Study Finds Linux 'Ready For Prime-time'

An anonymous reader tipped us to a Techworld article proclaiming Linux as the next big thing ... again. A study of IT directors, VPs and CIOs has concluded that within five years the open-source OS will be running more than half of all important business applications. From the article: "In short, open source, especially Linux, is being legitimized by the major enterprise vendors, and user executives are more than happy to believe them ... Microsoft's thawing toward Linux is now easier to understand when faced with such data - even as Windows continues to grow as the other main server platform of choice."

Comments

Selfserving Article

[Cyclops]

Only there to promote Microsoft/Novell and Oracle. It's making a campaign in favour of our enemies disguised as a positive article.

Re:Selfserving Article

[sarathmenon]

A company is legally an entity, and is as much an entity as you when they pay taxes, get represented in courts or sign agreements. This has been the way for the past 2 or more centuries. You can sue Novell, you can pay for licenses to Novell etc ...

Of course, if you are looking to screw a company, or take them out to a date, then its a different story ;)

Re:Selfserving Article

[SavvyPlayer]

When did the "Linux community" get so vitriolic and spiteful?

There is no vitriol in the parent's post. The term 'enemy' is only as emotionally charged as the listener wishes it to be. As it's easier to hate an 'enemy' than to understand and accept an opposing point of view, this is probably not the best choice of words in a constructive dialogue.

This isn't some ideological war that is being fought, and shame on you for trying to make it into one.

The parent is simply making an observation. Free Software is an ideology just as capitalism is an ideology. While not mutually exclusive (hence efforts being made to monetize Free Software both on the part of "Open Source" startups and established commercial vendors), these two ideologies do conflict in several areas.

Microsoft is [an] enemy?

<executivesummary>

While an organization as large and diverse as Microsoft will never be entirely focused on activities that impede or overtly threaten the F/OSS community, it has interests that are not and may never be compatible with those of the Free Software community. For that reason, MSFT is directly and indirectly engaged in activities that hurt and threaten the F/OSS community, not out of malice or even by choice, but in simply fulfilling obligations to its shareholders. It's just business :).

</executivesummary>

Re:SharePoint?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zope and Plone are opensource Sharepoint competitors. Extensively used by the NHS for many of their websites, including the National Programme for IT.

We also use it on our site, without any problems whatsoever. Therefore we aren't locked into the proprietary Sharepoint product.

www.plone.org for the Plone website
www.zope.org for the Zope website

And for the record, we are actively deploying Linux where possible on our site.

slashdot.org bloated

[Zpin]

This is OT, but since I don't know where else to put it: Why do I have to load 500kb of css and js before the page even starts displaying? I know there was some article about pages loading for more than 4 seconds lose user interesst, well this page loads way longer (I visit the links in the RSS feed: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/31/ 0430229&from=rss 15 seconds on my 7Mb connection).
Another funny thing is that the js consist mostly of comments...

Re:slashdot.org bloated

[rs232]

"Why do I have to load 500kb of css and js before the page even starts displaying?"

Same here, it also freezes on loading images.slashdot.org and google-analytics.com.

You guys always do this

[viewtouch]

You guys always do this; you talk about "Linux" but you are really talking about either the X Windows System or you're talking about the thousands of various software tools (such as all the GNU software) in the various distributions or you're talking about the various applications software packages that run on Linux and X, most of which also run on, for example, BSD and X.

Everybody here at Slashdot knows this already but, still, and probably forever, most people won't know this. So, is this OK? I don't think so. Linux is the heart but X is the blood, lungs, bones, muscle and skin. Let's get over being shy or ignorant about the importance of X, its uniqueness as a network display protocol, the renaissance in X development, the activity in X related projects like cairo, SVG, all things GL (OpenGL,XGL, AIXGL), Desktop environments based on X, etc..

Let's get over being shy about the importance of the UNIX component model and the valuable tool extensions that make this approach so much more useful than the monolithic approaches of other operating environments, such as rsync, scripting, et al.. And lastly, let's start talking about the absolute need for network computing. That's the computing paradigm of the present and the future. Let's talk about how so much of Linux, X, rsync (for example) and the applications are already so well suited for making use of and advancing that approach to software. Network computing is replacing the desktop as the next 'big thing', so let's start talking about that, why don't we? The game console manufacturers have recognized and accepted this, so why don't we accept that this is also true for applications?

under my bed ..

[rs232]

"Does that mean installing/uninstalling software under linux is now standardized, logical and quick, even for people who never used it before? Have you ever watched a new linux user try to install all their software onto a linux box without any help? Linux will not get any mainstream adoption until THAT need is addressed, and that's a promise"

Have you ever watched a new user installing Windows from scratch. If installing Windows is such a breeze then why are call centers such a growth industry. Since most of the standard apps come preistalled I doubt the new user would even have to install. For instance Linspire comes out of the box with Internet Suite, Email, Internet, instant messaging, Office Suite, Instant Messaging, Digital Music, Digital Photos, Wireless Capability, Plug and Play, Web Publishing. If that's not enough then there is an online update service. Just click and install. Off the top of my head SuSE, Mandrake, Debian all come with graphical installers. As do most of the rest I assume.

"but those are the reasons I put Mandrake 6.x, RH 7.0,7.1 and 7.2, suse x.x into a box and put the box under my bed and hardly bothered with them for the last 5 years"

Are you one of these Linux geeks who still live with their parents?

"I use the operating system to get things done, and I don't want to wrestle with it, I want it to do things intuitively"

You will be pleased to know that Redhat now comes with a graphical installer. As for getting things done, I put people down in front of a SuSE KDE/desktop and do know what, they can't tell the difference.

"unless getting RPM's to go to the right place and install the right way has gotten any simpler .. Calling rpm with half a dosen switches (after reading a manual for 3 hours)"

I don't understand how you have to tell the RPM where to install. What took three hours to type RPM -Uvh.

"Long story short, I just wanted to get a basic functional web server together"

I also don't understand how you equate installing a web server with what the new user would ever want to do.

--

"do it to them before they do it to us", Sergeant Stan Jablonski

was I wonder. (Score:2), Troll

Re:I wonder.

[fimbulvetr]

Using ubuntu, I can pop in a USB disk/backup hard drive via usb and it immediately comes with up a nautilus window for browsing. Double clicking a tar/tar.gz archive brings up the archive manager and it's simipler to use than winzip because it doesn't have several prompts before anything can be done.

Can your grandma use XP, recieve a zip from you on a usb disk and drag the files to her desktop? Does she know how to get winzip? Install it? Configure it so it doesn't run it's own daemon and steal valuable memory? Click "I agree" every time it opens?

ubuntu sounds EASIER in this context.