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Linus Looks at His Crystal Ball
Magorak writes "There's an interesting article I found here about Linus Torvalds' take on the future of the software and hardware industry. There's tidbits about Linux's future itself, the competition with Microsoft, and about customized software becoming more important. It also gives us an interesting view on how Linus sees the future of computers and technology. "
Here is some info on cross-platform integration if you are interested.
This message posted via NetScape 4.61 running on Mandrake 6.0 with a KDE window manager being ran via a Hummingbird X Client on a Windows 98 machine. Integration is fun! :)
I think there will be a steady need for new features as broadband reaches more and more people. Just as the Internet has caused many applications to become "net aware" and spawned many new features (such as your CD player to fetch track names from CDDB) the next level of access will do even more. I'm sure we'll all be disappointed someday when our favorite app doesn't yet support voice recognition, or application sharing over the internet, or doesn't support the newest lossless graphic standard.
Not to mention that we havne't run out of ideas in the hardware arena yet either. Take a look sometime at the discussion over on Macintouch about Connectix not taking advantage of the Altivec instructions in the next version of Virtual PC. These people really are clamoring for every speed increase they can get, and the company does not want to bother to re-code it for free of course. As long as there is new hardware, there will be new software written to take advantage of it.
On the flip side, of course I haven't really found anything new that I use in Microsoft Office since Office95 came out, unless you count Microsoft Frontpage as being part of the office suite. But, like I mentioned above, voice recognition, video-on-demand, and the ability to use VERY large amounts of data in your work without worrying about the amount of bandwidth of your audience will change a lot of things, I'm sure.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
To use office equipment as an example, a combo fax/printer/scanner/copier/etc device makes sense for the small office/home office (SOHO) segment of the office equipment market. Single-function copiers will make sense to the "big business" segment of the office equipment market. For either combo units or function-specific units to dominate would mean that one segment or the other is not being properly served (i.e., the SOHO segment will be faced with spending a lot for unneeded functions, like collation options, various paper size trays, etc., or the big business segment will be faced with equipment that doesn't meet functional needs).
The same applies to computing products (hardware and software). What makes sense to one segment of the overall consumer population (say, for example, the all-night hacker type) will not serve another segment (e.g., the "how do I print my letter to Granny" type).
To put it much more succinctly, it's about using the right tool for the job -- and recognizing that the simply-described job (e.g., "copy a document") may mean radically different things in various market segments.
Some tools to consider...
No Laughing Allowed!
According to Linus, Transmeta "makes stuff". So, I assume, Linus was hired to help them make stuff. Linus will be bringing his expertise in stuff design and probably begin expanding into actual stuff manufacturing. With the team they have, I imagine they'll make quite good stuff. Maybe useful stuff. Definitely stuff of some sort or other.
/dev/stuff file or maybe even /proc/stuff, a new stuff driver and an expanded stuff interface). I hear O'Reilly will be partnering with Transmeta to release "Stuff in a Nutshell" and the new "Stuff Administrator's Handbook".
Perhaps the stuff will use Linux, but Linus was not hired to work on Linux (although this is not precluded by his contract). I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see some of Linus' work go into Linux (like a
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
>> . There will ALWAYS be a need for constant upgrades while the proprietary software model reigns king
Ah, but by the same token, the proprietary oftware business if pretty reliant on the need to upgrade. That's why I think Linus is right on the mark.
As Microsoft continues to add features to Office, each new feature will appeal to a smaller percentage of users. And as PC prices drop, it's going to be harder and harder to justify a $600 word processor, much less a $300 upgrade every 24 months.
I've watched PC software evolve since the beginning, and there has always been a sort of promised land on the horizon. We were always just a hair short of where we wanted to be. GUIs were unreliable at first, they were too slow. Upgrades seemed necessary, just to make it from Z80-CP/M to a stable 32-bit GUI platform with decent multitasking. It took time, and we bought upgrades along the way.
Now, GUIs and multitasking just work, and we don't think much of it. Windows works pretty well most of the time, Gnome/KDE just need a year or two of polish. And then we're done. The PC has finally evolved to where you turn on a new computer, and no matter how cheap it is, you'll get a pretty snappy GUI interface. And making it twice as "snappy" is no longer a big deal. Most "new" features in current software upgrades are either bells, whistles, or advertisements.
This situation will probably make it pretty difficult to charge a lot of money for the latest version of software in upcoming years. John Dvorak's article yesterday showed rare (for him) insight, when he observed that Linux's desktop challenge will eventually come in the form of a $199 PC that comes with a complete office suite.
yeah, i have one too.
it was an accident when i was a kid, i had one of those bmx bikes and i landed bad, and did a full nutcrusher on the highbar. the left one is okay, but the right one is gone, gone.
it was kinda embarrassing at my junior high, because they had those damn hardwood chairs, and if i wore thin shorts you could hear the "clink, clink, clink" as i settled in my chair. i was late to class a lot, so you can imagine what it was like.
i guess they're using silicon now, but i don't wanna get in one of those fucking class action lawsuits if my hair and teeth start falling out or something.
my crystal ball is doing fine, thx. it doesn't talk to me the way linus' does. maybe thats what the new transmeta appliances are, rf networked prosthetic crystal testicles or something.
Doesn't anyone else here think it's kind of odd that all of a sudden many stories are popping up about Linux on the newswires, when, if you look at it, there really wasn't a news event that predicated the need for an article? Now, I'm going to theorize on a few possibilities:
;) is that this is a plot by the OSS movement to Stick it to the Man and to create good vibes towards OSS and Linux in general.
1) Linux makes news. Good news makes money. Money makes people happy.
2) The increasing amount of tidbits related to Transmeta (yet another reference!) and Linus' relationship to it are nothing but fodder to increase awareness about the obvious branding of Trasmeta's product without said product actually being even known. This awareness and publicity are precisely the kind of calculated moves I would take if I were trying to hype the Next Big Thing (tm). I might note that, for the most part, the actual news item, "Software Price Crashes" in this case, are really of secondary importance. If you'll notice, the discussion of Linus, precedes the implication of Redhat's IPO with precedes the blurb about Transmeta, which then precedes the meat and potatoes of the article. Granted, this is an often used trick in the news industry to make sure people have a background for the material to follow, but isn't this a bit much?
3) (The least plausible
I admit that all of this is supposition and is baseless. I have no proof to back any of this up. IANAL. I'm just an avid slashdotter. AT the very least, it's good to not only read the articles presented, but to read past them and between the lines to derive the intent behind the posts in the first place.
Did anyone notice how they talk about embedded stuff, customization, and many devices per home (appliances in buzzspeak, which he avoided of course
Now, the only thing to hope that the three years he is talking about is not the announcement of their product (remember, on Comdex we will know, what it is or we will know when we will know :), but the final takeover worldwide, where there's not anything traditional left, but customized Linux devices running transmeta parts :)
(transmeta reveleation mode off)
"Ten years from now, they could do it in a few seconds." -- The Racketeer of the Hellfire Club, 1993, Phrack 42
"but Torvalds said he does not believe consumers want all-in-one systems."
I fear Torvalds may have underestimated the powerful attraction between Americans and their chairs. I can think of several million consumers who want nothing less than the world delivered to their couch. Or car. Or CRT. Or PDA. Or forearm. Or brainstem.
Then again, I certainly agree - in the near future, at least, I don't foresee all-in-one devices becoming any more usable.
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The main reason developers can buy computers cheaply right now is that they're the same computer everyone has to buy.
Suppose that home consumers all decide purpose-specific appliances are the way to go, and business decides thin-clients make sense. You won't be able to develop software from home very well on either -- a powerful box with a big hard drive is just much better for that. One of the main reasons is being free to choose your own tools, rather than subscribing to someone's "development suite." Even if you were willing to suffer development on a thin client it's likely that the usage fees would be prohibitive for such an uncommon activity.
So if Linus and Sun are right, expect the price of the box you develop software on to skyrocket, as only enough for developers will have to be made. Note that corporations will develop happily on thin client solutions, internally served and administered. Only open source developers and kids trying to learn programming will really feel the crunch from this.
I don't think that the need for upgrades will disappear in the near future. There are two reasons for this:
Purpose built devices are great, but I think that the future of purpose-built devices will be soft upgradeable as well.
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
A lot of the features the GIMP lacks is due to nifty patents. Mind you, I'm not exactly "knocking" Photoshop, per se.. and I won't even begin to claim myself as a graphics professional, but aside from the really really serious stuff, the GIMP will handle most of your graphics needs (the other general alternative being Paint Shop Pro, which cute though it may be, lacks a lot of the more useful features of Photoshop, and so is rather pointless except for the low end.. certainly not worth the money for it - which is why I don't even bother to compare PSP with GIMP :).
Besides, I think the chances of the GIMP being "on par" by the time GNU/Linux storms the desktop are fairly good, which is why I like it as my example. :)
~ Kish
If that would be true, how the heck did Furbies ever come into existance?
In our western societies need is really at the bottom of the list when it comes to motivations for a purchase. (Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong)
I work for a company that works with embedded systems, and it's surprising how much some of the embedded operating systems cost. QNX is damn-near unreal. They do have a good product, but I can't afford to purchase the damn development kit to even start working on a design, let alone make and sell the 50 thousand or so units needed to pay off the developers toolkit.
:) in server and workstation distros was absolutely correct. I think there should be another one for embedded systems.
I think that the embedded Linux operating system distros are the future for Linux. The article posted here a while back suggesting that Linux be sold (or downloaded
The major push for IPv6 is to give damn near everything (lights, toasters, microwaves, etc) an IP address, and if Linux gets a robust IPv6 stack and a little marketing, it will be in everything, simply because the manufacturers of those products don't have to pay any license fees for it.
Torvalds appears to be saying the latter - I don't see the contradiction in what he's saying; he says the Nokia 9000, which tries to be more general-purpose than just a cell phone or just a (wireless-connected) PDA, isn't as good as a mobile phone that's just a mobile phone or a PDA that's just a PDA, and he says that there won't be a single box that tries to be more than just a digital TV and more than just an Internet access box.
I'm somewhat in Torvalds' camp here; I might have a single unit that serves as VCR, stereo, and TV, but I probably wouldn't want to use that unit to do all my Web access, mail reading, (on-line) newspaper reading - I might prefer, say, one of the "slates" (flat display and stylus, plus wireless connection to something) that have been popping up as prototypes (Cyrix's WebPad, that Norwegian device mentioned a short time ago on Slashdot, etc.) for much of the latter, and I might use my home computer for doing personal finance, document writing, e-mail, software development, and Internet access involved with those.
I'm not sure I'd want or need them all to be general-purpose computers; it might be sufficient to allow a general-purpose computer to tell them stuff - or to tell a general-purpose computer stuff, e.g. letting the computer query a CD jukebox to see what CDs I own, or having the CD player, when I insert a CD, look up in my database of CDs I own to see if this is one of them and, if not, add it to the database (or not, if I tell it I've just borrowed it from somebody - and maybe another button lets me say "I like this one, remember it as one I should get").
I'm partly with you, partly with Linus there. Eventually the Unix model of small programs for special purposes joined together for all needs will reach appliances too.
We'll have separate units for
One should be able to combine those in appropriate ways to get what you want, from mobile to wall-planted. Once those devices recognize each other and communicate, funny possibilities should emerge.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
If all this "Internet everywhere" talk isn't just noise, presumably nothing would be "just an Internet access box" - by and large, we don't have anything at home that's "just an electricity access box", various home appliances do various different things with the electrical power that comes into them. Your TV might get some or all of the audio/video programs it displays from the Internet, and your stereo or TV might get some or all of the audio programs it plays from the Internet; your CD player might get at a CD database over the Internet, your home computer(s) might get new software releases/distributions, financial information, e-mail, netnews, etc. over the Internet; and some or all of them might display Web pages fetched from over the Internet.
However, I don't think it's a given that there will be a single box that'll do all of them. If they all can put packets onto the Internet and get packets from the Internet, as well as putting packets onto and getting packets from an in-house LAN, there may not be any need to have a single box that Does It All.
Little, if any, of the above is original with me - it sounds like the standard Networks Everywhere noise that I seem to hear all around.
The goals outlined in the GNU Manifesto are being reached. It takes time to change the world, but it would be done and is being done.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
The same reason people keep coffeemakers next to their stoves - stoves make coffee, too, but coffeemakers make it better, faster, and with a more appropriate UI.
But all of those are things that can be overcome. No one I know keeps a manual typewriter next to their computer. A lot of people with good internet access don't keep cd players, cassette players, or radios next to their computers. I no longer keep a newspaper in my house - it has been completely integrated with my computer. I know longer keep a TV guide next to my television - even though the TV guide has more information and a better UI than my digital cable, it's easier to find the TV than the TV AND a current periodical.
By contrast, I don't watch TV on my computer - that's too frustrating and expensive. I still keep maps in my car - again, the alternative is too expensive. I don't send e-mail through my cellphone, and even though I wish I could, it wouldn't be the only way I sent e-mail.
In summary - my girlfriend uses a knife to cut food, and scissors to cut paper and cloth, because she often has to do things requiring the precision scissors afford. I will use a knife to cut anything, because it's easier than looking for scissors, and I'm a lazy sod. There are many people who don't want all-in-one devices, but a lot of them will use them once they have them.
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Software price crash? I'm not so sure.. Well, depends on how you look at it. My favorite example for why software companies should fear GNU/Linux is the GIMP. Bye bye Adobe Photoshop. That won't be a price crash (ugh.. hundreds of dollars to touch up images?), it will be a total switchover from one product to another. :) It depends on the software, I suppose.. But still, it would be more of a drop than a /crash/..
The only crash I might suspect would be in the hardware end of the computer industry. After all, the Wintel connection will be for naught if Microsoft bites the GNU/Linux bullet. I mean, if you don't constantly have OS upgrades that are totally monolithic and suck ever-increasing amounts of resources, what's the incentive to upgrade your hardware? Mind you, I'm talking about the desktop. Scientists and other people who require /extreme/ computing power will always need more.. Richard Stallman in particular finds less and less of a need to upgrade all the time as hardware gets more powerful and his computing needs stay around the same. Hardcore gamers might find fault in my theory, but not all end-users are hardcore gamers. :)
Basically, if you run an OS that actually bothers to manage memory efficiently (contraty to the belief of the Windows-lovers I've met in my time, that is /not/ one of them) you eventually get to a point where getting the latest badass processor just isn't that big a deal. Therefore, in order for, say, Intel, to get you to go buy one, it has to be just a /little/ less than $500 or so.
~ Kish