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Red Hat CEO Questions Relevance of Desktop Linux
snydeq writes "Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst questioned the relevance of Linux on the desktop, citing several financial and interoperability hurdles to business adoption at a panel on end-users and Linux last night at the OSBC. 'First of all, I don't know how to make money on it,' Whitehurst said, adding that he was uncertain how relevant the desktop itself will be in five years given advances in cloud-based and smartphone computing, as well as VDI. 'The concept of a desktop is kind of ridiculous in this day and age. I'd rather think about skating to where the puck is going to be than where it is now.' Despite increasing awareness that desktop Linux is ready for widespread mainstream adoption, fellow panelists questioned the practicality of switching to Linux, noting that even some Linux developers prefer Macs to Linux. 'There's a desire [to use desktop Linux],' one panelist said, 'but practicality sets in. There are significant barriers to switching.'"
Uhh, last I checked Canonical hasn't actually turned a profit yet. Its just being funded by someone who has very deep pockets. It could be years before he recovers his investment, if it ever happens.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
Anyone old enough here to remember that? Bill Gates responded to Ellison's claim that the PC was dead, by saying, "I like my PC."
I think a lot of folks still like the freedom of being able to install what *they* want, not what is available in some cloud, or what their company's IT folks claim to be "the standard application set" that is more than anyone else might need.
Now, whether Jim Whitehurst can make money off how *I* like to handle my computing needs, well, that's his problem.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Dear, Anonymous (if that is your real name), your computer is not the only goddamn computer in existence. Love, Slashdot.
Shuttleworth has stated before that he was able to start Thawte due directly to F/OSS.
\No idea how they are making a revenue other than with t-shirts and bags, but apparently they do make a profit. It's not just one person or fund. Or the fund is large enough for sufficient interest.
Training and support?
open source modern art: laser taggi
And the reason why you could not virtualize windows xp inside linux is ...?
I mean, if you want your developpers to have a mac mini, by all ways, do it. Do no try to bullshit us saying that your guys are happier now because they run xp on parallels, you know xp can easily run virtualized under linux. O, you didn't? Well, now you know ;-)
By the way: it has been ages since I have had to recompile a kernel. Are you using gentoo or something like that? You know, some people just install ubuntu or fedora or debian and get on with their lives. Stuff just works nowadays (I re-read your post and see that your experiences are 8 years old. Maybe you should not be so fast to prejudge what you obviously do no longer know so well).
I am a sysadmin at a citrix/vmware shop. My desktop is fedora, I quite like seeing how linux improves every 6 months. Every 6 months I download the iso, install it and in 20 minutes am ready (2 monitors, citrix client, openoffice, flash, java, ready for action in our network). 20 minutes, that's all it takes. No fiddling around with drivers, no kernel recompiling. Nothing. I spent much more time helping our webmaster configure his brandnew mac box, go figure.
It gets even boring, actually. Installing printers is just a matter of point, klik, point, klik, enter ip address of network printer, wait, yes, this is a sharp or a hp or a brother, it detects the right driver and installs it. It no longer is funny :-), it just works. And for outlook, I just launch a citrix session and use it in citrix. This will probably change in the next Fedora, because it comes with the first free mapi client integrated into Evolution. We will see how that works.
Natxo Asenjo
No way I can give you a full accounting here, but just and idea.
Again, where I operate in Latin America either it simply does not exist or it will cost 2 to 10 times what it does in the States. I am sure there is a lot of the developing World in a similar situation. Thus, all the screaming about all the pirated software in the developing World (they can't afford it).
Most of the savings is in deploying servers and office infrastructure mostly. Web server (3 servers), PBX phone system (asterisks), mail servers (3), databases (not even sure how many), a bunch of other stuff I am sure I overlooked. FOSS web sites and databases are a big one as I run about a dozen different sites for promotion. If I had to run those on say a .NET framework, each would likly cost me $5,000 US a pop on the low end. Likely more around $10,000 a year or more with hiring people to build and maintain them.
The per desktop cost is big here. Stock windows vista home edition computers (just about all that is sold) will start at around $1000 to $1200 US, with no software (add office, adobe, etc). Hardware will be at least 12 to 24 months behind what is sold in the States, single core processors are still common. I am not even sure where I would find a licensed copy of windows server, let alone any other common advanced server apps. I even have PIII IBM T21 I just took out of service in my office. Cost $600 three years ago factory recertified with win98, and it was already 8 years old. Got Three years out of it with Linux, and I still could use it if needed.
This is all aside from labor cost (competent IT labor also does not exist). The real savings is in my time, if you are looking for an easy way to justify that number. One competent full time IT person to do all the above (chances I would need way more) if I could find them, would run me an easy $80,000 US to start per year.
Don't forget total virus infections in my company ever: 0.00000000
Just now I am starting to really cash in, because the big upfront cost are done (especially in terms of my time to do homework). I can cheaply scale from 30 to 300 employees in IT terms with very little new investment and likly well beyond. Someday, with a little luck, I really will need to hire someone like Red Hat. That is how they will make their money off of me.
You can run the numbers in a bunch of different ways, depending on where you shop for prices; but there is still a big savings over going all closed source equivalents. There is simply no way to recalculate all that in a way that closed source equivalent functionality / capabilities comes out cheaper, without using pirated software.
Living in Chile