn to millions, which can kill the competiting product.
Linux luckily has a community and zealot strength behind it, if it were an ordinary company, Microsoft would have just put the final nail in the coffin,
People will be thinking
"should I get Longhorn or Linux? Well this article on MSNBC says Linux is dead, and Bill Gates was on TV last night in that interview saying good things about longhorn, I think I'll go with what I already have and get longhorn"
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I'm not sure what 'Linux is dead' is representative of though. Compared to what? I thought home networking was the next big thing. If that's true then you'll see MORE linux in home use not less. Anyone running basic LAN services or their own mail server is more than likely going to do it with an old PC and Linux. You don't need a desktop for that (unless you like to config stuff that way..) I'm not sure that someone would build an entire W2K machine with a legitimate licence just for file serving? Maybe they would, maybe I'm just cheap.
At any rate there a few things Linux is not good at:
AOLIM
Burning CD's
Playing popular game/entertainment titles.
Supporting the home Encyclopedia/Bartlett's
Supporting MS office email attachments
Any kind of demoware you get in the mail
Getting broadbad ISP support - AOL. Earthlink (oh you have Lunix? click.)
Of course it begs the question that if Linux COULD do all of that would it not become Windows anyway and lose the reliability, stability and low horsepower requirements that make you want to use it to begin with? It would become..... Apple?
Don't believe the hype, especially the "Linux is Dead" hype.
Not all servers are web servers -- and even if he's only counting web servers, Apache != Linux. Apache runs on other Unixes and Windows as well.
'sides, he's talking about big companies. How many of those Apache "servers" are home computers serving up personal content? They don't serve much content, don't have that many users, and generally aren't exactly mission-critical.
Random sampling of some big entities (via Netcraft), trying to limit guesses to well-known organizations and aren't directly in the fray:
- Amazon: Apache/Linux
- Ebay: IIS/Windows
- NY Times: Netscape/Solaris
- Buy.com: IIS/Solaris
- Bn.com: IIS/Windows
- id Software: IIS/Windows
- Interplay: IIS/Windows
- Washington Post: Netscape/Solaris
- CNN: Netscape/Solaris
- Dell: IIS/Windows
- IBM: IBM_HTTP_SERVER/Apache(?)/AIX
- US Bank: IIS/unknown (but IIS isn't exactly portable...)
- Morgan Stanley Dean Witter: Netscape/Solaris
- General Motors: Netscape/Solaris
- Playboy: Netscape/Solaris
- Penthouse: Apache/Solaris
- General Electric: Netscape/Solaris
- Bantam: Apache/Solaris
- Yahoo!: unknown/FreeBSD
- ebworld: IIS/Windows
- US State Department: Netscape/Solaris
- UPS: Netscape/Solaris
Judging from that, Solaris and Windows are each FAR FAR more prevalent than Linux.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Hmmmm gotta wonder how biased this article, gotta say the whole "we are owned and operated by Microsoft" might play into this propoganda.
As for Linux being dead? Sorry I hear of more and more people slowing moving to it. And hell WalMart just started selling Linux based PC's. I don't know exactly where Microsoft, I mean NBC gets there info, but they might want to re-examine the facts.
Either that, or revise the title and the writeup so that it's actually correct. How many ads did you sell today?
Listen I hate windows, I loathe Microsoft but I just can't stand these story headlines on Slashdot lately. It really makes this place look bad, when I saw the headline I thought well MSNBC is obviously trolling because of the crunch economy wise, a few higher ups must think it's time to rag on something to keep the money rolling or something; I dunno. Then I read the article; it's probably one of the more insightful articles I have read in a while and this headline does not do it justice. Points of pro's adn cons just as anyone would want with any other product, you can only expect the writer to know so much without becoming an expert; this is also a very unbiased piece. If this was a piece to bash Linux then it didn't say anything that wasn't true, infact it's more praise than not. Not only that but MSNBC does make a point to say that it's a Microsoft-NBC joint venture for what reason I don't know but then again some people have been living under rocks.
This whole headline thing makes slashdot look bad, it makes the people that recommend slashdot look bad. Instead of trying to become professional and taking an industry lead I still can't view slashdot than anything more than a hobby site and the bad thing is that I guess the editors think this will last forever. It won't; it just won't.
I understand journalism, sensationalism, I understand the readers of the site are the ones that submit the stories. I understand this; what I don't understand is how this blatant bashing of Microsoft helps anyone. It's as if we've started to play their game of blatant outright lying. I hate Microsoft and if it was up to me I'd probably throw each and every single employee into some type of chinese water torcher camp but this is just stupid. Please; stop it.
Lets continue to play with facts and not play their game of cat and mouse. We won't gain anything the way they play and it will only make us look like hypocrites.
With this troll, CmderTaco has incited 297 posts in the same amount of time. Could we have a new record holder on our hands? Time will tell.
Ok, first off, the MSNBC article never says "Linux is dead." The article is more about the failure of Linux to live up to its own hype (which is not a fabrication, but a solid fact.)
I agree with most of what the article said as far as Linux's position in the residential market. I believe that the truth of the matter is, as a quote in the article states "Linux is for geeks".
Sure, there is still a potential for Linux to become a major player in the home PC market, as long as the problem of 'user-friendlyness' is addressed from the users point of view and NOT the developers. Unfortunately, this has yet to happen, but I refuse to say it will never happen.
Another big boost may be given to the Linux xommunity when M$ starts it's leasing program. Personally I don't feel comfortable running leased software, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
Linux has come a long way from the Minix code manipulation it began as, but work still needs to be done before home users will embrace it with open arms...
Linux is dead.
LU
The king is dead ... long live the king!
Seriously (mind you, it's hard to be serious about something as absurd as linux being dead) we will at some future date replace linux with something even better ... but we'll still owe a debt of gratitude for what linux (and Linus) has let us achieve.
Maybe linux won't kill off Windows, but its replacement will.
I run two server farms and have been asked to provide High Availability for them. I was also asked to do public nameserver and virtal hosting for nearly twenty corporate domains, not to mention another hundred-or-so portals. I was asked to provide failover and redundancy, Content Management, Source Code Control, Document Management, Workflows, LDAP, scheduling and reporting.
All on a budget less that the cost of a Sun 4500.
There was only one solution on the market: linux. I used the IPVS heartbeat + mon + fake + coda layout with Apache for virtual hosting and front-end, Weblogic for the java backend, Zope for my CMS / Document Management, daemontools for process monitoring, Checkpoint firewalls (not my choice mind you) and last but not least linux on every single machine in the farm(s). I have multiple NICs with bonded channels between the servers providing me with near-Gb Ethernet speeds between my data servers and hosts.
Linux took our server from from 100% M$ and literally constant system crashes and reboots to 100% (so-far) uptime except for scheduled outages AT&T is our telco and they only give us 99.96% uptime.
At least here, M$ is dead. We are evaluating linux on the desktop to see if we can use Wine with Lotus Notes and Office. If so then we might start switching desktops for some groups.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
As usual, their whole editorial point is in the title. If you read any newspaper, you'll notice that the titles rarely describe accurately the content of the article.
If I understand properly, the newspaper EDITORS, i.e. the managers, have the final saying in the title (not the journalist/writer).
I believe the same thing happened here. The article isn't that much of a Linux bashing, and more a statement of the fact that Linux still hasn't made it to the home computer yet.
And CmdrTaco, as a great Editor-wanting-more-hits, also twisted the story to get a flashy title. Geesh...
MSNBC is now the *BSD version of Slashdot.
Before making an idiot of your self!
[Linux] Im not dead yet! Im getting Better! I feel fine! I think Ill go for a walk! I feel happy! I feel Happy! I feel Hap~*thunk*
no
-1 Troll, definetly.
Like this:
"At PC conventions like this one, Microsoft's Windows operating system still rules, with some 94 percent of the operating system market for desktops and laptop PCs, according to IDC. Despite its growing popularity among computer professionals, it's still not completely 'user friendly'."
Where is this guy? That's like me walking to SOME BUILDING SOMEHERE, and saying "At business like this one, X rules". It's one thing if there's a TV camera recording the event, you might know what kinds of business use 'X'.
It an opinion piece, with no real supporting facts, other than 'at conventions like this one'. It could be Rummage-O-Rama as far as we know..
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
When you work for a MS company I guess "close enough" is good enough. A couple of incorrect items:
Finnish is spelled with two "n"'s, not one.
Evolution looks like Oulook, not like the Windows desktop. That would be KDE or Gnome.
I don't recall seeing an email client in either OpenOffice 1.0 or StarOffice 6.0 (and I just installed StarOffice 6.0 this am). I really don't think you can count that thing in SO 5.2 as a real email client.
Slashdot did not say that, but the submitter of the article did. Blaming Slashdot for that is like blaming your local newspaper for printing something said in an editorial. The words are in italics to let you know that someone else said them, and not CmdrTaco or anyone else.
Sometimes magazines and newspapers will print someone's comments to show how stupid they are. While I doubt this is the case here, you should be smart enough to point and laugh at the story submitter who sensationalized his submission in order to get it posted. Say what you want about the editors, but they didn't lay claim or support anything this guy said.
What?
I love the way they have tried to make the argument look balanced when all the time they are sly-ly having a dig.
"Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers, supplanting the decades-old operating system UNIX; Microsoft holds the top spot."
Decades old UNIX sounds like a dig, and "MS holds the top spot" is them having to have the last word in an argument.
"Linux used to be just a bunch of geeks trying to change the industry," said Elizabeth Phillips
"It's for geeks," said Faber Fedor
These statments just seem to be there to reduce the credibility of Linux. While Elizabeth phillips says "Its becoming more mainstream" she fails to mention that this "bunch of geeks" did change the industry.
"Fedor walked a roomful of developers and IT managers through the basics -- and not so basics -- of converting to the Linux world."
Just ensure that we all know that Linux is MUCH harder to use than the wonderful windows OS.
"Until recently, interacting with Linux was almost entirely text-driven -- much like Windows' precursor, DOS."
Ooooh, they're getting good at this - now they're hinting at the suggestion that Linux lags behind where Microsoft has been before. Like you could even compare DOS to Linux...hah!!
"But Linux software is getting better -- and now more closely mimics the Windows world that the vast majority of PC users are accustomed to"
Yeah it mimics Windows...like Windows mimics a Mac I suppose...?
"Still, Linux evangelists like Fedor say that, as long as new PCs come pre-loaded with Windows, the open source community faces an uphill battle spreading Linux beyond corporate IT departments into the home"
Right we better pack up and go home now then I suppose...it all useless, you dont stand a chance. Remember - the art of propoganda is to try and cause confusion, uncertainty and loss of hope in the enemy,and that is exactly what an article like this does.
"And as Linux proponents continue to try to enlist desktop PC users, Microsoft is busy reinventing that desktop."
Yep looks like we're too late, MS is reinventing the desktop, while us lame Linux people are still working with those big ugly PCs..
Personally I think Linux is stronger than ever...all these once flaky open source projects are becoming real mature, and they're getting better every day. With stuff like GNOME, Mozilla, GIMP, GCC, Evolution, Apache, MySQL, PHP to name but a few we have world-class products. Every time I use Open Source software I get a little smirk, because its a 'sleeper' -- it will continue to get better and better, and there is NOTHING MS can do to stop that.
I sure hope that some of the nice things in the 2.6 kernel make it into 2.4, because a featuer freeze date of october 2002 has been decided.
so it looks like a couple of years before linux it a half decient system.
Don't get me wrong, i only use linux at home, but I have to check my hardware, take things appart to make sure there's a driver for the chipset. 2.4 isn't SMP reliable(read the 2.6 change log!!!)
The recient comments on modules show that the modules in 2.4 are in a hell of a state.
in 2 years time microsoft might have sorted out there act, and managed to convince people that there's no real alternitives.
I might let my mum use the 2.6 kernel, but for the next 2 years shell be using windows.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Gavitron_ZERO
Amiga computers are used by Elvis on his island in the south pacific, and when the time is right he will return to challenge Bill McEwen to a duel to the death, quashing this AmigaOne nonsense.
Amiga 5000 with 64bit PCI and dual video slots! Quad G5's. And software that detects usage by SG, and self-destructs!
Elvis is the king.
well i though BSD was dead, but i managed to telnet in an kill the process holding evrything up.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The editors tactitly handed the submitter a soapbox. It is NOT like /. is at all obligated to accept all submissions -- they don't -- nor are they somehow barred from attaching comments, such as doubts as to the usefulness of the summary. In fact, they could let someone else submit with an actual, genuine, informative summary.
Instead, they handed the guy a flamethrower in full knowledge that a large percentage of the posters would be kneejerkers -- which brings in more hits and page views. And you suggest that they aren't responsible for that?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
... past the first paragraph?
This is just the same old "Linux is dominating the server market, progress on the desktop is slow, but it's getting better" story we've been seeing all year.
It's definitely not a "Linux is dead" story.
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
Obviously, Taco is trolling here.
However, you can't honestly say that this article was well written. Sure it wasn't the worst piece of MSNBC trash that comes out but when you see sentences like this:
"Until recently, interacting with Linux was almost entirely text-driven -- much like Windows' precursor, DOS."
You have to wonder about the competency of these MSNBC "journalists".
And then the guy devotes four paragraphs at the end of his article basically hyping the work that MS has done on the tablet PC. Right, we all know that the tablet PC is going to save the PC industry cause MS has told us so.
1) Linux doesn't get viruses BECAUSE no one is writing viruses for linux. I know it's a tautology, but were Linux to take off, I think we'd see an interest from the script-kiddie development centers of the world. Linux doesn't have the critical mass to support a worldwide virus. No Outlook - no virus.
2) The worst element of the Web is interested in reaching the largest group possible. A lot of the rules simply don't apply to Linux users as long as they stay in the 1%. It's the same reason I secretly hope Mozilla never gets into popular use. As long as it stays a 1% browser, I can block images from ad servers and most of the web is ad-free for me. If everyone had Mozilla, more site would host ads locally or use Flash instead of images, and I'd be out of luck.
As long as there's a community of development and support, I'll be happy using Linux as a 1%-er.
Right, and when I submit articles with the following head lines:
2001-10-05 16:20:38 Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov (features,enlightenment) (rejected)
2002-01-21 15:09:06 Slashdot censorship (yro,slashdot) (rejected)
2002-02-03 16:02:31 Is fetus a child? (articles,news) (rejected)
2002-06-18 22:31:59 Just paid for a 2 months Kuro5hin subscription (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
But articles with headlines like: "Is Linux Dead?", "Bill Gates Is The Devil", "All Hail To Red Hat" will be posted no problem.
So who rejects and accepts the articles?
That's it.
You can't handle the truth.
It appears MSNBC is reporting that Windows has failed as an operating system. By citing the large Windows hype as reason for Windows to be dominating the market, they draw the conclusion that the "PC in every home" alternative has flopped as an operating system. They briefly mention the success of Windows in the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" community, but really the article gives Windows as little credit as possible.
Seems possible, doesn't it?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
john.schoen@msnbc.com
It'd be great if he was slashdotted by all us "ghosts". M$ has lost more money in this dot.com bust than all the linux companies put together.
tcboo
I guess the most disturbing piece is that this is a news source that a great deal of people use to keep current. Saying something likde this, at least for me, throws a great deal of suspicion on the rest of their 'news'. If Wal-Mart restricts the music they sell to appeal to a more mainstream audience, why then, are they planning to sell new machines with Mandrake on them? Why would they put a dead OS on new machines? huh... My two cents..
"A Linux-based open-source program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop."
Hrmm, odd.. This morning when I opened Evolution it looked like a robust e-mail client
"StarOffice and OpenOffice provide most key features offered by Microsoft Office, including a word processor, spreadsheet, and mail program."
I'll bet that's news to Sun and OOo, last time I checked neither had any e-mail support
I get the impression John Schoen hasn't given the linux desktop any more than a one minute tour with a Microsoft bias in his pocket..
-- The only thing I can be absolutely sure of is that you are reading this.
Truly the SlashDot summary is worse than the MSNBC article.
But the MSNBC article is riddled with factual inacuracies, slanted language, and selective omissions.
"Small software makers like Lindows are trying to help desktop users bridge that divide."
Small? Relative to what? MS? GM and CocaCola are small compared to MS!
"A Linux-based open-source program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop."
What on earth does Evolution have to do with the desktop? Other than being made by the folks at GNOME?
"WalMart recently began selling a house brand PC at rock bottom prices -- available with Linux for the thriftiest PC buyers."
Read Cheap. It's an old FUD, that linux users are cheap, and wont spend money. If that's true go talk to the folks at Ximian who get monthly subscriptions, just for better connection speeds (and of corse StarOffice!). Or about SlashDot subscribers. Truth is that Linux users (curently) arent' cheap, they are just very educated, and know what not to waste their money on. Give them a product worth paying for and they WILL pay for it.
(of course that meens producing quality product and such, most of the corporate world seems to be of the notion that if you advertise something enough the sheeple will buy it)
"Home users are cheap," he said. "At $49.95, you're going to have to sell a whole lot of (copies) to make it in the market."
Totaly out of context. This has as much to do with Windows as it does with Linux. Home users don't have 3 grand to blow on an acounting package, but last I checked Intuit was doing OK.
"The Linux operating system, and other "open source" alternatives written by devoted bands of volunteer programmers, would be available to anyone for the cost of a download. But today, Windows is still running on the vast majority of PCs. So what happened?"
So what is OS X?
Nah, no one uses Mac...
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Way to shoot yourself in the foot, dumbass. I'll bet that gets you *lots* of consumer interest right there. Or maybe that's a subtle twist of the knife by MSNBC. Grr.
Computers in general were just for geeks 20 years ago. Well, geeks, and businesses that wanted to manage information they didn't even know they had in ways they didn't even know were possible. Now, you can't get away from the things - much as you might want to.
I don't know about any of you folks, but I'm getting sick of the dismissive connotations of "geek." Maybe I'm just a little sensative, but it seems to me that the geek mindset has made more lasting, permanent contributions to the state of the everyday world in general than any other clique - curiousity, tenacatity, a ravenous hunger to know how things work and to make them better for anyone who cares.
Caveman geeks made the wheel.
GMFTatsujin
Microsoft holds the top spot for the simple reason that you need dozens if not hundreds of NT machines to serve even a moderately-sized site. I've had the fun chore of moving a large website from a broken NT server farm to a single Linux or UNIX machine.
Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence
A quick search for linux, windows, and open source at msnbc reveals plenty of links that are anti-MS or pro-open source.
w .msnbc.com/news/770299.aspn ews/752115.aspa spw ww.msnbc.com/news/743635.asp
http://www.msnbc.com/news/751496.asp
http://ww
http://www.msnbc.com/
http://www.msnbc.com/news/739406.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/747455.asp
http://
It's a little simple-minded to think that just because MS is part of MS-NBC that their journalistic integrity is out the window and biases will be in every article. It's also more than a little hypocritical to be pointing fingers while reading Slashdot, which is probably the most biased news source on the net (it *is* supposed to be *News* for Nerds right?).
In order to compound the retardation, it seems like hardly anyone read the article. He's talking entirely about linux on the desktop, and more specifically the fact that linux on the desktop has not caught on.
He cites the fact that linux is playing catch-up with applications as the main reason: "But Linux software is getting better -- and now more closely mimics the Windows world that the vast majority of PC users are accustomed to." He continues by giving examples of other great OSS for linux and how it is worthy to compete with MS products. He also explains the problems with MS' proprietary formats, and how app developers have an uphill battle. He never said linux is dead. He never even said linux on the desktop as dead. It's not that I agree with the guy on all points, but it's hardly the biased tripe people are making it out to be.
I think the only bias is with slashdot. The slant that was given to this story by the submitter, relayed by slashdot, and supported by the replies I read here is pretty stupid, and frankly is getting old. This is the kind of crap that brands the OSS community with the term 'zealot'.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Thats like actually believing a story posted on Linux Weekly News (http://www.lwn.net) about Microsoft going bust or somthing - Microsoft partly owns MSNBC so they are bound to start spreading the old FUD onto them at some point or other!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
But what about what Ransom Love said in his recent /. interview?
Every Linux provider has spent far more on promoting Linux than they have ever received.
Millions of dollars have been spent in recruiting applications, advertising, and tradeshows to promote Linux
The actual development cost of producing a product is only about 20-30%; marketing, sales and support constitute the majority.
Surely a big important man like Love couldn't be WRONG about somthing like this? </sarcasim>
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
"Dead" in this case means that there's little point of differentiation so why not go with the choice that will offer you fewer headaches?
When the Amiga was dying a painful death in the early 1990s (and, yes, I know, it isn't completely dead in some corners), developers could have been focusing on making interesting and distinctive applications and games. Instead, there was a lot of angst about the PC being mainstream and consoles having superior games. The result was that developers kept trying to clone things already available on other systems, and the Amiga ended up looking even more derivative and sad. But many Amiga owners didn't see it that way. They thought "Wow! Look! My Amiga can play a clone of some old game just as well as a PC can!."
Developers for Linux have spent much time and effort trying to catch up to what Microsoft developed years ago. I know, Microsoft didn't invent those things, but that's not the issue. So now we have people all excited about KDE and various open office suites, and it just looks like yesterday's news, and they _still_ don't feel as polished as what you get with Windows 2000. And then there are the people who like to say you don't need desktop environments, just use bash, and that you don't need an office suite, just use Emacs, but somehow that isn't compelling to most people, even most developers.
The bottom line is that Windows and Linux are two flavors of the same thing. Why get all idealistic and force yourself to use The Gimp instead of Photoshop? There's no reason to. Misguided idealism doesn't count. But if Linux really *were* something drastically and radically better than Windows, and not just in a hard to defined techie sense, then that would be a different story.
I think it's time to finally put this myth to rest. The myth goes something like:
Linux is too hard for the average person to use and therefor it hasn't cut into Microsoft's marketshare.
If that logic were indeed the reason why Linux wasn't cutting into Microsoft's share, it would seem quite reasonable that apple should have long ago started cutting a big hole in Microsoft market share. Guess what! They haven't, and it's not because of the fundamental qualities of their operating system.
There are a lot of factors that keeps competing market share to a minimum. Since 90+% of the market runs windows it is not worth the effort involved for most developers to develop ports for Linux (except in the server market where Linux owns enough market share to make it valuable to put their resources there).
Furthermore, the market share figures are somewhat obscured by the nature of Linux. I buy a computer and it comes with Windows pre-installed, so chalk one more computer up to the Windows camp. Then I get it home, I download a Linux ISO, and install that instead. So how does that figure in? What if I go buy a copy of some knock off RedHat clone for $2 at a hamfest and install it? Is that counted into Linux market share?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Actually, the article, if fully read, is very fair. If you skim through it, it looks unfair. And the title "Whatever Happened to Linux" is a bit misleading as well...
MSNBC's had that happen before , especially during the antitrust trial. The headlines would be something like "Microsoft found not guilty", while the actual article itself would say "Microsoft found guilty".
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I'll keep this short, so I can get back to what my company actually DOES pay me for...
/. is just that.
A 'troll' is a post designed to wind up other people and attract many replies for the sake of attracting many replies.
Pretty much sums up a post about Linux Zealotry being a mask for the fears of Linux users about their dying operating system on
P.S.-->Chiefly British variant of 'furor'. 'variant' implying that furore is a minority subset, and that furor is more widely used.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Actually, things couldn't be better. Unless you're Microsoft...
;)
Jennifer E. Elaan wrote:
> This is really starting to sound like certain
> other operating systems. Every month or two
> somebody declares Linux dead. While the most
> obvious is OS/2, that one DID finally die in the
> end, but took 6 or 7 years to do so. And there
> is STILL a couple projects to reimplement it, so
> the death seems to be the fault of closed-source
> software.
But OS/2 isn't completely dead. There are still new versions being made. There are new programs coming out for it. And a few people even still use it.
> Contrast also with Apple.
Apple died. Apple was resurrected. Now Apple is launching itself at Microsoft's jugular. All is right with the world.
> it's not the number but the derivative (rate of
> change) that you have to look at, in order to
> declare an operating system dead.
Very insightful.
> By this logic, Linux is still kicking, but
> Windows is dead, since Windows is no longer
> really increasing in use (they still have sales,
> but they're almost all "upgrade" sales, hence
> the attempted change of license methods).
Oh, Linux is very much alive and kicking. It's heroism in barring Microsoft from getting a monopoly in the server-space is to be highly praised. It makes a great embedded OS, I love it on my Zaurus. And make no mistake, Linux will follow Apple to the desktop, now that Apple has shown the way.
> And, somebody please explain, HOW do you kill an
> open-source work? People like me will always
> tinker with it, because it's FUN.
It can't be killed. Neither can some proprietary software long thought dead, if Netscape (and its open source partner Mozilla), Word Perfect, Lotus 123, and others are any indication. You can buy a computer now with one of the latter two preinstalled. As for Netscape and Mozilla, they and the other browsers just won 1.3 percent of the browser market back from Microsoft!!!
The market, thanks to Microsoft's greed and cruelty, is really hungry right now for alternatives to Microsoft in any and all markets. Products once thought dead are coming back to life, and new ones are coming out of the woodwork. ALL of Microsoft's monopolies can be taken away, by the consumer, right now! Everything is up for grabs, and I wouldn't count even Be OS or OS/2 out now, if they still have something to offer somebody.
Godzilla 2000, the Dreaded God!
The battle for Earth's future has begun!
The future Millenium threatens.
(From my lyrics to Godzilla's theme from "Godzilla 2000 Millenium")
Really, I wonder about the guy that submitted this story. This is a GOOD thing for Linux. In that it honestly reports the current state of affiars:
It's great in the server market, it has a way to go in the desktop market, the hype has died down, the stocks fell, but a good product continues to be developed.
If I were running a business and I read that article it would spark interest, not turn me away.
Frankly I thought it was sincere and balanced coverage. But I guess since it didn't get on its knees and pray to the mighty gods of Opensource, it will be read as FUD here. (Though, judging from the other posts, I don't think it was read at all)
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
In order to submit a letter to an editor, you need an editor. Reading this headline and comment on /. then reading the article is proof positive there is none (editors) to be found around here.
The original article was actually Linux positive.
And the poor sod that wrote it are now unindated with hate mail from L-User's across the globe.
A shame, and very bad for linux advocacy.
The MSNBC headline "So whatever happened to Linux?" _could_ be read to imply Linux is among the missing-in-action, or it could be read quite differently. Anyway, the article itself is pretty well-balanced and accurate about the big picture: Linux is doing quite well in the server market, not so well on the desktop, but there's hope even there. (It also gets a lot of details wrong - but news services always do...)
The slashdot headline & first sentence are utterly inaccurate - the article definitely doesn't say Linux is dead or failed.
So I guess I have to let you in on a secret I learned when I was about 10 years old - headlines are written by dolts who didn't read the whole article. Even if they had, the headline is too short for accuracy, and even if the whole story would fit in 5 words they'll still go for catchy over accurate. If you want to find out what's happening, read the whole article. If you want distorted, oversimplified, and often just plain wrong slogans written by marketdroids, just read the headlines - or listen to the TV news, it's about the same thing.
The article is misinformed, but it is nowhere near the hatchet job implied by the lead. I wonder if posting an exaggeration like that does more harm than good, not only in some loss of credibility, but in giving the original article the inflamed click-throughs of /. readers? This article would not have been read by nearly so many people if the lead here were not so, how to put it? Inflammitory. Does this in itself hurt the Free Software/open source cause?
That was a rhetorical question...
...will point to this time and say "2002 was the year Microsoft lost the war."
Why will they say this?
But then again, I still don't understand why SQL Server is selling so well when the same codebase can be obtained for free from linux.sybase.com.
Still, free software is a flood that is rising around Microsoft, and Microsoft is busy trying to build something that floats. It is unlikely that they will succeed, given the importance of their legacy support.
There was also a 'crack' in there about how Linux has been command-line driven until relatively recently. THAT is FUD. Linux graphical interfaces have been under active development for quite some time now. Linux didn't suddenly get X or KDE or Gnome or even Motif just yesterday.
Even before KDE/GNOME, there were some reasonable attempts at ease of use sysadmin tools.
They're still slipping some poison in with the sugar.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"Microsoft is hoping to reboot Windows sales by leading the charge toward the Tablet PC "
Well if Windows is involved - REBOOTS will most definately be involved too!
- Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov - Who? What are you reporting here?
- Slashdot censorship - Right, like that'll get posted. Probably just more whining about supposed moderation unfairness. Whatever.
- Is fetus a child? - Grammatically incorrect and not exactly the kind of topic for Slashdot. If you want an abortion debate, go elsewhere.
- Just paid for a 2 months Kuro5hin subscription - So? Do I care? I'm very happy for you.
Forgive me for not feeling sorry that those got rejected.Al Qaeda has ninjas!
When the Microsoft accounting scandal breaks, as it will eventually, there'll hopefully be very little more of this crap.
I just hope you're all in money market funds in your 401K. DOW to 5000, Nasdaq to 700, that's my guess.
Edith Keeler Must Die
No, no... it's correct, mostly. It wasn't meant to be "Finnish college student" but rather "finishing school student."
The only question is which finishing school... Google lists several: The Finishing School, Miss Vera's Finishing School, En Vogue, P.A.F, etc.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
then that means that i must be in heaven!
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Nah, most people are scared of Linux because it's the Linux users that lynch them when they unleash the latest mail virus/trojan onto the company LAN.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...for me to POOP on!
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Here's my letter to the MSNBC author suggesting different interpretation / conclusions from his analysis.
Dear Mr Schoen,
A few notes on your column regarding the absence of Linux presence (at a recent tech expo in nyc? the context / event was not clearly named).
First I'd like to note different versions of a few of the statistics you present.
The statement that Windows (NT/2k/XP) servers are the largest server installed base: That is probably true if you look at number of licenses or CPUs. However if you look at a more meaningful number like total computing or transaction capacity running under Unix / Linux I think the number rather changes.
Win32 has it's best penetration in small organization and departmental applications. Windows does not scale well past 16 cpu SMP or clusters beyond a few dozen nodes. Therefor virtually all very large servers run Unix, which runs in SMP beyond 64 processors and can aggregate a thousand or more processors into supercomputers or large clusters.
Linux still lags behind the vendor-based unix platforms (IBM, HP, Sun), but is already considerably more capable of high-end scaling than MS's offerings, and is penetrating that market at a pace which reflects it's strengths (and weaknesses).
It is not news that Microsoft has aggressivly targetted both Unix and Linux in the data center. And for all I can see they are not winning anywhere near as often as they would like. IBM has won a number of very large accounts with AIX / Linux in direct competition with MS. This is pointed to in your own statement "Linux server sales jumped by more than 50 percent to $400 million, with IBM leading"
Part of the reason for that is that many Unix shops are able to deploy less-expensive Linux servers where priorly they were locked into proprietary RISC hardware running vendor-based Unix. However they *had* invested in platforms with fundamentally open programming interfaces.
The point here is that these savings are exactly realizable by organizations which had initially invested in open-platform investments. Merril Lynch recently announced a conversion of internal applications from Unix to Linux, citing the lower cost of maintaining applications within the opensource framework of Linux.
The key point here is that while porting applications between proprietary Unix versions (e.g. HP, IBM, Sun) is relatively expensive compared to standardizing on Linux, Windows simply doesn't play in that equation in a meaninful way. Microsoft is working very hard to counter this equation, but the economics don't work in their favor in the data center.
It is simply not meaningful today to compare market penetration from Desktop to Enterprise in either tech or economic terms. The market environments of servers at application, database, web and department are all markedly different. MS has excellentpenetration at the departmental level and of course the Desktop, but they have yet to translate this into serious penetration in any of the other three.
Those of us who do adopt linux on the desktop (I have been using Unix for professional / technical / server computation for 10 years) continue to marvel at the low reliability expectations of Win32 desktop users. Yes things are a lot better than win 3.1 / 95 / 98 days when a networked workstation could not be counted on to stay up for a working day.
NT and Win2k have improved on that record, however they are still a far sight behind Linux in reliability. I run Linux on a late-model laptop (which is probably Linux's toughest challenge, given that virtually no vendors support Linux on these systems, due to the low market share / returns to investment). My experience remains that I have better stability than I get with Win2k Pro
Sure I'm not the average user. My work is either technical or programming and the tools that work best for me are from the same domain as the servers which I run, deploy and support. And I'm not religious about this. As long as end-users have an easier time with proprietary systems they will (and should) stick with them.
However I also know that when the New YorkTimes runs anarticle on the relative compatibility, ease of use and low cost ($50 supported) of Open Office (On win32 or Linux) compared with $600+ for MS Office. I think it's fair to say that Opensource is beginning to competing with MS on the desktop. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/20/technology/circu its/20STAT.html
Many observers equate Open Source software with Linux, or the Free Software Foundation, or GPL. In fact the concept of OSS is probably older than Unix but Unix and the original Arpanet / Internet were the substantive proving grounds for these concepts. Today this has paid off in an infrastructure potent enough that it can develop cheap, reliable open systems that also run in the closed platforms.
How the race will play out remains to be seen, however if you are going to write about the subject I think it's best to look at all the elements of the market not just the ones which bolster your preferred outcome.
Home
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Oh no! First Apple, and now Linux! What will we do?
Assuming that Linux's death is as premature as Apple's, I'd say that there are many many years of using Linux ahead of us.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
the article hits the nail on the head on alot of things, especially about Linux on the desktop being mainly for geeks.
Listen, I don't care how many of your friends run Linux or how long you have or whether or not you consider yourself a geek. Linux is STILL, barring any serious work on the matter in the short term, an OS for people who like to customize, toodle, and otherwise explore & learn about their computers. People who like to compile source & install their own programs without a wizard. People who like being able to configure their shell.
It's been said here before, but you-all need to wake up & smell the ozone. 90% of people just want to turn on their machine and get something done. Many find computers foreign & scary. Most hate having to read anything before using a program. Most feel that if it's not self-explanatory it's not worth it.
I run Linux at home, though I'm a user, not a programmer. Though parts are very user-friendly much of it isn't and needs to be fixed. Linux is losing on the desktop because the geeks don't feel it's worthwhile to stick training wheels on Linux -- it's boring and takes time that could be used adding support for some feature we know is more worthwhile but doesn't matter to John & Jane Computeruser. Things like wizards, installation scripts that do ./configure / make / make install for you, decent documentation, etc. The community standards for user accessability are fine for us geeks, but far too high for Mom & Dad.
It's a serious tension point for Linux -- how do the geeks, as developers, maintain the freedom of all the customization of Linux and yet create add-ons that make newbies comfortable? KDE3 is a good step. Mandrake Linux is a good step. But more definitely needs to be done, and if it is to be done it'll have to be on individual geek time, because unlike the competition they're not sitting on a pile of cash.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
This is a classic fencing tactic called feinting: you pretend that your attack is in one place (on the PR front) and cause your opponent to react, thus opening them up for an attack in another place (the Technology front). We're very good at generating our own PR. Now we have to respond to the technology threat of Palladium, or kiss all compatibility with the Microsoft world (even at the web and email level) goodbye.
Finding God in a Dog
Now that it's dead, they have no hope of killing it off - sort of a "dawn of the dead" scenario. Linux, the ghoul os. You might kill it, but it keeps coming back, like Jason in Friday the 13th.
It's dead, and it still works - didn't even miss a beat. Beat that, MSNBullshit!
It's just like somone spapping your picture, pasting it on a White Supremacy poster and spreading it around town. A lot of people are just gonna read the headline without considering the source.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Yes, Slashdot is Taco's project, the crew can do as they like, blah... but it's self-proclamedly a news site. If they don't realize that credibility is important, it's going to bite them in the long run. I'm looking for something better than a London tabloid, and it's possible that at present Slashdot is just barely better -- in choice of topics if nothing else. But when it clearly isn't (I think the day isn't far) I'll go away. I think many have done that already.
"With some 27 percent of the market, Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers, supplanting the decades-old operating system UNIX; Microsoft holds the top spot. "
I imagine most of these "servers" are domain controllers and the like, it's funny how they forgot to include Apache statistics, most of which I'm assuming run on *nix (is there really that large of a statistic that run Apache on Windows?)
Apache - 56.21%
Microsoft - 31.68%
Zeus - 2.26%
iPlanet - 2.19%
http://www.netcraft.com/Survey/
Nah. A little bit of sugar just makes it easier for the poison to go down.
Positive truths do not excuse negative lies. The article perpetrates general Unix misconceptions.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Your complaining about everyone elses fear of learning all of us geeks have the same problem. How meny of us see the "check engine" like come on in our car and just hand it over to the mechanic. Everyone here thinks they are so much better then everyone else cause they remeber what ps -ax does.
You assume people need to adapt their life to technology. WRONG, it is that philosopy that keeps linux from making it into heavy home use. Technology should adapt to people not the other way around.
Lots of people have computers only as a fancy typewriter and a websurfing device. They don't want or need to recompile kernals and write custom drivers. They want a stable, easy to use system. Windows is stable enough for the so certianly linux would be. Learning all the linux commands would be a waste of their time. They need an easy to use interface, and it has been our refusal to give them one the keeps M$ on top.
We help M$ every time we say "GUIs are dumb consol is the only way." People have lives and spend time on their hobbies, woodworking, old cars, gardening, whatever. They don't spend time figuring out better ways to use M$Word, they use Word because it is mostly self explainitory.
Why do you defend the consol when it is what keeps the masses from joining us? Do you hate the masses? Is you ego that big that you refuse to help anyone that won't immediately jump to your cause? I tire of all you people thinking your so smart because of your consol, it is what holds linux from the mainstream.
Either your egos go, or linux will never truely hit the big time. It will have a place but only a small one.
Capitalism: unequal distribution of wealth
Socialism: equal distribution of poverty
But there is more to Linux than the desktop. Linux is a great server OS and has been growing in market share. Combined with Apache, it's a great web-server platform that you can get FREE. As an embeded OS, Linux is doing great too. How much more do you think a TiVo would cost if they had to pay MS to do stuff for them? Not only that, they'd (probably) need better hardware to do the exact same thing. By using Linux on a platform that was already supported, they were able to save tons of time and money.
And let's not forget that Linux started as a hobbiest OS, and it has succeded greatly at this. I use, many other hobbiests do. It would cost a fortune to get some of the things Linux and the GNU project give me for free (development tools for every language, ludicrious ammounts of customizability) for Win 2k or XP.
Last of all, Linux is definatly improving. I've only been using it for a year or two and it is getting much better. But I still use Win 2k on my Windows box. Why? That's how I can support dual processors. And for me, XP has nothing new in it except it's anti-copying stuff which is a step BACK. I don't think that Windows is getting much better for me, do you? XP is what, 4 or 5 years newer, an there is no new great thing that I should get it for? Many people still use 2k very happily. How many people still use a version of Linux from 4 to 5 years ago because they see nothing out now that's any good? If they use that old version, it's on old hardware or because the computer hasn't been rebooted since '98, not because nothing in Linux has improved. Sure there are exceptions to this but lets face it. Linux is a dramatic success in the three areas that (IMHO) it focuses on: server, embeded, and hobbiest.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It doesn't rush. It doesn't jump up and hold a big marketing flash because Linux XP is out. For the ones briefly looking at it, it appears standing still.
But it doesn't. In fact it's catching up, because more and more program hit the "feature wall". The program is basicly "done". There's only so much an e-mail client can do. An irc client. An IM client. A browser. A wordprocessor. A spreadsheet. And so on. There's no reason to go bananas over getting a feature commercial software already has, it's nothing new and edgepushing about it. But in the end people look at their wallet and pick one of three:
1) Buy commercial software
2) Illegally copy commercial software
3) Copy free software
...not nessecerrily in that order. 2) is a lost case, they'll copy the best and most expensive program out there anyway. Those who choose between 1) and 3) are the target group for linux. The problem is the "value" of having what everybody else has, despite the feature value.
Linux's way to the desktop is companies. Home users won't start fiddling with a new OS on their own. Companies, on the other hand, mainly needs something that works internally (and Windows machines for something that comes from the outside and just won't work with Linux).
For what I did last summer (still under education here), a Linux desktop with OpenOffice would have been enough. Add Evolution and Moz^H^H^H Opera (sorry Mozilla team) and my boss's machine would be done (no network sharing, mainly a mech shop, any simple spreadsheet, email and office suite would be sufficent.) He just doesn't know it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Bzzt. Wrong. Did we even read the *same article*? Your "review" is a complete mischaracterization of the article; we don't need more FUD there, Chief.
The article merely noted that Linux was hyped to death for the desktop and hasn't made the huge splash there that many expected it to. Article says that corporate interest in Linux is *growing* and that it's making inroads to the consumer desktop with Wally World's cheap boxen.
It does not give little credit to Linux, or say anything about "open source" (or Linux) failing as an operating system. BTW, "open source" is not an operating system; it's a class of software.
The only one drawing conclusions here seems to be *you*. Try to acquire some reading comprehension skills before spouting off; and Taco - WTF made this a worthy submission?
For those of you who keep spazzing about how /. ain't bein' properly journalistic and all...here's a clue:
I'd say the architects of this bit of propaganda are rather on the sophisticated side. They distract you with a few dishonest suggestions about the progress of Linux and its competition with Winodws, but the real news is their blatant whitewashing of Microsoft's monopolistic practices (and their conviction in federal court).
The news is that there is no "competition" in the PC OS space because MS has a monopoly.
I hope someone saves this article. Quite often the congolmerate-owned news media is unethical in what they don't print, but this is a good example of the opposite. Someday there might be a chance to debate the de-regulation of the networks in Congress (I know, wishful thinking), and such evidence will be important.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Read the article, dumbshit. Despite the /. spin in the summary, it's actually a pretty pro-Linux article.
Groovy, thanks. Sounds interesting, I should do some reading. :P
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Expect an equally biased viewpoint pro Open Source from CNN-Time-Warner-Netscape tomorrow that practically glows with regards to Open Source. Note the MS part of MSNBC... haven't any of you noticed how CNN reports on EVERY bug report in XP/IE/IIS and how equally quiet MSNBC is at the same time?
Pretty biased reporting all around, I'd say.
I'll stick to The Register *G*.
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
The big problem with KDE and Gnome right now is that they're still not ready for prime time. I used them both for a bit and was really annoyed at how hard it was not only to find configuration options, but at how unrefined it felt. (Note: The version I used came with Redhat 6... or maybe 6.2. I'm not claiming my info's up to date. I know new versions of both are out now.)
This is not an attack on those programs, it's a criticism. If the average user ever has to get to a command prompt, then it fails.
I'm not saying they're unusuable, I'm saying that they need some more evolution in order to reach the mass 'I bought my computer at Gateway' market. Lots of people are quick to point out what Windows does wrong, not enough are examining what they did right.
There are lots of things about Windows that are comforting to a new computer user. For example, ever see this message: "These are system files, you really don't want to play around in here." It's an annoyance to advanced users, but to a new user it's comfort. "Oh, Windows won't let me break it by accident."
Anyhoo, I can imagine I'm going to burn karma over these comments. Again I'll say that I'm not saying "MS good Linux bad", I'm just saying that it's still a little behind.
"Derp de derp."
I simply provided examples of other articles, it does not mean my articles are better than the ones getting posted here. What I am saying is that the articles that do get posted somehow look more biased against MS basically.
Oh well.
And my article about Sakharov was submitted under an appropriate section of Slashdot - features and enlightment, I wanted to enlighten you on something. Sorry
You can't handle the truth.
Is that REALLY the name, or just another generic term? So it's a Technology Personal Computer Exposition? Duh. ;)
Maybe we're just stupid here in the midwest for giving things meaningful, non-generic names. :) :P
I forget sometimes when it snows an inch on the east coast all of a sudden the whole country is in peril. I guess I should have known it was THE Tech PC Expo. It's in NY, of course.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Yes, but CmdrTaco is an editor of /. The definition of editor as it applies in this case is:
a person who prepares, superintends, revises, and corrects a book, magazine, or newspaper, etc., for publication
/. falls under "etc." It is their responsibility to ensure that the news they post is at least in the ballpark of being correct. More now than ever, because they have people PAYING to view this content. If I laid down money to see this sort of tripe, I would be pissed. Wouldn't you?
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Everything you mentioned as a weakness of Linux goes double in Windows 2000. IIS still has holes that MS hasn't patched, and there are far too many people running IIS who haven't applied the necessary patches that do exist. I can think of vulnerabilities in W2K FTP, W2K DNS, W2K Telnet, etc. etc. etc.
.NET Server to know whether or not MS has fixed the problem in their new server OS. I hope they do, because most W2K Server installations are ticking time bombs.
You speak of how bad root is...most W2K servers are locally booted with the Administrator account, and most services run with the W2K System account, which is just as bad as running as Administrator.
W2K has all the vulnerabilities you speak of and more...because there are far more people developing worms, virii and whatnot for W2K. I don't know enough about
I know these things...I'm an MCSE.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
They give some harsh articles about Microsoft, but they also publish Microsoft press releases almost verbatim, and they give some happy Microsoft articles as well. It's clear that the editorial staff doesn't shy away from throwing barbs at Microsoft, but they are far less harsh than say, The Register and Slashdot.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I thought I was BSD that was dead.
Liberty uber alles.
Go take a look at what most web servers on the net are running. Notice the big "MS" in front of NBC
;)
First, I fail to see how the parent post is troll...
After all, not only has Linux gone mainstream, but so apparently have the Linux is Dying trolls
Acutally, I think that the Linux Vendors are dying-- and it does not take much economics knowledge to see that the current situation is unsustainable. However, I think that what will replace it (too bad it does not look like UnitedLinux is up to the task-- but it is the first step in that process) is an industry standard distrubution freely available and maintained by a large variety of industry partners. So Linux is not dying, just the Linux industry will have to change.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Whatever. :) As to the Sakharov thing, my point there was that just submitting a title with someone's name isn't a good title at all. What's the story about? Why should I read it? They probably wouldn't let a story through with just the title "Linus Torvalds," either. Gotta give out more info in the title. Also, I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but Enlightenment is a Window Manager for X, hence the topic . . .
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Headline: "So whatever happened to Linux?"
u s
First Sentence, Paragraph 2: "LINUX HASN'T gone away."
some 40 percent said they were either using or testing Linux
With some 27 percent of the market, Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers
Linux server sales jumped by more than 50 percent to $400 million, with IBM leading the pack.
WalMart recently began selling a house brand PC at rock bottom prices -- available with Linux for the thriftiest PC buyers.
Well, there you have it. What was the point of this article again?
purveyors of Linux software and support have fallen back to earth -- along with their stocks.
Yes, well we should certainly expect Linux stocks to buck the trend and grow 40% a year while the rest of the market drops.
managers of large corporate technology departments.
Oh, yes. Those forward-thinking, risk-taking, visionaries of the business world. They'd all be using Linux by now, but they had to go to a meeting.
Until recently, interacting with Linux was almost entirely text-driven
Wasn't X written back in the 70s? So Jimmy Carter was President until recently too, right?
But adopters of Linux still face hurdles living in a Microsoft world.
rofl A Microsoft world...
Oh, memorandum for "journalists"
Hyphenated buzzwords such as:
industry-dominant
mainframe-like
cost-conscio
and the obligatory but thankfully absent
memory-hungry
make the article sound like it was written by an idiot. They do not sound hip, and they are poor substitutes for good grammar, despite what your soccer-mom readership tells you.
They distract readers from the point of your article like someone dropping an industrial dishwashing machine down four flights of stairs would distract players in a chess game.
What is it again? First they ignore you...
Good point. Supposed industry experts have been saying Apple will be out of business in 6 months every 6 months since the late 70's.
Microsoft Finally Goes Off Deep End in Response to Fierce Competitor Linux
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Its just more stuff cranked out of the M$ FUD machine and is full of fallacies and innacuracies.
My favorite quote:
With some 27 percent of the market, Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers, supplanting the decades-old operating system UNIX; Microsoft holds the top spot.
Um, HELLO? Linux *IS* UNIX, or a form of it anyway.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Seriously, sales of WinXP are way below target projections, revenues are drying up, if it wasn't for Win2K and OfficeXP than Bill G would have to apply for welfare in Redmond.
....
Note the key word is "sales".
How much do we make for a free download - zilch.
How much do we make for a cheapbytes - $2 (ok, $0.02 profit)
How much do we make for a regular sale - maybe $30.
Meanwhile MSFT charges $200 to $1000, depending on the bundle.
So if I sold 50000 Linux boxen, with 5000 clean distro copies (10 being net copied or free for every sale), I get (5000 x $30) + (5000 x $2) + (40000 x $0) = $150000 + $10000 + $0 = $160000 total.
And if I sell the same Win boxen, I get 25000 WinXP Pro at $500 + 15000 Win XP at $200 + 10000 Win2K Pro at $200 = $12500000 + $3000000 + $2000000 = $17500000 or $17.5 million
Therefore, even though I sold the same number of boxen with OS on it, MSFT gets 99 percent of the sales dollars and Linux gets 1 percent of the sales dollars.
Therefore, everyone is buying MSFT.
But wait! We actually sold the SAME NUMBER of Linux boxen as Win boxen!
Don't trust statistics and sales figures unless you have an MBA or took third level Statistics and Sales courses
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
"Until recently, interacting with Linux was almost entirely text-driven -- much like Windows' precursor, DOS. So converting meant learning an arcane vocabulary of computerese to give the PC even the simplest commands."
I installed redhat without X b/c I only use SSH to connect to my two linux servers. And "arcane vocabulary of computerese" HAHAHA thats a good one... any that uses linux for what it is good for would probably disagree that it is arcane computerese.
I think the simplicity of a none-GUI makes it much easier to do that things you need to do maintenance wise to servers, etc.
I telneted in over the com port... some process in the network had causing the BSD system to slow down to a 'project on the back burner' speed, after killing the 'we must write software M$ can rip off' process evrything started to work again
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Taco's just trying to stir up the hornets' nest again. I mean really, how much credibility does M$NBC have reporting on a topic such as Linux? For that matter, how much credibility does M$NBC have (.)
-- Probability does not dismiss possibility --
"If you know your claims are uninformed bullshit, then don't make them."
If you can't refute my claims, then don't reply to me.
"Derp de derp."
is Linux in embedded devices. I have a Tivo at home which runs, if I have read correctly, a modified version of Linux. The PS/2 also runs a modified version of Linux (please correct me if
I'm wrong on this). Linux provides those considering building devices such as consoles and PVRs a reliable and scalable operating system that can be adapted to many environments. This allows developers to come up with interesting new devices (such as the Tivo) without paying the Microsoft tax, both financially for licensing and also in terms of the performance and reliability issues that arise when you try to shoehorn a desktop OS into an embedded device.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Read The Linked Article!
geesh!
I have no troubles calling MS or MSNBC a bunch of muckracking FUD spreaders, if it can be backed up. As far as this article goes, too many people read the biased post, ignored the article and started posting the usual anti-MS rants.
The article gave credit where it is due, serverside. As for the desktop, the article stated it much as it is; getting better, but still lacking.
The idea of open source might have been derided, but the accomplishments seem to have been stated fairly close to the truth.
IMO, of course.
Honestly, I didn't think the article was nearly as inflamatory as slashdot indicated. Linux HASNT caught on as much as the mainstream press expected, and the average person DOENSN'T know what ever happened to it. The article pretty much just says it as it is. No where in there does it say that Linux is dead.
Jeremy
There's a big difference in clock speed, yes, but an 850mhz Duron is going to perform more like a 950mhz-1ghz Celeron, so it's not an entirely unfair comparison in that respect. (see this comparison for benchmarks comparing the duron 1200 to the celeron 1300 - yeah, an 850 Duron won't outperform a 1.3 celeron, but it's not exactly a landslide in the Celeron's direction either)
The real difference hardware-wise between these two is the hard drive. The Windows computer - 40g to the Lindows box's 10g - this matters a lot more than a few Mhz, IMHO!
Still, for many end users, the 10g is fine, and the extra $$$ they save is a big deal to them.
The Free desktop that Just Works
"How can you make such a strong criticism of KDE or GNOME when you admit you're uninformed?"
Because it was so bad that I went back to Windows 2000.
My point was not to criticize particulars of it, but rather to point out they should be looking at what MS did right and take notes. It's not perfect. They need more evolution in the direction that would make it more attractive to new computer users. That's a valid comment and I'm not taking it back just because I'm a version behind.
If I, somebody who knows Windows backwards and forwards and can support people over the phone with it, has trouble picking up KDE and using it, then it needs some serious design work. I'm not talking bug fixes here.
"Derp de derp."
Every month they compile various statistics. Just below the below the top queries on the left side is a pie chart showing OS used to access Google. I think they're a big enough site, well visited by the entire spectrum of internet users, so their sample is probably close to represenative.
For May 2002:
46% - Windows 98
18% - Windows 2000
14% - Windows XP
7% - Windows NT
5% - Windows 95
4% - Mac
1% - Linux
5% - Other
Win98 is by far the largest segment of users. WinNT is about the same age, yet has a very small percentage. My interpretation: businesses have upgraded at a far higher rate than home users, accounting for most of the Win2K. The Mac & Linux shares are pretty stable from month to month.
And despite being even less user friendly than Linux, Microsoft has managed to force almost every PC buyer to acquire a copy of their operating system. Which only goes to show that user friendliness and marketshare have little to do with one another.
But Linux software is getting better -- and now more closely mimics the Windows world that the vast majority of PC users are accustomed to.
It never seems to occur to people that Linux users like their systems to be different. Do we all drive one kind of car? Do we all live in one kind of house? Do we all eat only at chain food stores? Why should operating systems be like the USSR, centrally planned and only coming out in one model?
We need an open market in operating systems, and that means that the courts and regulations need to curb Microsoft's (understandable and natural) monopolistic tendencies, even if that costs the consumer a little time and money in the short run.
While this article does say some odd things (unix outdated etc, etc ...) I would say over all it is not that bad. All it is saying is that Linux after much hype has not done that well on the desktop. Can anyone argue with that, I think we all know that it has not done that good. The article does say though that it is doing well in server space and has much backing in the area. I would say before jumping on the title of this article and the MS part of MSNBC read the article and see that it is just not that bad ...
man
No manual entry for
Look, I don't see why everyone is so hung up on the /. summary being, I don't know, accurate or something. I mean, have you seen the post count on this baby? Instead of criticizing CT for posting this flamebait story with little or no value that doesn't tell any of us anything we didn't know (gee, Windows is kicking ass on the desktop...), we should thank him for continuing to earn the banner hits. Woo hoo, big Internet cash here we come!
/. doesn't have profit sharing for it's members? Nevermind...
Oh wait,
My other
worth noting that they've fixed the mistake already. Someone over at msnbc is clearly popping in on /.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Err no I didn't refute them, I said my info was old.
Too bad you're busy telling me to shut up instead of explaining to me what they did to address those issues since the last release.
"Derp de derp."
I would have if the feature list I saw showed any signs of improving the problems I had with it.
I do, however, have a unix seasoned software engineer sitting right behind me right now trying to get Linux running. Getting the network connection to work, for example, is requiring him to go muck around with Linux's prompt. If it takes that just to do a basic network thing (as opposed to a couple of mouse clicks like Windows), then it's not the type of thing that Gateway is going to even be remotely interested in selling to newb customers.
And no, I'm quoting a guy by the name of NanoG. My name is NanoGator.
"Derp de derp."
If you went back to Windows 2000 because KDE or Gnome was so bad and because you couldn't figure out KDE "because of design work" then you are the type of person that just needs to stick with Windows. -- I used myself as an example, I'm not saying that it needs that to sell me on Linux. New computer users feel threatened by having to type in commands. Linux, if it's going to succeed in the desktop world, needs to be more intuitive with the mouse. In the case of KDE and Gnome, at the time I tried them, they needed a lot of work in that area. It didn't appear as though they spent any time worrying about it. They both had the expectation that I would go mucking around with Linux commands in order to administer it. That's a bad expectation for the market I mentioned.
"Linux is not defined by a GUI." -- It needs to be if it's going to enter the desktop market. It needs a graphical interface that's usabililty is on par with Windows or Mac. Until then, it's just not going to be on the desktop.
Does that mean Linux is dead? No. It just mean Linux won't be sold at Gateway any time soon.
The attitude that 'you should stick with Windows' is a horrible, HORRIBLE attitude to have if you want to expand the Linux userbase and dethrone MS.
"Derp de derp."
"I will reply, and dont want to refute, I know and you know, as do 97% of the ppl who read /. that you dont have a friggen clue what you wrote about."
85% of those people were busy trying to flush my statement instead of trying to understand it. It isn't hard to read what I said and say "Ah, what he wants is for the graphical interface to control the whole machine like Mac and Windows does, versus being (for all intents and purposes) a shell."
KDE or Gnome should be able to hide the Linux prompt completely like OSX hides BSD from the user. The average user should not ever need to get to it. If they can get to that point, then they can start selling at places like Gateway. I should be able to install a new driver EASILY through KDE. I should be able to change my network settings via a simple dialog interface, EASILY. It should all be organized so I can find it, EASILY.
If KDE or Gnome fixed that since the version I mentioned, GREAT! Hallelieuia! I just don't know that they did. What I read about was 'font anti-aliasing'. Oh big important upgrade.
"Derp de derp."
Your overly simplified metaphor (which illustrates that you don't get my point, you really should have read my sig) is wrong.
It'd be more like this:
I'm still using Linux because I don't think Windows 95 service release 2 is ready for prime time. Windows 95 service release 1 still requires configuration in the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files to run properly. I doubt they made an interface for it where you can just flip a few switches to make it work.
To which the proper reply should be: "Oh, good news. They did fix that. They did a bunch of work in that area. It may be worth you trying out now."
Instead of this: "FUCKING MORON!! You don't even know what you're talking about since you don't live and breath Windows 95 SR 2. Why don't you just go format your hard drive and then install Windows 95 SR 2 before you try to tell us there's something wrong with it!" Which is basically what you Linux loving dweebs are telling me. Never mind that I'm simply suggesting a little more thought go into the user interface, no no you'd rather attack me because I said there's something Linux could learn from both MS and Apple.
If you're still whinging about my not being 100% up to date before commenting on the incompetance of a product, then just leave it. It is not central to my point. It's responses like these that inspired my signature.
"Derp de derp."
Since when has the primary interest of Linux been to sell to commercial companies?
;)
The book Just for Fun puts across the true meaning of linux: a fun project to hack on. Who gives a sh*t about how well it sells? This is about hacking on your computer, not watching it's price on the stock market.
That's not to say that businesses should not be involved at all; quite the opposite. But using it as a money-making thing just isn't right..
You were expecting a sig?
Uh guys, the MS in MSNBC stands for Microsoft - of course they are going to say "Linux has failed" what do you expect?
" If you don't know the current status, then don't fucking comment on it. "
So what you're saying is that nobody outside of the Linux world has the right to express their concerns about it.
Funny thing is, with all this flaming, not a single person has told me that either KDE or Gnome has fixed it.
"Derp de derp."
"My rather long winded point here is - Posts like NanoGator's make good points, a lot of things are still rough around the edges, but they are being worked on. Instead of getting your panties in a knot when somebody says something needs work, try working on it."
:)
Just wanted to say thanks. I really appreciate that you read what I said and understood my point. Most of the people who participated in this thread were in "MS SUCKS" mode.
I really hope the other AC's in this thread don't represent the community working on Linux. If their attitude sticks, it's hard to imagine Linux being taken seriously as a desktop OS.
I'm going to be a Linux user soon. My job is getting me VMWare so I can install it on Windows 2000. My job, believe it or not, is to design software interfaces. You can imagine my perspective on this now I think.
"Derp de derp."
After having read the slashdot article on the pledge of allegiance and its following comments, and now this article and its comments, I believe the we should be forced to say, "In God", as its obvious that every slashdot reader is a raving zealot.
We hear one cry that Linux isn't superior, that it isn't #1, and that it isn't LOVED BY ALL and we FREAK OUT. I bet that every CEO and CTO that glances at these messages we leave here has second thoughts on implimenting a Linux solution in his company. We appear as madmen. Until we can accept that we're number two we'll always appear as such. Our zealously shines on Slashdot, and we sound like spoiled children. We should be proud that Linux gets as much media attention as it does. It went from being used and developed by Linus to the #2 OS in 10 years! It has Microsoft scared. Sun is promising GNU compatible tools on Solaris. IBM is qualifing all of its server hardware for it. We've got the support from the companies that matter. Now we need to get the support from potential customers. And sounding like raving, religous zealots will not win us points with these people.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Blah blah blah those so called "open source" people promised THE WORLD blah blah blah but Wall Street decides what is successful in this town blah blah blah this ought to make my bosses as MSNBC happy.
Miko O'Sullivan
Leave it to a Microsoft partnered news agency to equate marketshare to success.
I would argue that Linux is a raging success. How else can you explain a software product that costs nothing, generates little direct sales revenue, yet has thousands of developers world-wide supporting it, and is nipping at Microsoft's heels in the server arena?
Does Apple think it's software products are failures? With only about 5% of the desktop market, MSNBC would label Mac OS a failure. I don't use Mac software, but I imagine that Mac users like the software very much.
Software products are tools, and the correct tool should be used for the job. Windows for my mother, Linux for my development/server platform....and a Mac for something or other...i don't know.
I use a Linux desktop machine, and the progress that Linux has made in that arena in the past 5 years is amazing....and it's getting better by the day.
That doesn't sound like a failure to me.
-ted
These are also the same people that say that Windows 2000 (I won't defend 9x) BSOD's, freezes, crashes, and self destructs. If they are having those troubles, they're using some real shitty hardware. (or Realplayer...) I know this for a fact because my office is all running Win2k and it's my job to fix when it breaks. If it was crappy as they say, I wouldn't be near as active on Slashdot. heh.
Even my Compaq laptop can run for a week on Win2k without problems, and that includes heavy use of the Suspend feature.
"Derp de derp."
For number crunching behind a win98 front end and an elitist desktop it's probably alive and well. Embedded systems overall are in decline and since Linux was pushed so hard into the embedded world it's riding the wave down as an embedded operating system.
Well, the "title" has about 5000% more hits than the article itself. And actually, the people that read the entire article, the number would go up to 20000% or more.
So it makes sense. A title is 90% of an artice in terms of public impact. I am positive about this conclusion which you may argue. But I think some will agree.
unfinished: (adj.)
Sorry, but I don't really consider a Micro$oft marketing subdivision as "hard news" site.
/. is just a portal. The "real" news is saying Linux is dead. Funny. I'm typing this on a SuSE box, while I have an MDK machine under this desk (and at home), with a RH laptop next to me and a Gentoo machine behind me.
I don't either, but a ton of people do. If a friend came to me and said that he'd read some article on MS-NBC that said Linux failed and then asked why I still support it, my first answer is to ask what he just said. I'd move on to say "MS-NBC" (with that emphisis). Then ask him if he thought it was REAL news.
Aside, that site is supposed to be the "real" news.
Yea, I guess it's dead. Damn FUD...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.