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."

Comments

Nuclear Fusion

[AKAImBatman]

Did you know that nuclear fusion is only 20 years away? Just like it was in 1950! (No, I'm not skeptical. Not at all.)

When I wrote my article and its follow-up on directions I think a Linux Distribution could take, I expected that there would be some controversy. However, I hardly expected the shear number of responses to the effect of, "Linux is great as it is! Never change it!"

Which is surprising, because the very point of the Linux design is that different distributions were supposed to be able to explore completely different tracks. There shouldn't be any "one distro to rule them all", yet many of the respondants demanded exactly that! (Amusingly, they couldn't agree on *which* distro to rule them all.)

When I pointed this out to many responders, and mentioned the fact that I'm merely attempting to suggest a Desktop environment that would help Linux adoption, I got another surprising response: "Who said we wanted regular users? Linux is for the elite. If you're too stupid to recompile your kernel or read all the scattered HOWTOs, you're too stupid to use Linux!"

I understand that the Linux community is wide and varied, but this sort of attitude is not helping anyone. In fact, this sort of attitude causes Linux to take two steps back for every one step forward it takes in the market.

It's normal that Linux users will disagree. That's why Linux is just a kernel, KDE/GNOME are just desktop environments, and the GNU System is just a collection of Unix utilities. It's so the end distributions can build the OS necessary to meet their users. But such a design DOES NOT require that users berate each other! Rather, Linux users should understand that "idiot" users using an "idiot" distribution is okay. Gentoo users can still recompile Gentoo to their hearts content even though Ubuntu exists. Ubuntu users can still use Ubuntu workstations even though Fedora exists. Fedora users can still a have 100% "Free as in socks and gun ownership" OS even though SuSE exists.

There's no reason for this OS bigotry. It's causing confusion in the marketplace, and generally turning the public off to Linux. Just pick the distro you like, and be happy for other people who use something that works for them. K?

Re:Nuclear Fusion

[adarn]

holy shit, an intelligent first post.

Re:Nuclear Fusion

[AKAImBatman]

Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

If people can make some money off of Linux then good luck to them, but Linux should not change to meet some commercial wish list.

Why not? Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet commercial desires? Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet home user desires? Why can't there be a Linux distribution that is changed to meet scientific researchers' desires?

What is wrong with different Linux distros to meet the desires of different markets? Isn't that the entire point of Linux? "It's just a kernel," we say. But then the community berates anyone who attempts to reuse that kernel in Community Unapproved Ways(TM). How does that help anyone?

Re:Nuclear Fusion

[LiquidCoooled]

Linux is complicated.

Not in the software thats available, but in sheer choice of software.

MS Has Windows XP home and Windows XP Professional, designed for the general required use, its easy to tell epopel to get the correct version.

99.9999% of home users don't ever need or want a c compiler, or 4 different word processors, or 13 ways to do the same thing, they want the most efficient simple way. The list goes on, but people suffer from too much choice, its like going into a foreign sweetshop and not knowing the names of the products.

If I could just tell somebody to go and get the "Home" version of Linux - from whichever vendor was currently hot then it would be easier to get people to switch.

After they have gotten used to their version and know their way around, then they can start customising it and adding all the perfect bits, but until that point, its just overpowering.

Re:Nuclear Fusion

[.sig]

Reading this post and the thread that goes with it makes me wonder if anyone else out there bothers to RTFA...
If you even read the summary here on /. rather than hust the headline you'd see that the article is about linux being 5 years away from mainstream in IT environments. No mention of joe sixpack or your grandma not knowing how to use linux.
They are 2 VERY different things, makes me wish I could mod the whole thread off-topic... (and redundant)

[Personally, I agree with the artice, linux is already moving fast in the IT sector. Depending on how you define 'mainstream' it could already be there. IMO that's where it belongs anyway. I know I definately prefer to work in a *nix environment]

they're a little late

[spiderworm]

Linux was mainstream five years ago.

What does 'mainstream' mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, 'Running the majority of web servers worldwide' doesn't count as mainstream.