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Linux Five Years Away From Mainstream
wellington wrote to mention a ZDNet blurb about a Gartner group study. Gartner indicates that 'mainstream' use of open source in IT environments may be 5 years away. From the article: "Gartner's latest Linux 'hype cycle' report shows that open source is halfway to maturity but warns the biggest test will be whether it can demonstrate the necessary performance and security to function as a data centre server for mission-critical applications. Leading-edge businesses are generally still in the early stages of Linux deployments but Gartner expects increased commercialisation and improved storage and systems management for the operating system by the end of 2005, with Linux being used primarily for WebSphere and infrastructure applications on mainframes and web services on blades and racks."
In spite of the title, the article does not state 'Linux Five Years Away From Mainstream'. In states that 'Linux is five years away from mainstream use in Enterprise IT infrastructures. This is all about high-end data-centre stuff - a niche use. This article is confusing a very specialised use of Linux with it's general use as, for example, a mid-range server where it has proved it's successfulness for years. There is further confusion where the article mentions that 'many are re-evaluating Linux use' (many turns out to be 5 CIOs out of a panel of 12).
I don't know whether this article is deliberate FUD, or just a confused mess. I suspect the latter.
Depending on whom you ask, Linux is already a major player in the desktop.
It au pair with OSX in raw number of desktops installed in a lot of places, and was pushed in a lot of countries to the desktop. Ubuntu Hoary / Fedora Core are every bit as easy to install than W2k/XP, and work equally well. Choose your desktop environment for your users and you're set.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Wrong. There are people who would much rather use a more secure OS than Windows, and know about Linux, but really just cannot be bothered working around some of the more ass-backwards systems. I can do things in Windows within minutes that take a good half hour on Linux. Now, I agree with the practice improving speed but some things just do not work between distros, whereas Windows does.
Personal choice would make a difference when both are truly as easy to use as each other. Until then, it's too much effort for entrenched users to switch (although it is slowly getting better).
At the moment the desktop lineup is OS X, Windows, Linux. For servers it is Linux, Windows, OS X.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
"warns the biggest test will be whether it can demonstrate the necessary performance and security to function as a data centre server for mission-critical applications."
e mber_2005_web_server_survey.html
That statement has to be coming from the completely clueless.
I'd say that this happened 5 years AGO:
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/09/05/sept