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More Linux Predictions for 2004
An anonymous reader writes "Experts, shmexperts - it's time for the Linux community's own predictions, felt the editors of LinuxWorld Magazine. Prognostications in their Jan 2004 round-up cover media players ('turning your phone into an iPod will be hot by the end of 2004'), IPOs ('Of course, LinuxCertified, Inc'), and MS ('Microsoft will start an intensive campaign to promote their Longhorn technology as Linux standards compliant') - that last is one from Samba's John Terpstra." The original story was back in November.
Sun and IBM will be considered the biggest Linux players by the end of 2004, and that Linux will be installed on Mac like numbers of corporate desktops (corporate not techy).
I also predict the return of thin-clients to the corporate environment, especially in large outsourcing contracts.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Linux, for me, peaked in usability/reliability in 1999. It's still quite useful, but I began experiencing many more compatibility problems since that point.
I have a video card whose driver is closed. I've got multiple peripherals that are only partially implemented because manufacturers for some reason are reluctant to release information to developers. It's great as-is, don't get me wrong, but participating on the Internet has gotten much harder as everybody decides to go proprietary and tug in different directions.
For example, Flash runs slower on Linux; so slow that it causes the sound to go out of sync (related bug that also seems to bite some Windows installs: this applet and those coded like it have audio that is too quiet). Java is still a real pain to get working right. Maybe the greatest thing that's happened this year is Mozilla/Firebird, but I'm running it without add-ons!
I believe only great things are to come, what with Linux having reached 2.6.0, and greatly appreciate all the developers have done for it. Now, I think it'd be nice if others began to support it.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Seen Google's new logo?
I think the general uncertainty in the market will prevent 2004 from being any more the Year of Linux than 2003 was. Not to say there wasn't any growth in the last year or that there won't be more this next year.
I certainly think that Microsoft sending out numerous free copies of Small Business Server 2003 shows that they are taking Linux much more seriously than previously. And I think when we hit 2005 and companies have to make a big decision either way that if the Linux offerings by then for the small shop and desktop have improved their UIs so that virtually anyone can setup Linux on their current machines as easily as or more easily than a Longhorn upgrade, THEN you will see the mass migration.
FWIW...
As far as hotkeys, why would you want to standardize them? I can define any key to do what I want currently with my distro (SUSE). Different people work in different ways. Why restrict them to what you think should be standard.
Your "frequent tasks" comment doesn'r provide any examples, but you could look back to hotkeys to provide solutions.
tar -zxvf is now automated by a tool called 'swaret', which is an apt-like utility, that downloads/decompresses the tarball, and then work's out dependencies, and download's anything you need. There is pkgtool for tarballs in the slackware format, however it doesnt dependency check.
-Adam
#!/bin/csh cat $0
I think we're on the brink of the collapse of Microsoft's office suite monopoly. There's a lot less lock-in with office than there is with windows, so it's much easier for people to switch to open office.
Microsoft's pricing and online activation system has already pretty much removed office from consumer pc's. People who used to take cds home from work are doing without, and it's only a matter of time until the word about open office gets out. I'm not claiming that open office is as good as microsoft office, but it's good enough, I think.
I think that microsoft is making one of the biggest mistakes in its history in the way it prices office. The strategy seems to be aimed, as near as I can tell, at keeping corporate revenues high while allowing MS to cut prices for low end consumer machines.
A corporate workstation with xp pro and office pro pays microsoft almost 3x what a consumer user with xp home and works pays. I don't think that reflects costs or utility to the customer.
The most useful part of what people pay microsoft for comes from xp home -- it gives you the ability to run the huge library of windows software, access to the huge array of hardware device drivers, and core networking tools. What you get, for the buck, from jumping to xp pro or adding office on to the back, provides a lot less utility for each dollar spent.
If you decide that the corporate market can bear substantially higher prices than the consumer market, and if you notice that the main differences between a corporate user and a home user is office, then loading up the costs on the office side makes sense. I think that's what they're doing, and I think it's a fundamentally unstable pricing scheme.
So I predict that we're going to see corporate workstation users going with xp home and open office. A lot of computers that have been sold with $375 worth of microsoft software on them will now be sold with $94 worth of microsoft software on them.
MS-Office still makes sense for a lot of people. If you run exchange server, and want to use outlook as a groupware client, it makes sense. Excel users who earn a lot are going to get the spreadsheet they know and want, no one's going to tell a $150k/year guy to learn a new spreadsheet. But those types of users don't add up to a monopoly.
If the office monopoly begins to crack, it will be a really big deal. It will be a decline in a core microsoft business, and will suggest that perhaps the best days are behind them. And it will be the result of an open source project.
Windows to linux is a very wrenching change, in a million little ways. But MS-Office to Open Office is a lot more doable.
I think that's where MS's empire will first start to crack.
Our brainy heroine and penguin loving paralegal babe, PJ at Groklaw, posted an article covering some New Year's trend spotting. Some of the goodies:
/., but I like the compilation of them as a converging threat to Microsoft's paradigms that may cause significant rethinking in 2004.
:-)
1. Invester's Business Daily makes up its Top 10 Tech Stories of the year without mentioning Microsoft in any context.
2. A speculation comes from Chris Gulker in an IT Managers Journal article that Microsoft will introduce an MSLinux when Longhorn turns out to be unsellable. (Good thing or bad thing? I think good, if it happened.)
3. The example of Smart Displays, where per-user licensing inhibits even Microsoft's innovation, as cited in a Register article:
"The final nail in its coffin was Microsoft's absurd decision to kow-tow to the tin god of its licensing agreements. If you took your smart display downstairs, nobody in the den with the computer could use it. Single user licence, repeated Microsoft marketing droids. 'We can't compromise our standard licensing policy."
4. From the counter example of what can be, in the MagicBike project of the Parsons School of Design, PJ muses: "The idea is, when everyone gets to play, innovation is the result. Innovation doesn't come from money or walled-in projects, although money can help implement ideas. Innovation comes from people, and as George Bernard Shaw once pointed out, talent can show up simply anywhere, where you least expect it. The lower the barrier to entry, the more likely you are to get wonderful ideas. It's one reason I keep it possible to leave anonymous comments on Groklaw, despite the down side to that."
5. Vince Cerf's vision of the ubiquitous net is cited, reaching even to other planets.
PJ concludes: "Yes, [Microsoft] must adapt in order to be part of the future. I think it's a given that no one wants a wireless product that can only legally connect to one PC predetermined during setup. Not after somebody sent the mayor an email from a bike in Union Square station in NYC. Or even read about it. Once you have the concept and you see what is possible, you know what you know, and Brand X doesn't work for you after that. Like the song says, there's nothing like the real thing."
I know most of these points have been previously featured on
Besides, I think I have a crush on PJ...
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
What Linux standards ? How many differnet "Linux" distros are compliant with these standards ? what are they ?
Furthermore, how would it benefit Microsoft to tout that "longhorn is compliant with xx". Microsoft already has source level compat with much free software via the Services For Unix Interix SDK. Windows can be an NFS client or server with SFU. CIFS interop between linux and windows could be better I suppose, but my feeling is that samba needs to move upwards, and microsoft has little incentive to move downward to acheive this.
I guess i'd just be curious to know where this statement came from. It sounds mostly like a "wouldn't that be nice" without a lot of thought behind it.. like an emotional victory rather than something of technical significance..
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Open Source, on the other hand, works according to another economic model, one which is not limited by profit-loss ratios and ROI. If you have people interested in it, you can create an internationalized version of a package for any audience. Now, there are still complicated technological issues (such as some of the really complex scripting systems in many of the smaller markets like SE Asia), but once we get past some of the difficult hurdles of creating truly flexible font and glyph servers and text rendering systems, we will see Linux and FOSS expanding into places where MS cannot hope to go. True, these won't bring in gobs of cash for Linux developers and ISV's, but I think we will see steady progress made. We will soon see Linux as the foundation for technological, and ultimately economic freedom for the majority of the world's governments and citizens.
Your Servant, B. Baggins