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Will Linux have the same fate as Java?
geophile writes "This Boston Globe article starts out talking about Java's failure to take over the world, and then questions whether Linux will suffer the same fate. " Interesting question, and perhaps I'm being partial, but I feel as though Java promised that it was going to change the world-right then and there. Linux has been building for quite sometime, and continues to develop.
This is something I've been saying for a while: Linux is great, and I've used it for a while, but it is *not* necessarily going to achieve world domination. Technological superiority doesn't always win. In the end, it's a business decision, and denying that will get us nowhere.
The possible key difference is open-sourcing. If all bugs really are shallow to a sufficient number of eyeballs, then we should continue to see far more robust software. That can impact the bottom line for lots of corporations, and thus gain substantial extra market/mind share. But as far as the individual desktop goes, Linux (while always a viable alternative) won't succeed purely on the basis of being more robust. Users need out-of-the-box hardware support and the ability to run the software they want to run, from productivity apps to home applications (read: Quicken) to, yes, games.
Java hasn't won primarily because Sun seems to have forgotten that while technologically superior doesn't always win, it is important. I carpool with a Java programmer, and whenever I make the point that Java is slow, he tells me to run a performance VM. There's the flaw: a "performance" anything should be for excellent results, not acceptable results.
Linux needs to build on its technological achievements, always improving, to win corporate share, and on its fundamental usability (HW support, apps) for individual use. That's the way to avoid the Java trap.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
Everyone is missing one vital point.
Linux has its place
Java was and is a great idea. Sun saw it for what it is. They marketed it, they put it out there, they tried to take over the world with it.
They got it an image problem when they stuck it into buggy browsers on slow machines, but that's a discussion for another time.
Linux didn't start out like that. Linux wasn't some germ of an idea that needed incubation and careful marketing. Linus didn't make deals with $large_software_company to include it with every copy of $popular_application. He coded it and stuck it out there.
And it stuck.
Guys, Linux has nothing to prove. The mindset is already there. The people who need to trust it most, trust it. We know when it can be used. We know when it can't. We can prove it.
Once we have that, we can work on the PHBs, and no dodgy benchmarks are going to change that.
This is not some ivory-tower dismissive. It's a reminder: in an industry awash with false promises and vapourware, Linux delivered long ago. It will remain as long as it is useful.
Dave
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