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What Lies Ahead For Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an interview with Stacey Quandt, a Linux and open source industry analyst. She explains why she feels Linux will overtake Windows as the number one operating system within the next three years." There's some interesting tidbits on what it takes to be an industry analyst as well, and some looking back to when most analysts were unaware of Linux.
I would doubt anyone would agree with the statement that Linux could overtake windows in 3 years, it will take a lot longer and more team work from the linux people to make this happen, not to mention Linux better start getting the support of gamers who can drive the sales of OS purchases.
**It runs through my veins like radioactive rubber pants! Do not deny my veins!**
Analysts exist solely to pimp products for vendors. When an XYZ Analyst tells you that XYZ is going to take over the world in 3 years, you can safely ignore it. That holds true whether XYZ==Push Technology or XYZ==Linux.
I like that name. That's a very clear title for Microsoft. It definitely would get the attention of someone undecided about MS vs Linux.
"Well, you could buy OS and related products from a convicted monopolist, or you could get these open source products (and buy professional support) from these (_list_) vendors."
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Funny, generally when Giga or any other research group comes on about Windows, they get shot down. When they come on about Linux, hey, it's gospel!
Sorry, is anyone going to be shipping Linux pre-installed, out of the store? In-store demos?
Well, we have a pretty good feeling that the research group hasn't been paid off by a linux corportation, as opposed to all the "studies" paid for by Microsoft.
Not to say there isn't some financial push to linux, but it's certainly not to the same degree as seen in the MS world.
Anyone who has read more than 2-3 reports from the "big boys" like Gartner can easily answer that one. Not much, save zero morals/integrity.
I worked for a company which dealt exclusively with whitepapers written by the big analyst houses. The reports were widely known to be staggeringly poor, often blatantly wrong. It was hardly surprising that they were a royal pain in the ass to deal with on a technical level; getting them to use FTP to upload their content was nearly impossible. IT industry experts who can't figure out FTP. Special.
I've seen numerous comments here on /., on stories about both pro and anti linux analyst reports, talking about how much of a joke these companies are. Most of the analyst groups do huge amounts of "commissioned analysis", which is then passed off as being legitimate, unbiased analysis- when it is nothing of the sort.
Analyst groups have turned into little more than for-hire technical marketing (the computer industry's version of "military intelligence") who spew out documents just technical enough to impress/confuse the top brass.
Please help metamoderate.
I agree with you that stability is a minimum, but it depends on if you are discussing servers or desktops. In being a stable, a server has accomplished a big part of it's requirements. The desktop is a completely different ballgame. Linux on the desktop is a very popular /. topic, and everyone always wonders: "will this be our year." It's been a long time coming, but I still think we have some distance to cover. Linux is very powerful and very stable, and pretty user friendly these days. It is not yet ready in terms of program installation, especially when we are talking about Joe Sixpack. From my experiences with friends and family, the "average" user has little or no knowledge of the command prompt and no desire to learn to use it. It has to be so easy that the user can click on a program and have it installed. There are solutions that are getting close, such as RPM and APT, but there is still some ground to cover.
This isn't necessarily the biggest or most important problem with Linux on the desktop... I have seen many articulate and thoughtful discussions on this subject before. It is my honest belief that Open Source will have it's day, as many users are already switching to Firefox and Thunderbird among other things. Linux's day will come, but it will still take some time and honest, constructive criticism.
Damn... right when I got my karma up....
She explains why she feels Linux will overtake Windows as the number one operating system within the next three years.
Actual quote:
Within the next three years I believe Linux will overtake Windows as the number one operating system based on new server shipments. [emphasis added]
But really, how many more total computers in the world could there be in three years compared to new servers? It's probably negligible.
Why? RHAT has between 250,000,000 and 600,000,000 USD in the bank. IF they wanted to rent a research group, they could.
I went into reading this article skeptical because of the "3 years to taking over the world" comment.
I realized, of course, that it was really talking about "new server shipments". However, I came out of reading it still skeptical because this "analyst" undoubtedly has such a huge personal stake in telling people that linux will take over the world. If linux died tomorrow, she would be out of a job. What do you think her analysis is going to be?
"as if nothing were solid...and that would be the end of the world, not fire and brimstone, but goo."--Rand
Dude, of course you need "supported" hardware to run Linux. Most of the hardware is created with the mind set that it will be used on Windows based machines because it holds the market share. Out of the zillions of different hardware configurations out there I'd have to say the developers for Linux are doing a really awesome job at keeping up with supporting new hardware that comes out. There is no way they can write drivers for EVERYTHING without vendor support...which won't come until Linux has a larger market share..(ahem..chicken or egg?). As far as your grip about sound...I have run Creative SB16's, Live!, and Audigys along with a nforce2 based audio chipset without a problem. Perhaps you don't know how to use tools that are at your disposal properly.
adventure-today.com
Forget the 100's of distributions.
We have two major desktops: KDE and Gnome (as well as the window managers) - the result is competition between them and they feed of each others advances and ideas. We have mozilla, konqueror and galeon - same result. Kopete and Gaim, Evolution and Kmail, etc and etc, all stengthen each other.
This pattern is repeated all over the OSS environment . . . you have completely missed the truth: diversity is *good* not bad.
Microsoft is an "unstoppable" mega-corporation. Any legitimate competition is crushed by the might of Microsoft. Try to develop a for-profit operating system to compete with Windows and you'll get crushed. Try and develop a for-profit word-processor to compete with Word and you'll get crushed. Microsoft has reached the top of the food chain.
Legitimate for-profit companies cannot compete against Microsoft. Due to this fact, "free" software, such as Linux and Open-Office, has bubbled to the surface as the only possible contender in the evolutionary struggle against Microsoft. Providing "free" software is the only way to possibly compete against Microsoft. There would not have been a need for "free" software if Microsoft had not crushed all possible means of fair competition.
This lack of competition also hurts Microsoft because: a competitor, in general, only needs to be better than his next closest rival. If there are no close competitors then Microsoft does not need to improve. If it does not improve it will stagnate, whither, and die. It will be overrun by the weeds of small "free" software projects just waiting to get out from underneath the shadow of the mighty giant Microsoft.
My majors were chemistry and Asian Studies in college. Am I working in a chemical factory in Asia now? No. Am I a geek reading Slashdot at work and replying to you? Hell yeah!
If you cannot go beyond judging a book by its covers, you should not be judging.
Probably blow my good karma with this, but oh well
:)
I agree with everyone that Linux has become more usable and more security oriented(depending on the admin), but the bottom line is that as far as corporations and windows in the workplace goes, I doubt linux will grab a significant user base because of some basic reasons:
1. Alot of corporations will cling to windows because 99.9% of their userbase is on windows right now. They realize that there is cheaper alternatives out there (linux) but they rather stay with what they are using because it will cause less headaches for the IT dept. and operations as a whole will run smoother without messing with the OS that they are using.
2. Users in the workplace are comfortable with windows because it is what they know. Applications are not quite as cryptic and windows is truly a morons operating system which is what the vast majority of users in the workplace are.
3. The cost of hiring systems administrators is pretty close of linux vs. windows, but the cost of deploying software and the simplification that microsoft has deployed in this area is still untouched.
again, my argument is staged more to linux in the workplace and not in the end users hands which is probably where linux has more potential to grow.
prepare to see this posting get modded all over the place
Those who trade in their freedom for security, deserve neither.
What people will care about is, "Can this run my digital camera? Can I run the Sims on this? No? Oh. Convicted monopolist? I don't care, I don't use my computer that much anyway. I just want to play games and use my camera..."
The USSR, the plantation system, the railroad barrons, the oil barrons, the shipping tycoons.
... Well the fact is, MS's isn't competing against an opperating system, they are competing against a superior paradigm - and their half trillion market cap is nothing compaired to the yearly output of global industry. If they don't go with the flow, they will get squissed like a bug. like it or not.
Alot of times people have this misconception that something can be too big, too huge, too much talent and resources behind it to fall from greatness. This isn't true. How many times have we herd that "MS won't let it happen"
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Welcome to the value of Mono and .NET.
Anyone remember that study put out that showed Linux was the most-breached OS on the Internet? The headline was magically changed to "Most Attacked" on the Internet.
Or that big headline breathlessly declaring that "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China," because the oppressive Chinese government uses Windows. Never mind that China has its own custom Linux distribution, and Red Hat changed flags to sell there. But we never got an "OSS Violates Human Rights" article.
Or when a new user-ran executable mail attachment worm comes out, and the headline is "New Microsoft Hole" (real article).
Before I'm accused of being a Microsoft lackey, I use Gentoo and FreeBSD 5.2.1, and I think Linux is fun to play with, but yes, I do switch to Windows to get things done. I even use it to code PHP and SQL using Dreamweaver MX 2004. Just saying I use whatever gets the job done, be it Linux, BSD, or Windows.
What bugs me is that Taco says Slashdot is his hobby site, completely ignoring that it declares itself as "news" and has become the bastion for geek tech opinion on the Internet. A lot of newbies come here and form their worldview based entirely on Slashdot headlines, hence the foaming-at-the-mouth anti-"M$" and "file sharing is free advertising" zealots. To ignore the influence of this website (it takes out entire sites just by posting their links!) and continue to post misleading articles, often rife with falsehoods, typos, and duplicates, is just silly. But then again, here I am reading it.
I think one hurdle Linux deveopers need to get past is their naming. Acronyms, abreviations, and random letter groupings culled from what the app does is not "user friendly".
"huh? Where is the install wizard?"
"oh, well you use RPM to get it."
"wha? What does how fast my motor is going have to do with installing my Video watcher thing?"
Maybe because they are names. And they come with a nice clickable installer. If they were called fbrsr and mrd, and required a full build from source on Windows, how much do you think their user base would grow?
I am relatively computer literate, but if I have a choice between something that needs building from source, and a nice installer, well, computer savvy or not, I am also lazy.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
Industry analysts are often wrong. If they were on target all of the time they wouldn't give out advice. They'd instead make a killing on the stock market.
As an ex-analyst who moved back to software development, I would add a few other things for my fellow Slashdotters:
... "In that time we'll see tremendous growth" ...'"Tremendous" means that we're going to see it move from being a fringe market..." I suppose I agree with Stacy about her actual conclusions, but the phrasing struck me as being about as optimistically phrased as one could expect given the underlying statements about Linux on the desktop.
;-)
1) If you want to be an good analyst, you need to be able to write English; preferrably fairly easily and fairly well. Speaking skills can be learned on the job. Overcoming writers block probably can't.
2) Tech skills can give an analyst an important filter and BS detector which can be a competitive advantage versus other analysts. However, ability to communicate with techies does not pay off. Techies aren't spending thousands of dollars for insight. Managers are. Ability to communicate with management and market the value of the service you provide is the paramount skill for an analyst.
3) In my view, the important milestones that lie ahead for Linux all have to do with success as a database server. That's where the most critical business data is, that's where the money is, and if a company trusts their data to Linux, what will they not trust Linux for? It's also a technology space that's complementary to Linux's existing strengths in webservers and web services, and it plays well to Linux's developer (not end-user)-orientation while avoiding the desktop usability and UI-training issues where Linux continues to play catch-up. In terms of specific milestones, I would track the percentage of applications being deployed in Fortune 500 with Linux hosting the database. And I would track the growth of applications employing open source databases. A Linux firmly entrenched as a database platform is a Linux not easily dislodged by Microsoft-induced desktop trendiness. Witness the billions upon billions continually invested in mainframes and AS/400 if you doubt me.
4) I'm personally agnostic about whether Linux will ever make headway on the desktop. If pressed for a conclusion, I confess that I doubt it, although if I was afraid of the Linux advocate hordes, I might couch it like Stacy did: "potential for a lot of innovation"... "a lot of potential for Linux to become a much stronger play there"... "next milestone to look for is when Linux takes 10% of the market"
More constructively, in terms of adding to that 'desktop milestone' analysis, another milestone to watch for is when Linux desktop developers spend more time trying to understand how the Mac OS X guys tackle the usability problem than they spend trying to copy the Windows approach blindly in the techy details while missing the bigger picture.
I used to get paid 20k... now I'll settle for 2 karma. Ah the price of doing what you love...
--LP
I think a lot of the decision on which system (politics aside) comes down to whether or not you want to futz around with the OS or not.
I use Windows, also, and have found it to be very stable - but then again, I also don't experiment a lot with software, having figured out which stuff works for me AND I don't try to push the bleeding edge on hardware.
Windows is very stable, now. In common desktop usage, I daresay it can be as stable as Linux.
I used Linux for a while, but it lacked a lot of the software I needed to get my design work done.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
I'm in agreement, but a few points:
:)
1) Stability is a big part, and I don't want to put words into your mouth, but other facets cannot be ignored. Performance. Ease of maintenance (service interruptions? reboot?). Remote administration. Batch-administration. Security. Lack of bloat (see Performance and Security as well). Available server applications. And lack of preparation or unique application training to accomplish these things. It's my personal observation that Linux beats out Windows in every area.
2) As far as I can see, most realistic people think Linux will take another 3-5 years to hit 10% on the desktop, including big Linux figures.
3) Administration is still the killer for Joe-user, but for companies with an IT department this isn't an issue. Considering Linux's put-your-home-and-usr-directories-on-NFS ability and how easy it is to mirror a box (no unaccessable 'files' on the filesystem), a company can roll out Linux without admin hassles. I honestly think this will be where it starts. People will use it at work and take it home (for work reasons or personal reasons). Companies will demand hardware support, user base will grow, and the snowball feeds itself.
Cheers
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Easy-to-use for joe-idiot is whatever he learns first - after that everything else is hard because it's different from what he learned first.
I've seen plenty of complete first-time computer users totally confused by the windows interface.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
You're not in the minority, you're in the vast majority. It's just that most people in your position don't have any reason to discuss it. They just happily go about using their computer and having it work.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
I used to think that, but after doing some work with Win2003, I'm not so sure.
Win2003 is ok. It's just a version of Windows that sucks 20% less.
My main problem with Win2003 is that ther'es hardly any upgrade path.
With *nix you can grow as you need to from Linux to FreeBSD to Solaris to IRIX to AIX.
Hell, Linux has it's own upgrade path - Linux on ARM -> Linux on Intel -> Linux on PowerPC -> Linux on Sparc -> Linux on POWER5/6 etc.
With Windows, once you outgrow your 4 way Intel box - you're screwed. (We'll there Windows Advanced Server - but from what I've seen, its a bitch to keep running and the hardware it runs on sucks)
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
How long have Linux buffs been saying that "In a few years, Linux will overtake Windows..."
It's a noble goal, and it would be awesome if it happened. But the reality is that, overtaking Windows is a goal that 1) Is fairly unrealistic in the short-term, and 2) Is fairly pointless.
Why would you want Linux to become the "normal" OS? I always thought that one of the main advantages of using Linux was because it was different. Something unique and that a lot of people haven't even heard of.
Linux is becoming commercialized. All the press about Linux now comes from companies who want to sell their wares, not give them away.
Maybe I want to compile my kernel to get support for sound. Maybe I want to manually edit my X config files, bypassing all warnings about my monitor bursting into flames. Maybe, just maybe I like that sort of thing... and I don't want it to be dumbed down to be like Windows, I don't want it to ride the golden cow god of popularity all the way to the bank, and replace the image of a Bill Gates as the borg with Tux as the icehouse penguin.
I cannot use Windows with a clear conscience because of IE's and Outlook's persistent security failures.
So use Mozilla and Eudora when you're stuck on a Windows platform. Why do you pose it like you're forced to use IE and Outlook if you run Windows. You're not. I wasn't, before I switched to NetBSD with Mozilla, and Sylpheed.
resigned
I have been doing more with my system than I would be able to if I was running windows. Blood is not my thing, so most games produced today FOR THE pc do not intrest me. I have Nintendo and Playstation and they are fine for gaming.
I have a P166 as my firewall, my webserver and my mail server. I have my kids computer. I have a laptop. I have my main computer. They are upgraded on a regular basis. Now if I wished to acomplish this on windows I would have to give up almost a years salary, and how many nights patching and downloading anti virus. I did that for my employer and it just is brain dead. What is missing? What is windows offering that you cant find in Linux? Drivers? Drivers? They don't always work in Windows. How many people here have never had trouble with a driver on Windows?
Linux is harder to use because you have more choices. How many cars can you choose from? Choice is good.
How many desktops run Linux? I would say over 3%. How do I know? Because all the systems which I have are counted as 1. I only buy 1 copy. Where do they get their 3%? From sales. How many people only load one system with their CD? I don't know, but I know that I am not the only one. How did Linux acomplish this when other comercial systems failed, ie Be, NeXT, O/S2.....? Choice. Choice. Choice. CHOICE. Linux will not pass Windows in 3 years but it's allready passed apple acording to some estimates. It sure as hell giving Windows a run for it's money..../RANT
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Perhaps, the pom-poms they were waving obscured their vision. I'm all for the success of Linux as a desktop alternative, but not at the expense of the truth.
It doesn't have a remotely useable shell (which, despite what GUI fanatics may say, is still the most effecient interface available), it doesn't have useable virtual desktops (yes I know about the Powertoy virtual desktop POS that puts all tasks on the same desktop), application control is lacking (*how* many times must I kill Homesite before it acks the kill signal?!), and it can't copy and paste worth shit! (what, I have to touch the keyboard?!).
And for the record, this is not simply a troll, but my actual eXPerience. So be it! Long live Free software.
I totally agree. NO ONE will take over windows in the next 10 years. For every great feature that comes out of the competitor OS, M$ will just steal it. They got bigger and fatter lawyers.
Linux will never come close unless it can find that directX alternative.
that would be good, but not very feasable in windows. Realistically, it would be great if people did that when they install the OS, but realistically it doesn't, and especially if the OS came with the computer.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Giga management didn't see a linear progression from call center staff to future IT analyst. In fact several times Giga management took pains to emphasize that moving from the call center to work as a research associate with a senior analyst was not a sure thing. Six months into the job a vice Giga president and senior analyst asked me to give him the right of first refusal to become his research associate.
So, one day she was a call center staff with a redundant degree in Mandarin. The next day, *ging* she's an IT Analyst. I'm sure there are CS graduates who would be very interested in how that happened.
Hmmm. I think we're not getting the full picture there. Any relatives / "associates" in the company by any chance?
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Why not roll your own Linux using the help from the guys at Linux from Scratch. The guide is fantastic and easy to follow. Additionally, you could try rolling a cut down version that fits on a floppy or a mini-cd using the cut down glibc libraries. Linux will still run on very humble hardware, but maybe you shouldn't be expecting a generic desktop install which is meant to be easy for end users to also be ultra lightweight.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Dunno about him, but _I_ have better things to do with my time than compiling and rolling together my own Linux distro. Gentoo (since it's also in the news today) and its _primitive_ stone-age install was already enough of a waste of my time. I really _don't_ want to get any more extreme than that, thank ye very much.
And in fact, I'll say that this is _the_ problem with Linux. It's made by people who have nothing to do with their time, for people who have nothing to do with their time.
To get back on topic: It may well eventually overtake Windows, but that's when a whole different lot of people get into the act. People who don't thing "whoa, this is sooo cool... I dug through their sources and for a week, and read the newsgroups for 4 hours a day, and I figured it out. I'm sooo l333t." Instead it will take people who think "fsck it, I don't have time for this crap. I just want to press a button or two and have this configured, tested and running. I want it to do the repetitive menial tasks (like selecting the initial mirror in Gentoo) automatically, not make me do that through a text mode browser and command line. And if it knows that I'll also need to configure XYZ next, then it should jolly well do that for me, not expect me to manually launch yet another command line utility. And I want it to bloody remember my choices, so it doesn't make me configure the exact same DSL connection _again_ half an hour later."
I.e., people with the exact opposite mentality than whoever came with the Gentoo install. _Then_ Linux will be ready for Joe Average.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
the consumer is now totally GUI oriented, and only UNIX heads still remember what a command prompt is
And still Microsoft thought it necessary to create a much stronger commandline interface for Longhorn...
Je ne parle pas francais.
Forget the DMCA for a moment.
DRM is something businesses want to use internally and home users need to legitimately access media content from the major providers. TurboLinux may or may not succeed commercially, but it at least has some anchorage in reality.
"Can they possibly turn this site into any more of a pro-linux rag? Is it at all possible? I guess we'll just have to wait and see... "
/.
/.'s articles yet still come and read them and take the time to comment
<grr>
If it bothers you that much just stop pointing your browser at
It really bugs me all the people who moan about
</grr>
FOSS is the Future
Does forecasting that Linux will overtake Windows in 3 years buy the Linux / Open Source movement anything? Will this forecast only bring negative sentiment from the I.T. industry if it is untrue (after 3 years) or if too many of these forecasts are made?
I'm personally getting tired of all these forecasts that say Linux will overtake Windows. Not because I do not believe that they will come true, but because people have been making these types of forecasts for quite a while and at least half of the time they do not come true. I am positive that Linux will overtake Windows someday in the future. I do not know when, but either way I will be happy when it happens.
After two years of active advocacy, my company has decided to start a Linux Pilot Program. Yes, the tide is coming in.
Andrew
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
When people say software installation is not easy, don't spit back the trite, unhelpful answer, "Just type [apt/emerge/urpmi/...] package_name" That's generally not what they're talking about.
.tar.bz2 file and tell it to install.
I've been looking at and reading about Linux for a while and recently begun using it, and I've already found several programs I want to use that are not in any packages. They just come in source, and I don't know how to compile/install source code yet. I have asked on Slashdot before if there is a graphical front-end for compiling programs from source, but haven't seen any answers yet. It would be nice to have a program where I can select the
If I have to run gcc manually or something to compile it, how do you know which compile options to use?
I've found no problems with packages--they do install and uninstall easier than Windows programs, but there needs to be an easier way to install non-packaged stuff. I don't think package dependencies are much of an issue on any of the several distros I have tried now.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds