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Linus's Baby Comes of Age

just_another_sean writes "Torvalds' Baby Comes of Age - BusinessWeek Online is running a story on how Linux has matured over the years. They have some positive things to say about it, and back up their statements with some examples and stats." From the article: "Hardware companies are selling more than $1 billion in servers to run Linux every quarter, while sales of servers running proprietary software continue to fall. And now, slowly but surely, Linux is making inroads on the desktop as well. According to IBM, 10 million desktops ran Linux in 2004 -- a 40% jump from a year ago. That progress has been an important foot in the door for all open-source companies. Marc Fleury, chief executive of open-source middleware company JBoss, describes the Linux operating system pioneered by Torvalds as the older brother who fought the tough battles and was able to get the curfew extended and the keys to the car, so that life was a lot easier for the rest of the open-source world. "

19 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. even though it's GPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
  2. Linux maturity and business opportunities by totallygeek · · Score: 5, Insightful
    IBM's adoption of Linux and push of advertising has done wonders for overall acceptance of Linux by the business communities I work with. This is especially true of regulated industries, such as financial, medical, and educational. It is nice to see the very small project grow to become such an animal, while maintaining the ability to steer clear of bad commercialism. There have been many players that could have chosen to not further develop in Linux and it would have just remained a 'geek-only' system that people downloaded and wrangled with installing just to say they could do it.

  3. so all its all thanks to the kernel? by gullevek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt that, a kernel allone doesn't make a server. I'd say its thanks to apache group (apache, tomcat, ...), php, samba and all the other services that you can provide and that can replace properitary services.
    Same for the desktop. It's thanks to KDE/Gnome that it gets more and more accepted on the desktop. The kernel is just one small part ...
    But well, manager & business journalist. Lets keep it simple and add a pie graphic!

    --
    "Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
    1. Re:so all its all thanks to the kernel? by i_should_be_working · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd rather have to replace the kernel (by doing something like switch to BSD) than replace all the GNU software I use.

    2. Re:so all its all thanks to the kernel? by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not ALL thanks to the kernel but the kernel helped get everything else gel. It's was the right piece of software at the right time.

      Back in the early 90's the GNU had all these cool tools but still no functional kernel (up to 2004, IIRC???) - enter Linux. And the rest would be history.

      Without Linux, a lot of other opensource projects might not have gotten started or would be residing largely on Windows or BSD. On Windows, open source would be okay until MS decides it's time to get into that market........ so that's unstable ground to say the least. BSD - well, I have nothing against it - but I wonder if it would have achieved Linux's sucess (if Linux were missing from the picture) due to differences in licenses and the seemingly more closed organization around developing the kernel.

    3. Re:so all its all thanks to the kernel? by Xtifr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've run most of them on Solaris and BSD and HPUX and...so whatcherpoint?

    4. Re:so all its all thanks to the kernel? by cowbutt · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If I'm not mistaken, you have been able to burn using IDE since kernel 2.6

      Correct, and cdrecord and friends know how to use ATAPI to do so now.

      Further, ide-scsi isn't as stupid as it first seems; ATAPI is pretty much just the SCSI command set over the ATA physical layer.

  4. Re:But remember folks... by RelaxedTension · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Oh, and Steve Ballmer says the GPL is for communist bearded hippies

    This being the company that's currently towing the communist Chinese line...

  5. Actually it's Stallman's baby by hansreiser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry, but Stallman of www.fsf.org was the one, and Linus made an important contribution (the kernel was only one of many pieces needed by the OS), but not as important as those made by the guy who failed to name anything after himself.

    First we needed an editor (emacs), then a compiler (gcc), a bunch of utilities (things like cp got written by the fsf), a license (the GPL), and only after all that Stallman originated stuff was in place were we ready for a kernel.

    Hans

  6. Flame on :) by Henk+Postma · · Score: 3, Insightful
    At the risk of starting a "is it GNU/Linux" flamewar ...

    Opensource is hardly Linus' baby, more like RMS. Not discounting Linus: it was of course smart of him to use the opensource concept, and he can surely code me into a corner.

    Plus, don't forget: the kernel is not the (only) thing that makes linux great, it's all the tools Apache/Perl/gnome/kde etc that live on top of it.

  7. Re:What distro does Linus run? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yes... I'm sure that Linus has nothing better to do than compile everything he uses all the time.

  8. Re:Still not where i want it.. by temojen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hint: PostgreSQL. If you play with proprietary vendors, you get proprietary vendor games.

  9. Re:What distro does Linus run? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Don't forget Debian, Gentoo isn't the most practical distro and Linus is a fan of things that just work.

  10. older sibling ... by Triumph+The+Insult+C · · Score: 3, Insightful

    curfew extended and the keys to the car,

    that's the easy part. getting laid^H^H^H^Haccepted by PHBs as being suitable 'enterprise grade' computing is the hard part

    --
    vodka, straight up, thank you!
  11. Re:40% growth is being "held back"? by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Do I think that all the Linux's konqi's and firefox's change their strings? No.

    But I think that a good percentage of them do, just to avoid the inevitable hassle that comes from dealing with the IIS sites that try to block.

    Can I offer you evidence of such? Other than a number of us here (and at distros, Gnome and KDE sites) who say that they do this, No. But then again you have no evidence and no logic that says otherwise.

    Plain and simple, tracking the linux installs via the browsers is a wasted effort. About the only thing that it will tell you is the fake absolute maximum of Windows and the minimal minimums of Linux. Nothing more.

    Now, as to the paranoid crap, you are starting to sound like you are from D.C.. Just because I elect to make life easier on those that I help as well as deny others information, does not make one paranoid. But it does make you judgemental and pretty much an idiot.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  12. Re:What distro does Linus run? by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If people are really going to choose 1 distro over the other, because Linus uses it, then they are pretty dumb users. You really have to choose your distro based on what you will be using it for. There is no distro that's right for everyone. That's where windows has it wrong. They try to create 1 windows that's right for everyone, and instead, don't really end up satisfying anyone. Never mind the Home,Pro,Server,Advanced Server, DC Server versions. They are all really the same OS, with a few features disabled. With linux, you can get any version, and enable all the features. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars just because you happen to have a 16 cpu machine.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  13. 10 Million .... 40 % ..... WOW! by argoff · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For those who say that Windows is destined to own the desktop, 10 Million at 40% is one hell of a demographic/trend. 20% with a base of a 2 million would be enough to make any astute business student pee in their pants. In fact, I can't find the data, but from my memory that kind of uptake is stronger then Microsoft was. At this point, there must be serious market forces behind the wheel. And they are happening in spite of an entrenched well financed competitor??? I would say all hell is going to break loose in the next few years or so.

  14. I'm sorry, but... by msormune · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...isn't Linux just used here as a replacement for a Unix core kernel? That way companies don't have to pay for commercial Unix implementations. I admin a Linux server myself, and don't care one bit it runs Linux. It could be any Unixish system for all I care. I am also pretty sure Linux alone does not run much software. It takes a lot of other software component to achieve that.

  15. Count the rest of the world by FishandChips · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The figures for desktop Linux use are always a little vague. Are they just counting the States and Western Europe or the whole world? How do they account for Win/Linux dual boot systems which may well be the norm for a lot of early adopters?

    Linux has great attractions for the developing world where folks either can't afford the Wintel upgrade crack or are leery of it for political reasons. Yesterday, for example, it was announced that Sun Wah Linux will be rolled out on 150,000 PCs in Chinese schools, arguably a more solid achievement for open sauce than yesterday's Google/Sun lovefest. It's possible that an increase in desktop Linux in the West will be prompted by its widespread use everywhere else first.

    --
    Las qué passoun
    tournoun pas maï