Linus's Baby Comes of Age

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Posted by Zonk on Tuesday October 4, 2005 @10:52AM from the so-this-is-growing-up dept.

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. "

27 of 183 comments (clear)

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2005-10-04 10:55 · Score: 4, Funny

Comment removed based on user account deletion
even though it's GPL? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-10-04 10:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

So is the GPL really such a handicap?
Linux maturity and business opportunities by totallygeek · 2005-10-04 10:57 · 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.

--
Click here or here.
Re:Ohhhhhh! by delirium+of+disorder · 2005-10-04 10:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

He does.
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/pat.gif

--
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
so all its all thanks to the kernel? by gullevek · 2005-10-04 10:58 · 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 LennyDotCom · 2005-10-04 11:02 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The kernel is just one small part
  
  I may be a small part but just try and run those other apps with out it
  
  --
  http://Lenny.com
2. Re:so all its all thanks to the kernel? by i_should_be_working · 2005-10-04 11:06 · 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.
3. Re:so all its all thanks to the kernel? by rolfwind · 2005-10-04 11:09 · 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.
4. Re:so all its all thanks to the kernel? by ozmanjusri · 2005-10-04 11:52 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  On Windows, open source would be okay until MS decides it's time to get into that market.
  
  Yeah, you have to wonder whether Microsoft has shot itself in the foot there. By refusing to port their tools, they've forced the FOSS community to develop the whole software stack for Linux. Now instead of having to compete with just a free OS, and leveraging their Office software income to do so, they're having to compete with an entire platform. Worse for them is that Linux is providing a haven for developers who don't have to immediately compete with closed-source products - at least until they're on their second or third generation and ready to port to Windows.
  
  When someone buys a Mac (for example), there's a fair chance they'll be giving Microsoft some cash for Office, but every successful deployment of Linux on the desktop means Microsoft loses revenue from both of it's main income streams.
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
But remember folks... by Noryungi · 2005-10-04 10:58 · Score: 3, Funny

As seen on Slashdot: the GPL hinders the development of Linux.

(Yes, this is funny. Laugh.)

So, on one hand we have ZDNet telling us the GPL is bad, bad, bad. On the other hand, we have BusinessWeek telling us Linux is going places. Oh, and Steve Ballmer says the GPL is for communist bearded hippies. Go figure. I guess somebody did not get the memo or something.

--
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Actually... by Spy+der+Mann · 2005-10-04 11:03 · Score: 5, Funny

For a second there, I thought Linus had a kid...

Actually, he's married and has three kids, all girls. Yes, fellow slashdotters, our favorite geek hero has trascended beyond the realms of our known universe: He COULD get a girlfriend! :-o

\o/ \o/ All nerds bow to Linus the Great! \o/ \o/
1. Re:Actually... by Stradenko · 2005-10-04 11:07 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Yeah, I initially thought those sick f*cks at businessweek were talking about Patricia...nine years old? coming of age? sick bastards.
2. Re:Actually... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2005-10-04 11:10 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  our favorite geek hero has trascended beyond the realms of our known universe
  
  I think what you mean is that Linus fork()ed and got 3 new processes going...
  
  --
  "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
3. Re:Actually... by valintin · 2005-10-04 11:31 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  For a second there... I actually thought one of his daughters was old enough to start sending in patches.
4. Re:Actually... by pablodiazgutierrez · 2005-10-04 13:01 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Actually, he's married and has three kids, all girls.
  He prefers calling them his genetic back-ups.
  
  --
  
  To do list for Windows
5. Re:Actually... by CastrTroy · 2005-10-04 13:06 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yeah, but those backups are like mp3s, in the respect that they are quite lossy. Maybe with 3 backups, there is enough parity to assemble the original.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
6. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-10-04 17:33 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  From the Wikipedia article:
  
  Linus is married to Tove Torvalds. She is a six-time Finnish national Karate champion, whom he first met in fall 1993.
  
  So his children are the unholy union of a geek demigod and a woman who could beat a Navy SEAL to death with little to no effort. Wow....
Still not where i want it.. by cybrthng · 2005-10-04 11:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

For web servers, even j2ee application servers and open source stuff linux is fine and dandy, where i can't stand it is enterprise applications.

I can't stand the horrible certification matrix that is a joke on RedHat AS. I can't stand the fact that vendors lock into specific redhat releases and NONE of those locks carry forward. I can't stand the fact that Redhat doesn't seem to care. "contact your software vendor".

Hence, i love solaris for enterprise applications - i'm talking about financial back end systems, i'm talking about heavy duty bpel, oracle sso, applicaitons 11i, oracle 10g grids and everything else. RedHat's TCO because of the lack of supported arch's is more than solaris or even HPUX which is downright scary.

I love my redhat boxen, i wish i could standardize on that platform. Why the hell hasn't the market caught up? i mean for christs sake oracle preaches linux day in and day out yet i have to run AS 2.1 or AS 3.0 and i can't run 64bit database back ends in certain mixes nad i have to have oracle kernel versions for this and that and yet all of this is supposed ot come together in some "proposed" future date.

They've only been saying that for 5 years now :(
1. Re:Still not where i want it.. by temojen · 2005-10-04 11:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Hint: PostgreSQL. If you play with proprietary vendors, you get proprietary vendor games.
2. Re:Still not where i want it.. by kpharmer · 2005-10-04 13:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  but...so what?
  
  I'm running large data warehouses on db2 on aix. I could run this on linux (power5 hardware supports linux, so does db2).
  
  But why the hurry? In the meanwhile, the upfront cost is the same, aix has a lower tco (fewer patches to install, more reliable, etc). The hardware cost for power5 isn't that much more than for intel (when you're talking about seriously fast hardware). All the same apps and utilities run on aix (python, gnu stuff, etc).
  
  Aren't you in the same spot? Why rush large oracle 12-way servers to linux? It'll happen eventually.
Inroads on the desktop by br00tus · 2005-10-04 11:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

I began playing with Linux in 1994 or 1995, when I downloaded it to my PC and used LILO to stick Linux on one of the drives. Eventually I owned multiple PC's, but usually used Windows as my desktop, and had a Linux server. One of the reasons for this was that it was easy to handle Linux remotely, and Windows wasn't, so due to Windows bad features in that area, it was stuck being my desktop.
Anyhow, last December I got a Linksys wireless ethernet adapter and put it in my main desktop, a Windows ME machine (I haven't bought a new machine since the market crashed in spring 2000). Except it didn't work - perhaps it only wanted to work on Windows XP or something. Anyhow, the drivers for the adapter fried all my networking. I kept working on it, and finally decided to reinstall my C drive. Except it's not like Windows 95 with its decent install disks, I have these crappy OEM Windows ME repair disks. OK, so I backup everything I need on C and go. Well, the crappy OEM CD not only blows away C (which I expected), but blows away the D drive as well to write just one file. So I stop everything, and ponder how I am going to get my stuff off D which I need. So I install Debian on drive C, and rescue the important stuff on D. I also pull my stuff off drives E and F. Then I blow everything away and reinstall Debian for my entire disk.
I have to say, I have missed Windows a lot less than I thought I would. My main concern was being able to read and send Microsoft Word documents, but I haven't had to send a Word document in months, and I haven't had a problem reading the few I need anyhow. So I haven't even had to use the Linux programs that say they can help compensate for this. My roommate has a Windows box anyhow, so I can always use his if I'm desperate (or make other arrangements). I've been using UNIX for a long time and love being able to run Apache, MySQL, PERL, PHP etc. on my computer. I have Mediawiki and osCommerce running locally just for testing, and I have my own MySQL tables and PHP/Apache and PERL scripts as well.
I haven't needed Microsoft like I thought I would. Also, I should point out, I switched because Microsoft has gotten worse (OEM repair CDs instead of the old, easy Microsoft vanilla install/reinstall CDs), and Linux has gotten better (which includes GNOME/KDE etc.) I switched due to necessity, not because I am a free software zealot, although I appreciate free software zealots and can be one myself sometimes. I should also add that my wireless adapter worked fine - Linux had the drivers for it. Windows had the drivers as well - but only for XP (ones that didn't blow away your machine). I would have had to shell out money to upgrade my OS to use my new device. You don't have this problem with Linux.
As far as me being a tech, and this not effecting the population, I disagree. I write software, as do many of us, and this is really what effects things. If all the techs begin writing lots of software for Linux, this changes the dynamics of things. There's an old saying "if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow". Microsoft no longer has me by the balls, which means my mind no longer has to follow them.
Actually it's Stallman's baby by hansreiser · 2005-10-04 11:36 · 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
Re:What distro does Linus run? by i.r.id10t · 2005-10-04 11:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

The guy who should be working already mentioned the PPC, but I remember reading here on /. a while back that he had a *really* nice SMP workstation (4 or 8 cpu, forget) and ran Mandrake simply because 'drake "just worked" at the time.

I think that would be a cool slashdot interview type thingie - find out what hardware, OS, and apps the Big Names in computing use personally.

--
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Flame on :) by Henk+Postma · 2005-10-04 11:53 · 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.
older sibling ... by Triumph+The+Insult+C · 2005-10-04 12:12 · 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!
Re:What distro does Linus run? by CastrTroy · 2005-10-04 13:15 · 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.
All at the same time? by ClosedSource · 2005-10-04 14:54 · Score: 3, Funny

IBM spokesperson: There were 10 million desktops running Linux in 2004.

Business week: All at the same time?

IBM spokesperson: Well, no. We were going to take 5 million PCs out of stock and load Linux on them before installing Windows, but then we decided to load Linux on a single PC and move it from desktop to desktop. It was much cheaper.