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IDC Proclaims Linux Is Now Mainstream
robyannetta writes "Eweek has an
interesting article
quoting IDC analyst Al Gillen saying "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream." He made that observation because IDC's research predicts that Linux's overall revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008."
Now that Linux is mainstream I'll have to turn my back on it and find another cause to fight for. Has Netcraft confirmed the BSD rumours?
Trolling is a art,
So...doesn't that mean it'll be mainstream in 2008?
Assuming the prediction is right.
Hell. I predict I will be a stud by 2008, because I predict I will be having sex CONSTANTLY.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Except that grandma will have an equally or almost equally hard time figuring out a Windows box for an indefinite period of time, or even to a lesser degree a Mac box.
The grandma test largely fails since not all grandmas are equal (my grandma and grandpa taught me how to program FORTRAN when I was 8!) and since not all Linux boxes are equal (compare Lyrcoris to Debian).
If that's your definition of mainstream then I don't think even Windows is ready.
... right above the article, declaring how Windows is cheaprer, less error prone, and more cost effective than Linux.
These same ironic banners are on Slashdot all the time. It's hilarious.
I used to see Linux play in basements and living rooms. Now they have gone mainstream. They signed that $35 billion record deal. Damn sellouts.
Wow, this is the first first post that I actually agree should have been moderated Redundant.
Everyone always talks about how Linux needs a unified, simple interface, which is really just code for saying it needs a Windows-like (or Mac-like, depending on the speaker) interface. While I agree that most things in Linux need interface work, I don't think all interfaces need to look exactly the same to be effective. In fact, trying to shoehorn an application into an interface that doesn't really fit it can cause actually reduce ease of use.
It's simple to code interfaces in Windows, because everyone just uses the same widgets to make their interfaces. The result is a homogenous, bland experience, where everything looks exactly the same. In this environment, nothing is super simple to use, but everything is at least equally difficult to figure out.
As for things like printing, Windows is easy to use if you are using one of a couple of popular scenarios, but once you break out of those, it can be nearly impossible to get things to work right. Some of this is because the interface for setting up non-traditional printer setups is obtuse, but most of it is because the help documentation on the topic is absolutely worthless. Microsoft Help is the most astounding collection of utterly worthless "troubleshooting tips" I have ever seen. I have never once had a problem that that thing came anywhere near helping me solve.
Interface work needs to be done. We do not need a single unified simple interface, we need several continually evolving interfaces, which will over time result in every application having the easiest and most intuitive interface for whatever it does.
My mother (of grandmother age but I'm not budging on the 'no kids' thing) uses Linux (Gentoo with KDE Desktop) with no problems.
OK, so I set it all up for her (the way a vendor would pre-install Windoze) but once set up it runs smoothly and stays configured the way it was when set up. I simplified everything for her as she is not a power-user, removed lots of menu options and extraneous buttons and it's now so much easier for her to find her way around and actually do stuff than it was with Windows.
And that's on a hacked-together PII-300 running Gentoo, if she'd bought a pre-installed state-of-the-art Linux box it would be even smoother.
She has gone from calling me twice a day for tech support to once a fortnight since the switch from Windoze to Linux. I can fix any problem that does occur remotely. So now instead of talking exclusively about Blue Screens of Death, anti-virus software and automated updates we talk about me not providing any grandchildren.
~ Better a freak than a sheep. ~
It was mainstream when it made it on the Chapelle Show:
"If they give you a Windows disk, tell them we only run Mac. If they give you a Mac disk, tell them we only run windows. IF they give you both, tell them we use linux. And if they give you all three, tell them the computers are down."
I just finished an email with a co-worker from three jobs ago, when I was a consultant doing systems and network stuff for small-medium companies in Mass., RI and Conn. Back then I was all-linux, but I worked on IBMs AS/400s and NT/2k, and rarely got any Unix work on the job. I eventually left because my boss wasn't pushing linux hard enough for my liking.
Anyways, I just finished an email in which my co-worker proclaimed this year to be the year of linux. Coming from him, I am forced to take a step back from my daily linux work-life and look at it from his perspective.
To those who don't find MS to be an abomination of all that is good and holy, and simply use what technology is best for the times, this year is the equivalent 96(or 97) for NT. This was a year or so before I got into the business(high school and all), but from what I make of the timeline, NT was _IT_ back then. It was a server, it was somewhat stable(compared to Windows), it was user-friendly(compared to Unix/AS400), it was fully 32-bit. It ran on Alphas for christ's sake.
What high hopes it held.
Now, though, I am worried about what comes next. It took 8 years for what I knew to be the next big thing to become the next big thing. Am I now so deep into linux that I won't be able to see what's set to surpass it until it's here? I'm worried I will turn into those 'NT guys' from 96 or so who saw linux as a handicapped os and summarily dismissed it. Of course, it didn't even support 2-gigabyte files back then, so maybe they had a point.
Time will have to tell. I saw one computing mini-revolution coming years ahead of the mainstream; I hope to be able to see the next also.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...