Increased Linux Use With SCO's Defeat Predicted

twitter writes "The defeat of SCO's infamous copyright attack has Forbes wondering if a GNU/Linux boom is upon us. They discuss how this will benefit Novel, IBM, Chrysler, AutoZone and Red Hat. 'The SCO Group frightened potential business users away from Linux with lawsuits demanding billions in royalties. But the litigious company's claims were shot down in a ruling that will likely boost uptake of the operating system.'"

Comments

Linux chain reaction

[turing_m]

"Even though it took an embarrassingly long time Microsoft has finally gotten a handle on viruses/spyware etc. to the point where no one is running screaming from their platform anymore."

When did this happen? Viruses/spyware was one of the largest stimuli for me to finally suck it up and emigrate for good (I was under no circumstances going to reinstall XP or buy Vista). And I'm not alone. Now I've found that Ubuntu does everything I want it to do, my friends will be getting a taste too.

It would not surprise me in the slightest if we were to see Linux achieve double digit market penetration (i.e. 10%) within 2 years. It's kind of like being one of the first kids to play multiplayer Doom and then Quake. You think to yourself "Damn! This is fun! I wonder why everyone else isn't doing this?" And soon enough (given several years), everyone IS doing it. It spreads from person to person virally.

The phenomenon itself parallels atomic physics; as soon as you have on average every split atom triggering another atom to split, you get a chain reaction. This is the same with people and ideas, software (or human diseases). It's just that the chain reaction aspect seems less obvious to us because of the time scale. It might be 2 months before I get around to install Ubuntu on a friend's machine, whereas a neutron emitted from a nucleus will strike another atom on the other side of the bomb in much, much less than a second.

Ubuntu is mostly there. It is there enough that I believe if I installed it myself on a poweruser friend's computer, helped sort out some driver issues, he'd be able to take it from there with the occasional internet search. And it is better than MS in a lot of important areas: stability, security, efficiency (in Watts), ease of installing new software (Synaptic). Not having to worry about spyware or viruses is HUGE. And it's free, by emigrating you've permanently opted out of the eternal upgrade for $$$ cycle, along with acquiring a mental Unix toolkit that will enable further migrations if necessary (e.g. to BSD or other free ixes).

And it is the power users who are critical to this chain reaction. It's not grandma using mail and web who will be installing it on friend's computers. It is the power user. So by all means, get your grandma and girlfriend using it, but if you really care about adoption rates, find another power user and guide them through an installation. Note that something like Ubuntu is gold to a power user (someone who is doing free tech support for friends and family) because it has the potential of being much lower in maintenance. No finding new spyware removers, reinstalling, or any of that. Convert, done.

After that, it's just a matter of time before you have hardware manufacturers and gaming companies coming over too. Then it's over. Within a year you'll get everything of note imported or created. Be it photoshop or office, the bugs will be ironed out extremely quickly. Word will become like Wordperfect used to be. There will still be a few people whining "But word used to work so much better!", but they will be ignored.