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Linux Gaining Strength In Downturn

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the monday-morning-slow-ball dept.

gubm writes "A February survey of IT managers by IDC indicated that hard times are accelerating the adoption of Linux. The open source operating system will emerge from the recession in a stronger data center position than before, concluded an IDC white paper."

14 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. The best things in life... by dov_0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    are often free!

    --
    sudo mount --milk --sugar /cup/tea /mouth /etc/init.d/relax start
    1. Re:The best things in life... by Architect_sasyr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Whilst it may hold true, I don't think that's what is causing the adoption of Linux. In fact, I would go so far as to be almost sad that this is what causes the adoption - a mass of IT people not that capable of learning the system are going to crop up and potentially turn FOSS into an almost "Windows Admin" type of system. I'd rather see Linux (or BSD) adoption on a wide scale due to the benefits of the systems, not because they are free.

      --
      Me failed English...
      FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
    2. Re:The best things in life... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Quote: "the slow death of Windows in the data center."

      And that would be a bad thing because.... why?

      Keep in mind that, besides Linux being a higher quality product--especially for the data center-- money not spent to prop up the MS business plan is money that stays with the local business/local economy to be spent elsewhere.

    3. Re:The best things in life... by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, this kind of thing is somewhat rampant already. I recently worked on an embedded Linux system, and the developers moved to Linux from Windows. It certainly proved that Linux is flexible. You absolutely can run a Linux system in such a way that it totally defeats the purpose.

      Their "build system" required you to log in as root or it wouldn't build. To my complete lack of surprise there were flaws in the script that hosed the build machine when run, since the process was running as root. Luckily I was smart enough to run it in a VM, since their is no way I'm building anything as root on my machine. Had I not known any better my system would be messed up, and I would have no idea why.

      The new question to determine if someone is really skilled with computers will not be "do you use Windows or Linux" (or some other secure OS). The litmus test which served me so well is rapidly becoming invalid. It used to be Windows + Education + a_clue = Linux. The new formula will be Linux + Education + a_clue = Real Linux Guy. Basically, the Linux Guy wannabee pool is in the process of growing exponentially.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    4. Re:The best things in life... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The average user, the average sysadmin and the average developer won't fundamentally change. No matter how they told you in grade school that you can become anything you put your mind do, there's people who can't grok a computer if they'd get Bill's fortune as the prize. Some, for some incomprehensible reason even choose to become sysadmins.

      The only real options are that Linux will adapt to gain wide adoption or it will not have wide adoption. It should be in the cards that if you talk to people that want shiny buttons about the freedom to hack the code and compile your own kernel, you're barking up the wrong tree.

      Why should you be complaining anyway? If 90% became point-and-click Linux admins, who'd he the gurus they'd have to go to when those tools fail them? That's right, you. No longer would you be the sysadmin of some obscure server OS, you'd be the grossly overpaid technical specialist hired it to fix the hard stuff. Oh, what a horrible tradgedy.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:The best things in life... by /ASCII · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I strongly disagree. The high cost and abysmal quality of IT services put a wet blanket on innovation and creativity. Without open source software, the cost of starting up an IT company would be significantly higher; without open source Google, Slashdot, reddit, digg and a thousand other companies would likely not have existed.

      I'm excited to see what cool innovations people will come up with if IT costs are further reduced to nearly nothing.

      --
      Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
    6. Re:The best things in life... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      And that would be a bad thing because.... why?

      It's not. It's just Balmer posted on Slashdot again...

    7. Re:The best things in life... by Bert64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have you never used anything other than MYSQL?
      Postgres is open source and perfectly capable...
      Oracle is considerably more powerful than MSSQL, and Linux is Oracle's preferred platform these days... Linux can also run on considerably more powerful hardware than windows can (mainframes, supercomputers etc) which is important if you have a huge database.
      Oracle for linux outperforms the windows version by a considerable margin by all accounts too.

      And yes, Oracle isn't free but you'd just be paying for the DB and getting the OS for free.

      I believe Google use MYSQL too, so it must be pretty capable if used correctly.

      When it comes to databases windows is a pretty poor choice, as is mssql since it's not even cross platform and therefore tied to windows.

      If you want to complain about something Linux doesn't do very well, try gaming.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    8. Re:The best things in life... by neomunk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was with you until this:

      (People that would otherwise eventually get jobs in still economically productive sectors)

      That is simply not an acceptable assumption any longer (and it never really was). Where are these magical jobs coming from?

      They DO NOT EXIST. Just because YOU and I have food on our tables and a roof over our heads does not mean that everyone else could have the same, if only they would work hard. The trickle-down economics theory is bust because wealth is often HOARDED instead of spent, and even the money that IS spent spends the majority of its time in a corporate cycle of purchasing massively over-priced business services/equipment in order to sell massively over-priced services/equipment to other businesses. Only at the bottom of the funnel (you know, the narrow part) do you get businesses spending money on consumer products in order to make money from the masses. To clarify what I mean, picture the money that is transfered between large business accounts each day compared to how much is spent on payroll. The vast majority of wealth is circulated (and stays) far above the populous' heads. Successful advances in business tech/procedures almost universally involve tipping that balance even further, paying an employee less money (or fewer employees the same amount of money) for the same amount of wealth earned for the company.

      The problem of joblessness cannot be left to the market to fix, there must be active solutions toward that goal. Unfortunately I don't have any really good ideas on how that could be tackled efficiently, the only idea I -DO- have pertaining to the subject would be radical and near impossible to implement so I won't even bother to toss it in to the discussion. Regardless, I feel that it is folly to rely on a wealth-concentrating system to widen wealth distribution (which is what happens when people become employed, even if the term has been branded as Satanic by the media).

    9. Re:The best things in life... by jc42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      All predictions about fast adoption of linux because of it being cheaper have not come true partially because corporate service boys charged a healthy premiums on their linux 'loving' customers.

      Oh, I dunno about that. A few months ago, I ordered the hardware for a new "desktop" system from a local computer assembler, and since I ordered it without the default Vista OS, I got a discount of a few hundred $$$. While talking about it with a rep over the phone just before delivery, he asked what I intended to install on it. I said "The latest Ubuntu release", and he said "We can install that for you, for no extra charge." I said "Huh?", and he said "Yeah; we've found that Ubuntu always installs quickly, with no problems at all. Give us an hour, and we can have it all set up for your." I told him "OK", and I got it with Ubuntu running just fine.

      (Well, OK, there was a problem: They forgot to tell me the password that it wanted when I booted it. They were very apologetic about that. They were even more apologetic when I told them that, since they were closed when I got it home, I'd booted a handy knoppix briefly to mount the root partition and set the root password to something I knew. ;-)

      I do sorta suspect that they wanted to do it as a training exercise for their installer guys, as a response to a good number of customers wanting that system installed. But no matter; the fact is that a local system builder took the attitude that "The customer is always right", and wanted their people to be able to install whatever the customer wanted.

      Anyway, this one company didn't charge a healthy premium on a linux-loving customer. They said "We can do that for you for no extra charge." And, needless to say, I told a number of other local friends about it, probably resulting in a few more sales.

      YMMV, of course.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  2. Funny... by ZarathustraDK · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find it morbidly funny somehow that companies have to experience poverty themselves before they see the same benefits of Open Source as some third world countries have already been aware of for years.

    --
    If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
  3. Not a great survey by abigsmurf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A survey of 330 IT Managers makes for questionable results as, although it doesn't state the sampling method, it suggests 'these are just the people who could be bothered to reply to surveys we sent out' rather than going for a representative sampling.

    It's headline grabber is from a flawed type of question : "do you plan to...". The trouble is "I you plan to..." isn't the same as "there are currently plans drawn up to...". You're essentially getting a non-commital 'yeah probably' response.

    It's also linking two unrelated questions: "are you planning on increasing linux usage?" and "are you cutting your budget". Whilst their may possibly be links between the two in some cases, it would be a logical fallacy to assume that companies are switching to linux because of budget cuts.

  4. Re:Sad by neomunk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Solely?

    Please. Linux wouldn't even be a consideration if it wasn't up to the task at hand. The only effect this is having is to make businesses rethink the whole "proven technology" sales pitch in favor of actual cost-effectiveness studies that haven't been done simply due to institutional momentum.

    All this is going to do is bring intelligent IT planning into vogue, and make people take a look at system performance/applicability rather than chasing a corporate logo around.

  5. Not just servers - should grow on desktops too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This week a relative gave a desktop running Ubuntu to his kids following a recommendation by a computer store owner "ubuntu is best for kids". Yes! This after having a bunch of worm infested unusable windows & vista laptops lying around his home for months! Shows linux has reached a level where it is very much usable by regular folks.