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Unix vs. Linux Career Prospects
TreeRat writes "Here is a CNN article covering the possible career prospects for IT professionals knowing Unix vs. Linux. It concludes (surprise surprise) that most Linux professionsals are using other forms of Unix at work as their primary OS, but that demand for Linux people should be much higher in the future. "
Confusion over the word unix is commonplace. In this instance, the article splits unix systems into two categories: Unix and Linux, as if all unix systems besides Linux are somehow authentic or legitimate, while Linux is not.
What makes a unix system a unix system? Most of us already know the answer to this but probably have no desire to spell it out. If you know what a unix system is, inside and out, you know perfectly well that Linux is just one implementation of unix, as are Solaris, AIX, HPUX, etc.
The code base does not have to stem from the original tree to be considered a legitimate unix system, nor does it have to be proprietary. As Neal Stephenson points out, "Gnu is an acronym for Gnu's Not Unix, but this is a joke in more ways than one, because GNU most certainly IS Unix. Because of trademark concerns ("Unix" is trademarked by AT&T) they simply could not claim that it was Unix, and so, just to be extra safe, they claimed that it wasn't."
Despite the pedantic point that the trademark is now owned by someone else, he hit the nail on the head.
If I'm not mistaken, the trademark has been owned, at least, by the following: Bell Labs, AT&T, Novell, X/Open, and The Open Group. However, the ownership of the original code has passed from Bell Labs to AT&T to Novell to SCO. Again, if I'm not mistaken, the trademark and the original code base are now owned by two different entities. It is in my opinion ludicrous for anyone to assert their rights to the word unix anymore - though I would not encourage anyone to try naming their product XYZ Unix or some variation along the lines of UnixWare, I think that everyone has every right to describe their systems appropriately, including people who run Linux; and Linux is a unix system.
If you look at The Open Group's discussion of their trademarks, you'll see just how silly the whole idea of claiming ownership to the word unix really is; these measures are too late. Language has owned the word for some time now. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear, in common speech at work, at least one of their examples violated on how they don't want you to use the word unix. Specifically, I constantly hear people refer to "the unix box," "a unix box," or "one of the unix boxes," when in fact they are talking about different types of machines and different implementations of unix.
Do not let this word game encourage people to perceive Linux as somehow less deserving of the name than its commercial counterparts. A unix, by any other name, is still a unix.
Steven Pritchard, a contract HP-UX system administrator at a Peoria, Ill., manufacturer, sees a lot of interest in Linux across the organization -- especially since major vendors began to support it -- but no actual applications.
Yet.
"The demand for just Linux skills isn't all that high yet," Pritchard says. "Most of the Linux people I know don't have Linux-specific jobs."
Yet.
Those who ignore the future are doomed to regret it. Linux is the future, there's no denying it (flame all you want, but it's the truth and you all know it). The article mentions it being "barely 8 years old;" how old is Microsoft now? Twice that? Compare how far Microsoft's "advances" have been in that amount of time to how far Linux has come in half that time. Now think how far it's going to go in the future with more and more supporters and programmers hacking at it with each passing day compared to how far Windows 2000 (tm)(r)(s)(c) supporters and programmers will be able to take it in the same amount of time. Clearly, since Linux has already surpassed it in speed, reliability, stability and the ability to be almost instantaneously patched against things like bugs and security flaws (how long does it take MS to come out with a service pack for bugs they knew were there before they even released it?), it will always be ahead of MS in those areas. Combine that with the fact that it is free and runs on damn near any hardware and most everything on it is written in C, which can be ported to any other platform or OS, and that it can do most anything Solaris or Irix or AIX or HPUX or VMS can do for a slightly monumental price, there is literally no stopping it; it will eventually dominate.
Now, taking all that into consideration, does it make sense for any company or sysadmin/programmer to just ignore it now? Perhaps it doesn't have all the 3rd-party applications that Windows has... but it will. Perhaps support for a few peripheral hardware devices and interfaces doesn't exist or needs to improve... but it will. And some bright, sunny, shiny, happy day in the very near future, when Linux... or even just *nix... rules all, those of us who have believed in it all along will be so far ahead of those who have ignored it all along that they won't have a chance of learning all they need to know to <buzzword> compete </buzzword> with us. (By "us" I mean companies and individuals...)
Prognostication is the key to future success. A lot of us already know the future and are well prepared for it; a lot of people don't have the vision or imagination to see it, or are so comfortable with the status quo that change frightens them. They will be left behind. Oh, eventually they'll catch up; but for a good year or two, we'll be the hottest commodities on earth.
I for one can't wait...
"All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; next it is violently attacked; finally, it is held to be self-evident."