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Gartner Slams Linux
Porag_Spliffing sent us a choice quote from this well researched Gartner group piece which says
"The lack of standards in the Linux community, coupled with a lack of key productivity applications and with Unix complexity, will continue to make Linux a poor choice for the mainstream business productivity user."
Let's be honest here, computer newbies should NOT be installing their OS if they don't know anything about their system. I certainly wouldn't expect my mother to be able to install Linux or even Win98 because frankly, she's scared of the damned prompts! When you have options that say "Back, Next, Cancel" it is confusing to newbies. There isn't that many ways that it CAN be made easier to install though while retaining the ability to be customized by advanced people. I could give you a Mandrake or Redhat CDrom today and if there was no network to confuse the issue you should be able to install it by clicking next a few times. i.e. Boot the cdrom, setup your keyboard type (US is the default), time zone, and then select "workstation install" and it will handle partitioning and everything for you and install a preset set of packages. There isn't anything after that! A monkey could be taught how to install it!
> Memo to the ignorant: Money = Favourable Gartner Group blurb. Duh.
Maybe that explains their article. They obviously haven't done any research, this year at least.
They are just talking out of their ass from what they heard from a guy who is friends with a girl who read PCWorld last week.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Gartner Group:
IDC figures show Linux comprised just 3.5 per cent of PC server shipments last year.
Translation:
Linux accounted for only 3.5% of the $$$ billed for OS orders last year. (IOW, for each 1000 copies of NT at ~$700 each there were 490 copies of Red Hat shipped at $50 each, and who knows how many times each of them was installed.)
Alternate translation:
Linux preinstalls accounted for only 3.5% of the $$$ billed last year for shipped servers. (Which is a lot more preinstalls than I would have expected, and why I doubt this translation.)
The thing to remember is that the Gartner Group is a marketing research firm, and they track MONEY, not UNITS. That little detail was one of the main reasons that IBM and Compaq kept their top spots for as long as they did against higher-volume but lower-priced competition.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Operative words from your posting: "I haven't gotten Linux to be as reliable as Windows 95 on the same machine."
Well, I've had the exact opposite experience.
One of my Linux machines has a Zip drive (which I used with absolutely no problems. Further, I have a Banshee card which IMHO works exceptionally well.
However, I might point out, the only difficulty I've ever had with a mouse driver "locking" under Windows had more to do with a hardware misconfiguration (yep, it does happen under Windows) than with any inherent OS problem.
Sorry, but I think your problems have more to do with other issues than the OS you happen to be using.
there's still a short-term future for closed source.
Pol Pot said there was still a short-term future for the urban population of Cambodia.
Marx and then Lenin said that the future was inevitable.
In effect the article is true because computer users in the work environment are dependant on windoze and windows compatible software due to ease of installation. the best was for linux to expand more fully into the enterprise market is to create more cross compatible applications. Linux applications that can create files that are easily convertable to windows apps. This wouldallow Linux to be a more viable "option" in the enterprise.
Premise: I use both Linux and HP_UX, and I like both of them. Evidently, Sanyo does not think this way.
Excerpts from the article above:
My 0.02 Euro, as usual
in the corporate setting, the admin configures the desktop once, puts all the homes on a server, and users don't have to configure squat.
Actually, a better translation is that the users aren't allowed to configure squat.
You're going to make Linux really popular by taking away the user's ability to fine tune their environment. Yep, people are going to love that.
You wouldn't believe how popular that will make you in the lunchroom. People will probably grovel for the privledge of touching the hem of your robe.
Other than that, it's Concentrated Evil. I'm thinking about writing a commentary called "PowerPoint Considered Harmful":
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
While we're at it, the employees should all wear uniforms as well.
Why does an end-user care if someone else can still telnet into his box? If the desktop crashes, the desktop crashes.
My point was that Netscape is one of the few real-world apps that runs on the Linux desktop, and it often enough brings the system (end-user experience here, mind you, sure the kernel is chugging away nicely in the background- who cares?) and it introduces the "Windows experience" of instability.
Let's wait and see what happens as more commercial-grade apps make it onto the Linux desktop. I predict when it plays the same game as the 'big boys' a lot of the stability hype fades away.
Mmmm yes, makes perfect sense to me. Next week : how we'll all be living on Mars in five years time, the moon is made of blue cheese and Bill Gates is a visionary leader ...
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
IMHO, these are just the weasel words that the author will use when others come to him later to point out how wrong he was.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
If you are using an old 16 bit version of Access such as 2, its a pile of cack for more than 1 or 2 users.
Unfortunately this is the version a lot of people have experienced running under Windoze 3.1.
Access 97 which we have been continous using for over 14 months has been reliable (no down time or major crashes). It certainly been more reliable than our MS SQL server 6.5 on NT4.0.
For a system that has 100 records inputted daily and is used by 20 users with proper record locking and a good table structure , the jet 3.5 database has been working reliably if a bit slowly.
The problem with Access is that to use it properly you have to know VBA and SQL and then you might as well learn Visual Whatever and SQL Server, Sybase etc and earn more bucks.
What tends to happen is that end users thinks it like a super duper excel spreadsheet and create crap databases as a result.
The fundamental problem with the perception of Linux is time. People who write negative things about Linux are looking at the Linux of about 6-12 months ago. If you bought Redhat up until just a few weeks ago you were getting a 6-7 old version of linux. Linux advocates, myself included, look at the Linux 6-12 months in the future.
The article states that Linux is too hard to setup. Yep that is true of a year ago. But some reviewers now state that Linux is easier to setup
up than NT. A year from now I almost guarantee you that most people will think that on a machine with no operating system Linux will be easier to install that win2k.
The article talks about no applications that business people use. Again true a year ago. Not very true today with several commercial office
packages available for free. Certainly not likely to be true a year from now when the commercial packages have been out for a while and KDE and Gnome increasingly have office packages of their own.
Once could go on and on: talk about enterprise readiness, scaling... All of this is also very much true of MS myths about Linux. Yes about half of them are true for Linux of the past but right
now that half is being addressed on many fronts. There is no question that most of them will be non-issues by this time next year.
The reality is that Linux very often moves a lot faster than MS and other proprietary software. People just haven't adjusted to that.
As far as MS not noticing linux hurting NT, I wish that were the case. MS really needs not to worry about Linux. Not going to affect windows one bit not at all. No threat here. Nothing to see. Linux is all hype will blow over in a few months...
I'm going to be severely flamed for saying this, but here are my two Canadian cents (worth .01 American cents).
I have to admit I haven't read the report yet, but I have to agree with the premise that Linux is not ready for the average business user RIGHT NOW. There's definately a lack of standards -- from one Linux distribution to another, something as simple as the init files, runlevels, etc, can differ. There's no universal packaging system and there's no standard desktop system. If I'm a commercial developer, do I develop for KDE or GNOME, or develop just for plain old X and not get features like drag-and-drop and CORBA? Choice is good -- but not when it makes things more complicated for the user and IS dept.
Applications? They're hard to find for the average Joe -- they're out there, but they're not marketed well enough. Sure, Wordperfect and StarOffice are there. But, where's an easy to use graphical database package like Access or Paradox? Where are the RAD tools, like Delphi and C++ Builder? They're coming, but they're not here yet. Project management software? I understand there are some very good GUI ones out there -- but do corporate users know they can go to freshmeat.net to find it? Do they trust something that has no commercial support, even if it's 200x better than MS Project? Want good quality, commercial business graphics software? Fat chance now with Microsoft owning Visio! And good quality, commercial enterprise and small business accounting packages are on their way, but not quite as usable as the commercial solutions out there.
Enterprise customers need someone to blame when it's not working properly -- and while makers of distributions and companies like Linuxcare provide OS support, who do you turn to when you need help for your GPLed applications not included with / supported by your distribution?
I disagree, however, with the idea that Linux will NEVER catch up to Microsoft in the business world. I believe that we're starting to get there. Personally, I'm perfectly pleased using Linux at work -- but I'm a sys admin, not a typical user. All I want to be added is font smoothing in XFree, a clipboard that works universally, and a web browser that's not as crappy as Netscape 4.7. But, the typical business user wants alot more.
Because of the way the Open Source, geographically-dispersed development model works, it adapts very quickly to the demands of the users. I believe we'll be able to adapt enough to the demands of the business and home user to be accepted sometime -- when, I don't know. But we're not there yet.
It cun boot but its not fast. I am at work so I can say much. At work I tried linux at 4 cpu's and Nt and NT beat the pants off of linux. It was a $30,000 server with 4 ethernet cards and a huge raid array. This is why NT won. 2.4 should kick butt though.
I wish that people (INCLUDING the editor who put this story on slashdot) would *READ* the stories first. Your link isn't to a gartner group report. It is to an IDG article about the gartner group report. I will sum up the actual information from the gartner group report: paraphrased: Linux is not really ready for your standard end-user business user yet. There is a lack of standards, and some key productivity applications are missing. But, as linux continues to improve, its appeal will broaden. Okay. Someone PLEASE SHOW ME how the above is "slamming" linux now. What IDG said was THIS: "a damning report from gartner has all but put the kiss of death on linux". Those are *IDG's* words. NOT the gartner group. Next time people should read, and think, before speaking. I'm tired of all of these knee-jerk reactions to perfectly reasonable statements about Linux. It makes us all look like morons.
Gartner's piece states that Linux is to be avoided for business-productivity applications.
The article is a little confused in that the Gartner report relates to business-productivity apps, but the rest of the piece discusses server and enterprise applications.
Confining discussion to the Gartner view, I'd say -- they're absolutely correct. There is no way I'd encourage Linux for widespread desktop use today. (I'd encourage Macs, not Windows, but that's another issue.) Still, given the absolutely astounding growth of Linux desktops over the last two years and given Microsoft's helpful plan of making each iteration of Office even harder to use, that could well change soon.
I recently spent 20 minutes trying to convince Word98 that I didn't want an email address in a letter to be automatically converted to a mailto: URL. I can't wait for KOffice.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Perhaps offtopic, perhaps not -- but I'm surprised you can use Access for anything critical, unless it's got a real SQLish server (Oracle, PostgreSQL, whatever) behind it via ODBC. Is this the case?
http://www.nacs.net/~heller/linux/gartner_linux.ht ml
** Martin
Exactly. This article does not contain the entire Gartner Group report, only certain quotes from it. It is Ellen Cresswell who is characterizing it as a "slam", a "hostile review", and a "kiss of death" to Linux. The quotes she provides from the report don't support those characterizations, IMHO.
According to the article, the report says Linux will not overtake MS's OS's on the desktop, due to "lack of standards", "lack of key productivity" apps, and "Unix complexity". I would like to have seen further elaboration on what standards they think are lacking and on what key productivity apps they feel are missing.
But one thing the article does not provide is any commentary from Gartner as to Linux's suitability as a server OS. And, in case anyone were interested, there is no information on what Gartner thinks the future of NT as a desktop OS will be. In fact, as an article about what Gartner Group thinks, it is surprisingly brief about what they say and instead is quite full of what other vendors/competitors have to say. The huge majority is quotes from IDC, Emusys, Microsoft, Sun, and HP.
The first 10% of the article contains naked pronouncements from Gartner Group regarding Linux's suitablility as a desktop OS. The remainder contains a variety of opinions on where Linux is heading in the server arena. Bizarre composition really.
Red Hat cares. Caldera cares. IBM|SGI|unix-vendor cares. Else all the linux zealots are just a bunch of cult members with no life.
cpeterso
I'd rather have it otherwise, but it's true, there's still a short-term future for closed source. Well, ./install. Just as bad as windows.
But not worse.
Gartner is also the main engine behind the 'Y2K' Chicken-Little scare campaign. The way they scream about it, we'll all vaporize a few minutes after the event, and that's if we're lucky.
But I suppose they like to stir people up, since that generates more queries for analyses, and they get paid again.
The point is, Linux (and unices in general) gives you as much or as little control as you want over what users are allowed to do.
Based on my experiences supporting Winnders users ("Er, I deleted all the files in C:\lotus, now my typewriter thingy won't work!"), and with the potential for litigation if the wrong (politically incorrect) images appear on a workstation display, I'd lock down everything and only permit users to choose from an approved set of desktop configurations (e.g. benign tiled bitmaps, or company-oriented images).
Users would not be permitted to install their own programs, no way. This would open the door for too many potential problems.
Clamping down on user configuration may not make one popular in the lunchroom, but corporations don't spend millions of dollars on IT to make their admins popular in the lunchroom.
slashdot broke my sig
I personally wish more of them were wrong, but...
But Microsoft is wrong that Linux has not affected sales of NT. A lot of historical UNIX workstation users such as myself switched to NT in order to take advantage of the cheap PC hardware and easy software availability. I jumped onto NT almost immediately because it was good enough and a lot cheaper than your typical RISC workstation. It took a lot of effort to make a usable development environment, but you could do well enough.
Over the last few months, however, Linux has started to make significant inroads into our engineering department. Today roughly a quarter of all engineers run Linux rather than NT -- up from just two in the spring (that's about 700% growth). Microsoft can't see that in their sales yet because IT is still buying NT licenses whether or not we use them, but the transition is happening remarkably fast -- far faster than the RISC->PC movement that brought in NT. It will not be long before new NT purchases are curtailed to some degree.
There have certainly been some NT sales lost to Linux, however. I recently purchased a new laptop and I chose to go with Linux rather than NT despite running NT exclusively for the last four years. That's a sale NT would have gotten only a few months ago.
Generally speaking Gartner is correct that the people jumping onto Linux are traditional UNIX users. That means that on the desktop Microsoft is pretty safe -- there never were that many UNIX users.
But on the server, well, that's another thing entirely. Microsoft is not particularly well-entrenched; they're competing well against the commercial UNIXen at the low-end but that's largely because the hardware is cheaper. Linux uses the same hardware, costs less, and doesn't have client license issues. That 3.5% market that is dismissed in the article was statistically insignificant only a year ago!
Gartner is right that the traditional UNIX vendors are in the most trouble, but they were already in trouble. Their problem isn't and never was Microsoft, it was the PC. Linux gives those UNIX people a lower-cost solution without giving up UNIX. For small servers it's a very interesting solution to an IT department that is UNIX-savvy.
Microsoft makes great noise about how Linux isn't hurting them in that market, but the truth of the matter is that it's taking sales away from traditional UNIX vendors that Microsoft would otherwise have gotten. It has noticably slowed the impact of NT, and that definitely has their attention. Why else are they running benchmarks all over the place? They have to prove that NT is worth spending the money.
A lot of Linux people believe that Linux will beat NT by outperforming it. That might be true in a couple of years, but it's not true now except on the lowest-end hardware. Linux will beat NT in two respects:
Microsoft is worried about the server market and they should be. Linux is cheap and reliable and if there's any two things that IT departments like in a server those are the things.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
The fundamental problem with the perception of Linux is time. People who write negative things about Linux are looking at the Linux of about 6-12 months ago. If you bought Redhat up until just a few weeks ago you were getting a 6-7 old version of linux. Linux advocates, myself included, look at the Linux 6-12 months in the future.
The article states that Linux is too hard to setup. Yep that is true of a year ago. But some reviewers now state that Linux is easier to setup
up than NT. A year from now I almost guarantee you that most people will think that on a machine with no operating system Linux will be easier to install than win2k.
The article talks about no applications that business people use. Again true a year ago. Not very true today with several commercial office
packages available for free. Certainly not likely to be true a year from now when the commercial packages have been out for a while and KDE and Gnome increasingly have office packages of their own.
One could go on and on: talk about enterprise readiness, scaling...
All of this is also very much true of MS myths about Linux. Yes about half of them are true for Linux of the past but right now that half is being addressed on many fronts. There is no question that most of them will be non-issues by this time next year. Just follow kernel trafic or the deveolpment of KDE and Gnome and other projects.
The reality is that Linux very often moves a lot faster than MS and other proprietary software. People just haven't adjusted to that. Journalists need to look a the web page for the various projects and read the mailing list to get a realistic veiw of where linux will be down the road. This isn't something they are used to doing since its not possible with closed source software.
As far as MS not noticing linux hurting NT, I wish that were the case. MS really needs not to worry about Linux. Not going to effect windows one bit not at all. No threat here. Nothing to see. Linux is all hype will blow over in a few months...
Ok, this is a rare thing for me, posting 2 sharp-tounged comments on Slashdot in ONE morning, but here goes:
The person who really, truly cares about what the Gartner Group says about X piece of technology is also the person who probably considers his grandest technological decision of the year the large order of CD-ROM labelling devices he made at PC EXPO ("I saved 50 cents a unit by buying 1,000! And they gave me this COOL T-Shirt and stuffed animal!") and steadfastly believes wrestling is real.
Memo to the ignorant: Money = Favourable Gartner Group blurb. Duh.
Standards... well then tell me the standard way to install a package that works accross all Linux distributions?
./configure make make install
um.... rpm -Uvh bob.rpm or if you prefer
pretty standard from my end
-- john
"according to Microsoft, Linux has not affected sales of Windows NT."
Um, anyone else see a problem with that statement?
I use Linux as my desktop. True - Netscape is buggy, but it has never frozen my system. Generally it just disappears. I have had sessions freeze up before (beta and alpha software tends to do that from time to time), but I generally just go to another terminal and kill the session. Linux is still happy and starting a new session is quick. I also use WordPerfect 8. It needs work (eagerly awaiting 9), but for what it's designed to do it does pretty well. Haven't tinkered with StarOffice or Applixware yet, but I'm sure they're fine products as well. I run on a modest system with numerous Netscape windows open, gcc running in the background, a game of Freecell up, the CD playing my favorite music, a letter up in WP8 and a neat multi-layer image forming in GIMP simultaniously. Linux takes everything in stride. While I administer the system, once it's set up there's really nothing to do but use it. I feel that these could easily migrate to desktops in the form of pre-installed machines... Notice, many of my Windows customers don't know jack about Windows and it's just a bear to get them to click on that or move this. That and the fact that Windows crashes for no reason leaving them to think they did something wrong. If you're going to start someone out from scratch, why not introduce them to Linux configured for desktop? My Windows customers call me and ask me to service their systems when they screwed something up or want to install something - what's the difference then if they use Linux and call me? (Well, the difference will be a happier me). Most people at home only want to browse the internet and write letters and play the occasional game. Is that too much to ask for Linux? With a good support center anything more (addition of more software or hardware) is a simple matter... It's there. The possibility is there. People just need to take the plunge. Coming from Windows, many of us view Linux as hard. But for newbies to Windows - it scares them too. And these are guys that used nothing but dos for years. I think people could easily migrate over if given the chance and the help. The Linux community is a whole lot warmer and more welcoming than any Windows community I've seen...
I love it, everytime I see a negative piece about Linux posted here I see the flamethrowers and pick axes come out and everyone starts tearing it apart. Sorry but I think Gartner had some good, if redundant, points.
1. And this we all know.. Linux is NOT ready for the main stream. If it was than I would be typing this from work on my Caldera box with Netscape and not from NT with Explorer 4.0
2. It is not ready for mission critical applications yet.. I have to admit it is a hell of a lot better than Windows in this respect but it still lacks compaired to most of the Unix systems.
3. SMP is bad.. right now.. with 2.4 around the corner that may fix some of it, but I doubt it will completely fix it.
Some times it is better to read an article from a non-linux loving geek to that of a consumer looking for the best thing for them currently.. not a month to a year away. Take the critisism and use it to better the OS.
Andy
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein
I'm sick of this arguement from MS, that "It hasn't effected sales of NT" and "Linux is competing with Unix" this is a bunch of BS.
:)
When I set up a system, there are times I need Solaris, but to interact with it, I'm not going to buy NT! I'm going to use Linux, and maybe SCO and maybe BSD or a combination of them.
Linux doesn't have standards? Then why can I have my Slackware system running fine with another Redhat system, as well as a Solaris, and AIX! But problems always arrive when I hook up a NT to the equation.
Sorry, I'll come off my soap box now.
Later
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
I would like to comment on that Linux on the Desktop part. It's true that new Linux users most likely have trouble when starting to use Linux, mainly because these two system work quite diffently from each other. I have experience from Windows since the 3.0 days and when I first booted it up it seemed hard/complicated to use but now after several versions of it I find it simple to use (mostly because I have discovered the different ways to do things in it, which are total chinese to my wife). But around a month ago I started seriously using Linux and I must admid that using it (not installing it) was kind of shaky at first but after a while I got comfortable with it and now I wouldn't change back. Still my wife uses the 'other' computer that has Windows installed on it just because she found Linux (KDE) confusing and new and doesn't have the 'technical hunger' to find things out, so she decided to stay on the safe and 'sound' road of Windows. Things might be different if Linux would have been what it is now when she started taking her first steps with computers.
If X locks on your machine, ssh into it from another and shut it down. I can't say I've every had a serious problem that I couldn't ssh in and either shut down or kill the offending application.
Now, I don't have a vBanshee, but I do have a v2. It works quite nice. I just followed the instructions on www.linux3d.org
As far as sound, have you compiled sound as a module or directly into the kernel? I like compiling it directly in so that I can specify the irq, etc. at compile time and not have to worry about loading in the modules. What kind of soundcard do you have? If it is something like the sblive, you'll need to get the closed source drivers, (i'll dig up the link if you need it).
This sig is false.
The comment would have read creating new standards If they were talking about M$. And furthermore why is it that the missing apps are never named? It would be great but it dosent have "X" What is "X"
My point was that Netscape is one of the few real-world apps that runs on the Linux desktop, and it
often enough brings the system (end-user experience here, mind you, sure the kernel is chugging
away nicely in the background- who cares?) and it introduces the "Windows experience" of
instability.
Apparently your experience with netscape has been quite different from mine. When I said I had never seen it take down the system I suppose it's natural to assume that I meant a full blown system crash, but the fact is I have never seen netscape take down the desktop as you put it either. I have had netscape crash many times, but it has never effected any other part of the system. Other than the annoyance of having to manually delete it's lock file and occasionally relocate the page you were viewing, I've had no other related trouble.
As far as commercial grade apps, netscape is the one "commercial" app I use and it's the worst of the lot.
I don't know about you, but I don't look forward to replacing existing, working systems just because they are 3-5 years old... If it works, it works. I have a novel file server that has 2 years uptime. It does a great job, despite it's age. The other novel server, on the opposite side of the spectrum, is slow and kludgey, and is being replace with a linux/samaba machine. I pick linux over nt because - reliability, cost, and performance. I don't want to have to reset the cpu every week or so to reclaim memory. I don't want to have to spend thousands on user liscenses. I don't want my users complaining it is slow and cludgey.
As for w2k, I don't think it's going to gain momentum right off the bat. OEMs will be eager, consumers might be eager, but corporate enviroments should hold off, until it is more stable and proven. I think w2k will start off fairly well (in sales) and have a steady climb as time goes by.
I think that linux is gaining market share because
a) it works
b) it works fairly well
c) there aren't any goofey liscensing agreements for every app you install. This is where the big money savings is.
d) it works great without requiring a ton of hardware thrown into it.
e) penguins are cute.
I hope to die peacefully in my sleep like grandpa, not screaming like his passengers.
The point of a lack of a standard desktop set-up is definately valid. Training lusers how to configure and use a windowing environment can have a large cost. Without some way of heavily leveraging the paradigms from Microsoft, I don't see that Linux will gain market share on the productivity desktop. (Even though users would be more productive without daily system crashes.)
Hopefully Corel's distribution will change this by creating a standard install including an office suite.
"The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from"
I've tried to quote, but I've probably paraphrased. I can't even remember if the quote was original to Peter Van Der Linden, but it's in one of his (always great) books. But you get the point.
The Gartner Group doesn't seem to be doing the slamming. IDG has interpreted this as a "kiss of death" when what Gartner seems to have addressed is the "desktop productivity" side of Linux. Is that a surprise to anybody? Linux isn't quite there yet on the desktop.
I'm glad they were careful to ask Microsoft if Linux was making a dent in NT sales. Glad to see the Linux threat we heard about in the DOJ case has already been vanquished and it's business as usual for the red-blooded innovators of Redmond.
*snork*
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
Wow, I'm not sure we should even reply to the author on this one, it's so bad. My favorite part is at the end where a 'spokesperson' (no name, of course) for HP says that Linux isn't 'robust' enough yet. If that truly is someone who works for HP, I guess they haven't been to their web page lately.
Obviously this is a logical error. Linux is Unix, The only way Linux could hurt Unix is if it reduced the usage or value Unix as a whole. Surely he isn't saying the Linux will have a negative usage or value. It can be said that Linux competes with other Unix variants, but anyone who knows how internetworking Unix is also understands that Linux is likely to increase sales of SOLARIS/IRIX/AIX/etc...
NT competes with Unix as a whole... not only Linux. The more usefull and desireable Linux is, the more usefull all the other Unixes become. This is the fundamental thing that SGI and IBM understand but the Gatner group doesn't seem to get. In the end, Linux doesn't have to replace win32 to be successful, it merely has to be functional and be available.
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
Okay, sure, Linux may not have MS Office, nor does it have Corel Office, but it does have Wordperfect and Star Office. Isn't this mainly what the typical business person needs?
3 9489139584959 7980465063
As I sit here and think about what stuff we run where I work, 90% of it is Word and Excel, which Star Office does just fine.
I really whished I had found Linux sooner. It would be saving me so much headache in the support department it would not even be funny - like all the time I have spent un-fsck'ing a Windows machine that someone who "thought they knew" fsck'ed up. Had I had real security to start with, I would not be wasting my time.
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8012456989047663620151201231566801865112556408748
This article is littered with blanket statements that really detract from any value the article might have to offer.
HP says it's not robust enough for mission critical applications. Great. That makes perfect sense coming from a large Unix vendor. How about some evidence to back the argument up?
The article also says there are no apps for Linux. This argument is getting tired, and fast. We've got professional development tools like SGI's Jessie, Borland's C++Builder, JBuilder, and Delphi (on the way) in addition to the MetroWerks stuff and the Cygnus products. We've got several bullshit office suites (overrated pieces of software if you ask me) and a few other pieces individually - StarOffice, ApplixWare, WordPerfect 8, with KOffice on the horizon. We've loads of server software - Apache, MySQL, Samba. Theres even lots of games out there too - Civilization, the recent announcement that Loki would continue to port many games, and of course the venerable Quake family. This argument is quickly becoming a non-issue.
The article also uses the classic line that Linux's primary draw is the price, but that companies are afraid of freeware. This is just plain uninformed. Look at the dominance of Apache in the WWW server market. Think about the penetration sendmail continues to achieve.
The fact is, these studies (and consequently, these articles) only reveal small bits of truth and insight. They are largely uninformed, largely unsupported, and dated. Look at the kernel, for instance. This year Linux made incredible strides to become "scalable" with the 2.2 kernel. 2.4 is already on the horizon, with marked improvements in store. Most of these are the same old arguments that we have heard time and time and time again, and sadly, they aren't getting any more true. In fact, they are becoming wrong.
Carry on. don't put much store by this sort of FUD. Soon we will prove them wrong anyways.
1) Can be done with aliases in bash, tcsh and zsh (and doubtless maybe others?). ie: alias move mv, alias copy cp, alias delete rm Totally right. Though us linux users may seem to think it's so easy to alias things over...why aren't they done already? No windows user is going to do this himself, and without it they will refuse to run the os. PNP items and full hardware support is needed. You can name a few big names and say it works, or we need to mess with irq's etc, but it still comes down to putting a cd in, clicking a bit and it's installed. Until this OS becomes as user-frienly or some may call dumb-friendly it's never going to take down Microsoft. You assume people like to mess around with the OS itself, they just want it to work, no fuss. That's where Linux will continue to fail!
Yeah, in that case, the desktop environment differences do cause some problems - at least 3 different window managers (enlightenment, kwm and wm) are popular with their assorted CORBA-using layers above (KDE, Gnome). ;)
/usr/local/so51/ or similar is suggested, with ensuing wars about /usr/local and /usr and /opt and all that stuff. :)
However, it is quite possible to run several of these all at once - I've got KDE (with kwm) and a gnome panel sitting here quite happily. The fun & games only really start with gmc running as it's anyone's guess who gets the desktop clicks
As far as the average user approaching unix, linux, or X goes, there's bound to be some confusion. The term 'window manager' must be explained, at the very least. What we can't have is the sort of state of play, "what window manager are you using?" - "linux!" *duh*...
And while I'm not exactly the best support / trainer around, if the 30-yr-old unix model with X and stuff can finally take off, all to the good.
Oh, as for star office, I have actually seen folks asking where it should be installed - normally
So there are users out there who want to do The Right Thing(TM), fortunately. And these I have a chance of getting on favourably with...
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Now that was a funny comment!
" Before the release of Windows NT, Bill Gates promised the networking
software ``would run an airline reservations system,'' but proved more
suitable to running ``a restaurant reservation system.''
"
Here's the article.
Dunno about corel's stuff. But if you want a
"standard environment", all you ahve to do is
configure your linux box to have users have
one big StarOffice screen.
It is one single huge window, which is its own
"desktop environment".
For traditional UNIX users, this is somewhat
annoying. But for "Lets install it on all linux
boxes for sales people" purposes, it can't be beat.
I have to absolutely agree -- Windows crashes constantly when installing those new "virtual" device drivers ("so virtual, there are not even there!"). My Voodoo 3, SoundBlaster Linux box is rock-solid everytime. Seriously, consumer-grade computer resources suck, big style. Windows 95/NT/whatever is no more stable _in the long run_ (i.e., if you take a large sample of user experiences) than Linux, In My Informed Opinion. How do I know? I'm an IT support person. Personally, I feel that Linux is still best suited for back-end stuff. I don't care if users don't like the look 'n feel or whatever. I would prefer that they _never_ modified their machine _ever_, as this eventually crashes every OS we've used. When I'm god, every "user" gets a NCD. Yes, I *am* an IT Nazi: "No PC for you, one year." John
This is a key point I missed commenting on earlier. It is very true that Linux and other open source OS's have a great track record for following networking and Internet standards, as well as some UNIX standards. (And I must admit I like reading some of Linux's manpages when it comes to having to deviate from a standard or explain why a standard is silly -- the attitude is very refreshing.) :-) However, there are currently no good desktop standards, which I think was the thrust of the article.
For example, as far as filesystems go, there's the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, but beyond the distribution-makers, who really follows it? (Don't even get me started on how StarOffice installs... groan.) Maybe that has something to do with the fact that Linux users are so grateful for certain kinds of applications that they don't even concern themselves with whether or not they follow established standards...?
Also consider that there are now countless ways of running your desktop. The unification efforts behind KDE and GNOME (and the nonexistent efforts between these guys and anyone else) are not anywhere near mature enough for me, as an application developer, to even say "ok, regardless of what environment Joe Blow has here, I want to register this mime type as mine, this icon, put this on the launch menu, etc." That's just as an important part of standards than sending the right bytes over your network wire.
Do I personally care so much about whether or not an application can install its own file associations and launch menu icons? Nah. I still like the power. But it sure would be nice.
Your point being?
Who cares what anyone says or thinks about Linux, the only important people are those of us who use it and develop on it, and if it doesn't solve OUR problems then damnit it IS a dead-end piece of crap. That is the history of open source, and that should be its future.
Source code should work on all distributions. ./configure make make install
What???
The windows desktop is not easy to use until you install cygwin.
Linux is getting there in the PnP dept. I upgraded my desktop to Redhat 6.1 the other day and it detected my Sound Card (told me what it was) and said it was not supported. To me this is much better than the crappy hardware wizard from Microsoft.
Negative jerk.
:)
Ok, so it's actually the 4th derivative that's negative, but this was too good to pass up.
Of course the only real reason why Micros~1 will continue to dominate the home market is games, which will hopefully end soon. (Why no System Shock 2 for Linux, Why? ;_;) I wonder if Gartner bothered with games in there report (which I haven't had time to read yet). I'll never understand why these suits who are paid to help companies like M$ make more money feel examining gaming is some how beneath them...
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Uhm, Netscape IS a commercial app from one of the big boys. It is not Linux crashing or even having a problem. It's Netscape. Don't blame Linux for buggy applications - Linux has infinately less bugs than ANYTHING Microsoft has produced. Even the developers at Mozilla will tell you the sorry state of the code when they first got it. Now they're having to rewrite the whole mess (so get off their backs guys...). If that's the case, then who's to say other commercial apps are in the same sorry state and crash too. These guys have been so used to producing crappy code because they were running on a crappy OS (it's hard enough to debug an app when the os itself sucks) that it'll be like pulling teeth to get them to clean up their act when they come to a real operating system. There should be a committee to force these guys to go through a series of quality checks before putting the "Ported to Linux" stamp on it...
How dare you.
I've built up my world around the fact that wrestling is real.
Uuuuh, next thing you'll come with lies like:
"Saturn isn't the best car in the world"
"Pizza wasn't invented in the us"
and so on...
Aren't they the "TCO is the word" people in whos phylosophy a coffee machine costs 55.000$ / year??? /pyder.....
_
/
\_\ You type "WIN" but actually you LOOSE
Would someone tell me what the hell a 'mission critical application' is?
according to Microsoft, Linux has not
affected sales of Windows NT.
Yeah, they forgot to mention that according to Microsoft:
Or this one's good:
The NT market is so huge and powerful, it
could drop a few thousand seats and
Microsoft wouldn't notice,"
The Party is all powerfull. You must conform to the Party. There is no other choice. Follow the lead of the Party.
HP said "it is not ready for
mission-critical heavy database and
transaction serving functionality".
Yes, so on your way out make sure you buy your copy of Windows 2000 Supreme Platinum Developer Professional Enteprise Data Center Software Solution Gold Edition.
Anyway, it seems the Gartner group is just spewing the same old hash. I thought they were one of the groups to be trusted. I guess I was wrong.
Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
Well, why not make this into that forum? :-)
In this post (pretty sad when you have to link to different posts inside articles, eh?) :-) I mentioned one thing that bothers me a bit, but doesn't turn me off totally (though it would others) -- why don't application developers have a standard way, on installation, to do the following in a cross-GUI/cross-distro/cross-platform (dare I say it?) way:
Know a good default location to put their application -- and no, home directories are *not* an option -- or maybe they could be if the app was being installed as a regular user :-)
Register their apps with whatever package managers are around for later removal or upgrades
Put their apps on a launch menu
Install MIME types and document icons for graphical file managers
I'm sure more could be contributed to this list. I encourage everyone to do so, maybe we can get some good ideas and good code going. (All hail open source!)
Make with all the binaries already built.
/bin/sh is enough of a standard that one could build a full test suite system out of it and be able to cover all the major commercial unixen quite transparently.
Keep in mind that before MS assimilated parts of Sterling Software, the Windows installers weren't standard parts of Windows either but deployed with the installation script.
All the 'windows standard' amounts to is running some binary or script to do the grunt work that might be done with some package format. This doesn't keep the same sort of installer (binary or script) from running various unixen.
Infact,
The assertion that Unix posseses no standards, either defacto or dejure is just absurd.
Furthermore, what passes for this missing 'standards' on Windows is typically nothing more than just one app being more dominant than the rest.
I would like to see consistent keyboard shortcuts; I'm not a big fan of mice, and prefer to Ctrl- or Alt- my way through life. But you can't really say that Windows is consistent. These are the guys who rearrange icons in programs just for the heck of it--someone installed Office 2000 on one of the computers in our lab, and now I have to go hunting to find the functions I'm looking for. Overall consistency, both in keyboard commands and in button locations, is important for every operating system, IMHO.
I would say Embedded Applications have to be as robust as possible, because once you have embedded them, they have to work reliably all the time. You can't easily go in and re-install or make fine-tuning changes to the configuration.
I know the context was probably more towards transaction databases, but the spokesperson generalised his statement and then went on to allow it be quoted out-of-context.
Judging by your other posts, you seem to be fond of one liners, dispelling other peoples views. Why not justify you own ones with a bit more prose and we can enter into a dialogue.
Its easy to slam something you know nothing about. Gartner is too busy with the salesman (aka bullshit) end of business to give a respectable opinion of Linux or any OS. Besides, once you get into bed with Microsoft you must recommend only Bill's products.
Regarding your statement about that according to analysts, current trends will continue indefinitely, I couldn't agree more.
This reminds me of Calculus, and the notion of a derivitive. One geometric interpretation of a derivitive is, of course, the change in the slope of a line on a graph. This is something that analysis groups don't consider: TRENDS CHANGE!
This is a mathematical certainty, established at least 300+ years ago when Newton and Leibnitz (spelling?) discovered Calculus. Why haven't market analysis firms understood this yet?
The fact is, these sorts of reports are like snapshots in time. They don't represent all of the present (no snapshot does). And they aren't very useful in predicting the future either. Ever looked at a picture someone else took and been able to tell them what happened after the picture was taken? I haven't been able to with any statistical certainty. This is the same sort of thing going on here. These types of reports are more like current affairs reports done in High School than roadmaps for the future.
Read the report and notice the number of times we see synonyms of "and never will," or the number of times the future is completely left out, thus implicitly assuming that the current status quo will continue indefinitely. Sometims the most important information is that what is not stated.
These reports ignore the fact that change itself changes. And until I see a report that accounts for that, I won't bother to worry about them.
I've used Applix for two slide presentations of about 50 pages each. It was fast, easy-to-use, did everything I wanted, and never crashed. I believe that the KOffice project also has a "presentation software" program that is far enough along to be useable, though I haven't tried it.
Ditch the "yst" part...
--The basis of all love is respect
NT is competing with any other OS, infact NT competes with all the other Microsoft products NT competes with Win98. EVERY OS competes with every other OS (hell even pretty much dead OS's compete CPM competes with Solaris 7), and it even competes at a distribution level Caldera is a competitor of Redhat. Being the grumpy person I am, "the devil is in the details". You never explained that NT would be replacing with Solaris, you said you were sick of hearing things like "Linux is competing with Unix" it obviously is, and since I can't read your mind that's how I have to take your message. You can have lots of standards (packages, protocols, file layouts, etc.) but I chose packages and it only takes one to kill a generality... ./configure; make... blah blah blah doesn't work because if I don't have a compiler I have to install one... Redhat, Caldera all have a different way of install the compiler package. Look a different way of installing, guess that's NOT a linux standard. Saying Redhat Linux has a standard, or Caldera Linux has a standard, is correct but by lumping everything together into a general statement you can no longer say that Linux has a standard. A side note: I never did say that NT has any standards or that any other OS has any standards that are ALLWAYS (or ever) followed; hell think how much NFS has varied in the past from platform to platform. I've ran into many apps that DO NOT work with configure, I have to go in tweak the Makefile for certain items, that configure didn't get. Lot's and lots of programs do NOT have a configure option, and you have to go into the Makefile (does that sound like a easy package installer to you). If you've never run into a problem with a program you had to compile then I'd say you are a very lucky man.
You should have bashed that guy in his fucking face and than slammed the computer that was running WordPerfect on his head and exclaimed "How do you like the pretty fonts now, cock goblin ?"
I'm sure he would have realized the errors of his ways.
Bye !
Perhaps you should amend "hope it works" to the build process as well... I have compiled one too many things to have blind faith in that combination.
1. Microsoft
2. Rational
3. Ziff-Davis
4. IDG
5. Gartner Group
Who else?
What are the sales figures for ApplixWare and Star Office?
I know I bought a copy of ApplixWare over a year ago. I know lots of us have downloaded Star Office for free.
Are they in any shape or form commercial successes?
Linux is not ready for the office desktop at the moment. I don't think anyone denys this since office desktop = MS (word, excel powerpoint). Yes, there is Staroffice and Corel Wordperfect Office (very soon now) ... but everyone uses MS applications for office work.
Unless MS Office is ported to linux I don't think corporate desktops will be moving to linux any time soon. BUT what if there was a revolution in how office productivity apps are used. A revolution towards XML.
Have you ever paid close attention to how people use apps like word, excel, powerpoint - they spend 10% of there time making the content and about 90% of there time formating it. Doing ridiculas things like changing a font size/type here and there and then fiddiling with it again. The result is no two document of the same type in organisation ever have exactly the same style.
If productivity apps stopped acting like sophisticated typewriters - and concentrated on creating logical content, people could be much more productive. Have you ever used LyX - this program lets concetrate on your documents content and logic - the computer (LATeX) worries about the details. This same philosophy can be applied just as easily to XML as to LATeX.
Linux desktops like KDE and GNOME are just as far along in making a XML based office desktop as MS is. We need to take full advantage of this. In fact Open Source office products (KDE and GNOME) have one advantage over MS. They can assume you have access to all components of the desktop. Like a DBMS (MySQL of PostGRES) backend and all of the other apps and CORBA services. MS can't do that because MS office products are sold separetly as well as in a suit. Word can't assume that Access is on your system.
A paradigm shift in Office productivity apps is coming - its XML and CORBA - Linux can use this as opportunity to make headway into the office desktop
More standardized toolkits like GTK should help to take care of this. I'm finding myself using emacs keybindings more and more inside textboxes (i.e. Ctrl-E for end of line, Ctrl-A for beginning of line) because it is working in more and more apps.
1. Command shell that doesn't involve a lot of learning. "move" should be the command to move a file, "copy" should be the command to copy a file, "delete" and "remove" should remove a file. Joe Blow doesn't care that when all we had was 6 letter commands, using "rm" for delete a good idea. We don't have those limits any more, we shouldn't be limited by them. (My suggestion is to call this DOS, for Dumb Old Shell, and make it work much like the MS-DOS command line.)
Alias commands could handle this fairly well
.aliases contents
--------------------
alias remove='rm'
alias move='mv'
alias copy='cp'
alias delete='rm'
I don't think it's the limitations of the OS that restrict us to two or three letter commands. I think it's just faster to type 'rm' rather than 'remove'.
2. Plug and Play Everywhere! Joe Blow does not want to mount and unmount CDs himself, nor does he want to figure out the IRQ, base I/O address, etc. for his hardware. So make sure that Joe Blow doesn't have to deal with those things.
Supermount is the best solution I've seen to this problem. It allows you to dynamically mount removable media (this should be very nice). A bounty has been accepted to port it to the 2.2x series of kernels at cosource.
As to IRQ and other conflicts, the best solution to this I've heard is chucking ISA out the window. Everything becomes so much easier when you use PCI.
3. A good GUI/WM combination that comes default with all Linux distros. Joe Blow does not like command line interfaces and will avoid them wherever possible. So give him a GUI he can use easily and not be (too) confused by.
KDE isn't too bad, even my wife can use it. And she is a complete luddite. As to standardizing on one... I'm not too keen on the idea, but I would like it if the gnome/kde/whatever played nicer together.
4. Official suppourt from hardware vendors. If Joe Blow can't buy a new peice of hardware, plug it in, turn it on, install some drivers, and start
using it; Joe Blow doesn't want it.
Soon grasshopper, soon this too shall come to pass. All my HW is supported (though my v770 stills trashes X at random (sigh)), it's a lot better than it uses to be in the 1.0 kernel days. Ugghh, I don't even want to talk about installing slackware from 3.5 disks (out of 40 disks, 1 or 2 was always bad).
In a previous company, a higher-up manager would occasionally come by, turn down the lights, and give a loooong slide presentation on the financial state of the company. I would take a seat in the back of the room, relax, and ..... It's amazing how much faster time passes when you're unconscious!
The article is correct. Linux is too unstandard currently for any mass deployment. Though a person can follow their own standards, there are simply too many different choices in linux (choices mean less-standardness...). What am I speaking of you say? well:
KDE vs Gnome
QT vs GTK vs Motif vs TK vs etc...
WM vs E vs fvwm(2) vs blackbox vs etc...
Redhat vs Slackware vs Debian vs etc...
While you'll think these are good, great right, more choices for you, but for businesses these can be bad. It's too much variety to keep large companies (500+ employees) all the same. People will want KDE, others Gnome, this (generally) means different apps are used. That means possible incompatibilities.
Sure you can configure them all identically, but do you want to configure 500+ boxes when with windows xx you just have to install and it's all the same?
Linux isn't necessarily ready, but it doesn't mean it can't be made ready. Just realize that so much choice isn't always a benefit.
"Standards... well then tell me the standard way to install a package that works across all Linux distributions?"
What is the standard way to install across UNIX? What about NT. You're dreaming if you think there is a standard in any way, shape, or form on any OS. I know that Win is typically "setup", but notice the word, "typically". In other words, even in the "standard" winWorld(tm), there's no such thing.
Can you tell me the standard way to uninstall an application across WinWorlds? No, you can't, because there isn't a standard way. Some applications support this, some don't. Furthermore, some uninstalls don't even do it correctly.
In short, you've not convinced me.
Is there a forum where developers and users are able to discuss what Linux needs? What improvements need to be made or can be made? Can StarOffice replace MSOffice? I remember there being something on the GNU site regarding things that GNU needs, but what about the Linux OS?
Simply Senzuri
You forget something though.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The combination of Excel and Oracle being less than satisfying seems more to be a failing of Excel than Oracle. Excel is supposed to be the frontend after all and as such should be delivering all the end user power and flexibility. In this instance, Oracle should just be a transparent data store.
On the Mac I know that no matter what program I am in 'command
c' is copy and 'command v' is paste, on Winblows I know 'control c' is copy and'control v' is paste.
It definately adds to the user friendliness of a platform to have a few simple standards like those.
In my experience most windows users dont even know about ^c and ^v, much less win-E, win-R, F5....
Well, if you /don't want to/ or /can't for some reason/ there are EZ-Linux distros around to get you up and running so you don't have to know first what the alias command does (and before that, the man command) to bind "dir" to "ls".
And yes, already distros of linux behave differently from each other. A lot of the "Lite" distros just install to a FAT partition and are run from Windows.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"2. Plug and Play Everywhere! Joe Blow does not want to mount and unmount CDs himself, nor does he want to figure out the IRQ, base I/O address, etc. for his hardware. So make sure that Joe Blow doesn't have to deal with those things."
I presume you mean PnP that actually works under Windows NT, or that doesn't screw all your other peripherals under 9x.
In other words, PnP like it doesn't exist on the PC. It works on the Mac, and it works on a Sun, and it works on a VAX. But those systems were designed up to a spec, not down to a price.
Bah. At least in Linux I can run a non-PnP ISA network card without having to know or care about the IRQ or IO port. Can't do that in NT.
--
Peter
Your arguments- 1. Have a linux geek look over your setup. Zip Drives normally will work. Is it a SCSI Zip drive? You may have an oddball controller. 2. http://xxedgexx.com/~daryll/hardware.html There is a Voodoo Banshee Xserver here. It works for the Voodoo 3 as well. Rock solid, and there is even full screen 3D support available, and a graphical point and click video setup program. And this Xserver is only Beta. Just imagine how good it will be in final release. 3. Could be a bad font, otherwise refer to #2 4. What sound card? My Sound Blaster PCI 128 works fine and there are quite a few other cards supported.
You're all just mac users for the nineties. Who care's what you use - Microsoft owns you all!!!!!
I understand where is coming from though. What's he's saying is if Joe User is surfing the net, and Netscape freezes on him (which has happened to me), he's not going to know what to do. His first reaction will be to reboot (from his Windows days) and that will totally screw his system over. Or even if it just crahses, and you can kill it with nuke, it still won't look favorably on Linux. The end user doesn't know/care if the kernal still works, just if he can surf the net. Or sometimes I'll get spontaniously kicked out to the login screen from Gnome. To a user, it crashed. Sure you dont have to reboot, but whatever you were working on and didn't save, you've got to start over. Yes, there is a differince between a crash and just a buggy app, but it doesnt' really matter if I can't use Linux for what I want to do, does it?
If Linux ever truly breaks through with the masses of this world, it will be smuggled into the office, just like the original PCs were, at the time, when the mainframe sysadmins used to dictatorship the electronic universe.
Regardless of whatever Gartners says.
After all this years of users using computers, their average level has increased slowly, steadily, gradually, painstakingly, but increased it has, and increasing it still is. At the same time, Micros~1 continues to dumb down their software to the point that it even starts sickening computer novices. It doesn't take that much more *intellisense*, *auto-correct*, *autoformat*, *office assistant*, *Are you really sure(y/n)*, before every single user will start looking out for software that does not automatically waste your time, and quite often, ruin your hard work as a matter of policy.
Time is Micros~1's worst enemy. As linux is becoming more and more complete, and users accumulate their exposure to computers, the day will come that a lot of people suddenly start moving.
For me that day will come when something as good as MsAccess (or VB) shows up for linux. I will not hesitate one second.
I read the report and agree that Gartner didn't: A) Do any actual homework. OR B) Had some financial justification for creating the report I use linux in my business environment even though our "approved" desktop is Windoze (95,98,NT), Office 97 and Lotus Notes. I do support these requirements using a Linux box. I feel sorry for Gartner if their people did not research the data properly. (other than checking Microsoft's website) If Gartner was given some financial incentive to create this report, they should lose supporters like IBM. (BTW==> IBM does support and offers Linux as an OS on several machines)
1. Command shell that doesn't involve a lot of learning.
This is unnecessary, just provide a pretty file manager like the Finder or Explorer and that will make Joe Blow much happier. Joe Blows that are willing to use a command line/scripting language can deal with the funny names or alias them.
Automount of CDs would be nice; automount that automagically runs a startup program from the CD would be even better (with the option to disable this, of course).
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
you tried red hat 6.1? it'll totally blow you away on the ease of configuration and quality of gui refinement. "take lessons"? dude, they're /giving/ them now...
--
Mike Hoye
It sounds like a big conspiracy but it is true. Check out the small print at the bottom of the original articles. You can also look a the URL for a clue. I saw this on LT.
c le3/article3.html http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/article 5/article5.html http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/article 6/article6.html
http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/arti
Here is part of it:
"Microsoft Web Letter is published by Microsoft. Additional editorial material supplied by Gartner Group, Inc. © 1999. Editorial supplied by Microsoft is independent of GartnerGroup analysis and in no way should this information be construed as a GartnerGroup endorsement of Microsoft's products and services."
Microsoft is definately warming up the FUD cannons.
>We call this a shell, and it's smart enough that it can accomodate just about any user.
Yes we do, but John and Jane Sixpack call it "a bunch of typing that I shouldn't have to do."
My point is that the previous poster is correct in that, although we may not like it, if Linux is to make any significant dent in the desktop it needs to be relatively drool-proof
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
Check it out. It's nowhere near a kiss of death.
--
Mike Hoye
"A man without a .plan is not a man."
--
Mike Hoye
Being that this will be moderated to -1 right away, I have met an awful lot of people in the entire computing industry that didnt really have their facts too straight, but this is way beyond what i expected from anyone who actually has the required intelligence needed to type.
In order.
Linux does not outscale everyone and it doesnt even outpreform NT let alone every other Unix system (for those about to mentally complain about the Mindcraft tests, why dont you take that effort and instead of complaining, and fix it.)
Nobody is ditching their operating systems for Linux. Everyone just wants their seat on the hype train. Except they arent sitting down, they are standing at the doors waiting to jump off if the trains about to crash. They will not dump their own systems unless one of two things happen. The first is that one of these people (Im thinking SCO) is bought by a Linux company. And 2, if Linux turns into less hype, more content. (Say what you will, but in no other area can a company losing so much money like VA, file for an IPO and expect it to be successful. The net economy is hype, not substance).
Linux is not the choice of the Internet. Alot of people may use it, but it has a long way to go before it ever becomes the choice of the Internet. And i dont mean some guy with his little web server in his garage. I mean everyone who doesnt run it gets looked at funny like standing in shorts during a black tie affair.
Linux having the most robust tcpip stack. Well golly gee might as well pack it up and stop working on it right now. its all done.
Its SMP is something to marvel at. I marvel at the fact that so many supposedly talented people having progressed it very far in however many years. Some systems that didnt even consider SMP until way after Linux started have reach the same level in a fraction of the time. Im sure somebody is going to just say well they are just stealing our stuff, but to everyone GET OVER IT. STOP WHINING ABOUT EVERYTHING AND PUT SOME EFFORT IN FIXING IT. If Linux zealots would just stop complaining and fix things, they wouldnt have anything to complain about.
Linux security. HAH. The concept of a secure unix system is nonexistant. dont even joke.
open source may have a significant impact on the future, but it will never take over. The future having operating systems without proprietary systems will come. You will be able to get a Solaris box and have modules that cover a wide range of features from others. It will just be a framework for feature modules to plug into. you may run windows 2005, but you slap that xfs module into it. Not a microsoft made, but a SGI (if they still exist) module. One driver, full architecture support. What will differentiate people is not going to be hardware, or operating system. It will be software as king. The only way to convince them all to open source is to make them patent and trademark everything they could possibly want. I dont think Linux users should want everything opensource. I think they should want everything running under Linux before they bother going after them for that final blow.
Linus, Alan Cox, and the open source developers have more talent blah blah.
So what about the open source developers at sun or sgi. What do they fall under. And im sorry to burst your bubble, but there are always bad programmers. Open source or not.
Intel hardware is just better. Intel hardware is always better when you use nothing but intel hardware. I cant beleive someone actually beleives that. Well Microsoft makes more software than everyone else, its faster, more reliable, and has a bright future because if it didnt, so many people wouldnt use it.
You like Intel, but you hate Microsoft. Do you realize that the companies are exactly the same, just in a different business!.
Anyways im just about done. I cant write this anymore.
AC because i would never want anyone to know I would both to post on slashdot.
NT For Brains:
I had the plessure of siting down with a suprisingly intelligent individual who has his eggs in the M$ basket (I realize there is an inherent paradox in this statement). It was refreshing to talk with an M$ advocate who actually knew what he was talking about, or at least could speak inteligibly about computer technologies. Unfortunately this meeting came $160/hr.
While we were waiting for the NT server to reboot multiple times (he was hired to help us with a specific M$ product) I probed his thought on Linux/Unix related matters to see what kind of person I was dealing with. He said a few things that clued me in to the extent of his brainwa$hing. Here are a few comments he made:
The Point:
Many NT users think standards are created by Microsoft and since *nix does not find it necessary to incorporate some of the same bells'n'whistles then they are falling behind and not "innovating". Unfortunately M$ marketing uese these same, so called, examples to prove NT is so much better.
Case Study:
I used to be an NT zealot, it's not something I am proud of, but we all have our pasts. As I made my way through my CS degree my mind changed a little bit but it was once I got to the "real world" that I did a total 180. I work in a mid sized company we have 6 Unix servers 2 Linux servers and 7 NT servers. We have 1 guy who administrates all of the Unix servers which are all mission critical and 4 people administrating the NT servers which are not mission critical (except for maybe 1).
NT Admins:
NT admins are not programmers, or at least VERY few of them are. That's why there is only one very limiting shell script. They are programmed to memorize things. There problem solving skills are relatively moot as a result. A saying we have around here is "In windows, if there is not a button or a checkbox for it it can't be done.".
No $TANDARD$
So it's true Linux has no $tandard$, it has something far greater StandardS that work, and a boatload of intelligence maintaining it.
"Please do not reply if you're an evil alien! Thanks"
People who insist that Linux is for the masses are just plain daffy. What is this urge to conquer the desktop ? Does everyone want to drive a Formula 1 car ? Some people were just meant to drive Chevys. The whole focus on Linux development seems to have shifted from quality kernels and SMP to window-dressing. We already have window dressing ! WE want support for USB, serious multiprocessing, workstation power and speed. Pedal to the metal performance and not wimpy windows !
Linux advocates, get off your Windows/ Bill Gates obsession and deliver real power .
Make the hardware smoke !
I am now done. You may breathe again.
End of communication. ; )
"We learn most when we have to invent"
plasma-X
"We learn most when we have to invent"-Jean Piaget
This solution doesn't state that at all. That is just FUD. What this solution states is that the problem can already be addressed by anyone who cares to address it and has half a clue.
That means that the clueless one can, if he so desires, download Redhat and create a new distro: ClueBie Linux which has his command shell suggestions implemented.
Sysadmins have been making nice happy aliases for their users since the dawn of time. Redhat even delivers a couple. They're just more safety features than ease enhancements.
Yes, you can obviously use aliases. But newbies won't know that, and however much I would dislike letting them get away with it without a clue, some of the newbie distros are picking up the slack for those who are too afraid/lazy/dumb/busy to learn. We might not like it, but having more people on board helps.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Right now, Microsoft and the rest of the world are through ignoring Linux, and they're in the ridiculing stage. Soon they will begin fighting it head on (Readers note: get a thick skin, it's gonna hurt, but it won't kill us!). I only see this as an important step in the progression of Linux into the mainstream. Soon Microsoft will be shelling out more and more money so that "objective" analysts can give their "honest" opinion of why Linux simply isn't that great. Then you'll see Microsoft attack Linux directly. This should be seen as the beginning of the end of Microsoft's dominance.
I am honored to participate in a force so strong that it has prompted the richest software corporation in the world to pull out their dirtiest tricks to combat. There was a time when I had doubts about the future of Linux. Once Microsoft noticed it, my doubts were forever erased.
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Enterprise Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
Dudes,
This AC is correct. Why the hell haven't you looked at the reports *and learned to read them properly?!*
Where the hell was the Gartner Group URL?
If you want to forward yourselves as viable alternatives to mainstream media (a la Jane's), you have to look into things with an eye towards some journalistic integrity, even if those very same mainstreamers don't apply those standards themselves.
This applies equally here as to the whole Jesux controversy -- you really fucked up badly by engaging in petty blackmail ('You'd better change your login!'), seriously intentioned or not.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Yes, the Unix commands sure are inconsistent; they should work a lot more like Microsoft's: "del *.txt" deletes all the .txt files. "del *.exe" deletes all the .exe files. "del readme.*" prints an error. "del *.txt *.exe" prints an error. "more *.txt" prints an error. Can't someone make a shell like that so users won't get so confused?
With this solution you're still asking someone to customize their environment themselves. What the previous poster was saying is that in order to draw the non-expert user in, the CLI needs to have straight forward, non-cryptic commands out of the box.
"Lend your ear while I call you a fool" Ian Anderson
If Joe Blow can't be clued in by the little CD icon with the title "cdrom 0", then Windows or the Macintosh will be just as much a mystery to him.
Why does this remind me of a chain letter?
One of the few user-oriented applications on the Linux desktop that stresses the OS the way many
apps on Windows stress the system is Netscape, and it takes down many a Linux system.
I'm really suprised someone hasnt said it already, but while I admit netscape on linux is not the best and crashes often (for me any time I hit a page with embeded midi), I've never before heard a report of netscape taking down a linux system. My experience is that it either dies completely w a bus error most often, or goes into a loop requiring a -9 to get rid of. Perhaps that's what you really meant tho.
I think we need to take this article with the same grain of salt as the MindCraft study for 2 reasons:
IMHO, we should treat Gartner like MindCraft: force them to be accurate and precise in their statements, and then zero in on fixing those areas in which their complaints are valid.
My 1/50th of a sawbuck..
-----
".sig,
I hate to risk coming across as an uncritical "Linux can do everything better than Windows"-type person, but I think it would also be wrong to uncritically accept truisms about the weaknesses of Linux that really should be subjected to more critical analysis.
There is no Microsoft Office for Linux. And I would be willing to say that Linux probably does not, right now, offer all of the features that business users have access to *and find genuinely useful* in a Windows environment. However, I would be willing to bet that Linux has enough tools that the typical business user could use Linux and be able to do everything they wanted to do.
The relative lack of choice in productivity applications is unimportant, because most business users do not get a choice anyway. Here I use Office 97 and I hate it (I'd vastly prefer Office 95, for example, not to mention a number of non-M$ alternatives) but I don't get a choice. Everyone here uses Office 97 because someone with more power than me has decided that that's what we use. All that you need to make a viable office desktop system is a single complete, useable suite of productivity applications. For most users, Linux can already provide this, or at least can almost provide this.
The "lack of standards" is also a red herring. Linux has excellent standards support where it counts -- in data formats. Linux applications have solid support for almost every important file format. The only exceptions are some of the proprietary Microsoft formats, for which support is a little spotty. As for the differences between Red Hat and SuSE or KDE and GNOME, any particular organization only needs to get one configuration up and running. Once again, the question is whether you can get *a* complete, working system up and running. If you can, it doesn't matter how different it is from some other organization's setup, as long as you can exchange data.
Linux is also a complex system--this is true. The average user is not going to be able to set up and administer Linux effectively on their own. A lot of background knowledge is required to administer a Linux system. Probably far more than is needed to keep Windows going. For a home user, particularly one who must contend with installing Linux himself, this is an important issue. Most home users need computers that are above all else simple and easy to master (too bad they're stuck with Windows, but Linux would be even worse for most of them). For a business with an IS department whose job it is to understand, install, troubleshhot and administer complex systems, the issue ought to be unimportant. An IS department with a collective clue could set up a Unix-based desktop system that was easy to use. Here, in fact, Linux provides greater stability than Windows because Linux can be configured to give the user as much control over their work environment as needed but still be restricted so that the user cannot screw up the system on their own, as is not infrequently done to Windows machines. It is easier to centrally managae a network of Linux machines -- especially if major applications can be centrally stored and maintained.
Whether or not Linux is the best choice, or even a good choice as a desktop system for very many organizations, I really don't know. But I do think that the notion that Linux cannot be usefully and successfully deployed in such a situation has more to do with peoples' attitudes and misconceptions than it does with the actual capabilities of the OS and its available applications.
FWIW, the very first OS I used in a business setting was UNIX, in 1992. (I don't know what flavour--I didn't even consciously realize what OS I was using--but we were using DEC Stations with huge B&W monitors and running what I now realize was X). At the time, I knew nothing about Unix and little about computers. To me, X looked basically like a Mac, and I had as little trouble as the rest of the office in using the systems. And, FWIW, things like file sharing seemed a whole lot easier on those UNIX workstations than they do on our Win95/Novell network today.
To everyone that replied to me: The only thing that I was not aware of that you pointed out to me was the automounter. I knew everything else was out there. My point is, for Joe Blow computer user, he takes a look at it and either says, "This is a peice of crap!" (without even trying to learn how to use it, especially in the case of *sh) or, when confronted with choices, "What the hell do I do now?" (at which point he goes back to using Windows, where he doesn't have to choose).
Oh, and I wasn't trying to imply that MacOS has a CLI. M$ has a decent (if not the most wonderful) CLI, MacOS has a GUI with some of the best features I've ever seen.
Also, as to KDE/Gnome: They both run on top of X, and frankly, X is a dinosaur; big, lumbering, and slow. KDE/Gnome/Enlightenment/fvwm95/etc don't offer the same level of consistency, which is what Joe Blow wants to see, even if all the programs are compatible with X.
Anyway, y'all missed the point of what I was trying to say. Which is this: If you want Linux to dominate the desktop, make it as easy to use as Windows is today.
Uh, I think that's it. (Anybody want to flame me some more? Bring it on! Burn, baby, burn!)
-Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
these people are insane..and completely offbase.
linux is flat out the most dominant force in computing today. it has all the commercial unix vendors beat by a long shot and soon will dominate the desktop.
these people need to face the facts.
1) linux outscales and outperforms all the major players. sco, solaris, irix, hpux...they cannot compete. why else would they begin ditching their crappy closed source os's for linux support?
2) linux is the choice for any internet operation, period. it has the most robust tcp stack of any modern os, its SMP is something to marvel at, and no one can touch linux security with a ten foot pole--most distributions, save redhat, are virtually unhackable.
3) open source is the future. if your product is closed source, it sucks, period.
4) linus, alan cox, and the open source developers have more talent than anyone at sun, sgi, microsoft etc.
5) while not the primary reason, intel hardware is just better. it's faster, more scaleable, more reliable and has a bright future. sun, sgi, hp etc are doomed to not exist in a few years. they just cannot compete with the linux revolution.
just some facts for ya...
I have written several applications for Win95/NT a while back. Some of my users have been urging me to release the programs under GPL and port them to Linux and other OS, like Inferno. They said they don't want to reboot from Linux to Win95 to use the programs. And I had given serious thought about it, and had decided to release my programs under GPL and to port to Linux.
Then two days ago, there was an article about the Blue Point project. The article itself is fine as it pointed out some potential problems, but boy, the reaction from some of the people here were bordering on hysteria. I am appalled on some of the bigotry and racist remarks people made here. As a chinese, I am offended by those remarks. And yes, they helped to change my mind to NOT release anything under GPL, not only for my existing applications but for the several projects down the pipeline as well. No GPL, no porting to Linix.
This is the disclaimer on the bottom of each page of the Gartner report:
Microsoft Web Letter is published by Microsoft. Additional editorial material supplied by Gartner Group, Inc. © 1999. Editorial supplied by Microsoft is independent of GartnerGroup analysis and in no way should this information be construed as a GartnerGroup endorsement of Microsoft's products and services. Entire contents © 1999 by Gartner Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. GartnerGroup disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. GartnerGroup shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
Need I say more?
M@T
'sapientia potestas est'
>1) Can be done with aliases in bash, tcsh and zsh (and doubtless >maybe others?). ie: alias move mv, alias copy cp, alias delete rm >Totally things over...why aren't they done already? No windows user >is going to do this himself, and without it they will refuse to run the >os.
Maybe because we really really aren't conserned all that much about Windows users? The commands you mentioned work for us. Why change something that works for no real reason?
I understand this concept is hard for an Microsoft Astroturfer like yourself to understand, so don't strain your brain trying to grasp it.
Gartner's principal audience is the CIO, who has to approve a pretty hefty expense (Gartner subscriptions run in the tens of thousands). Gartner and its kin say what they think the CIO types want to hear. These folks are spending megabucks to keep their Windows-based environments from collapse. They want to hear that they made the right decision. An interesting footnote: Gideon Gartner sold Gartner group, and later started a competing shop, GIGA. GIGA has at least one analyst who has been quite receptive to Open Source products and has written some intelligent articles about Linux and other great software.
More like they stole it from OS/2, right down to the single click close icons. But thru four iterations of Windows, they still can't give me transparency on icon text.
--- Bigger bits, softer blocks, tighter ASCII.
>my problem is I'm always typing 'dir' when in linux, and 'ls' in DOS..
Well since I have a "ls" clone installed under DOS, it doesn't matter....
my problem is I'm always typing 'dir' when in linux, and 'ls' in DOS..
:)
DOH!
Incoming !
Expect hordes of knee-jerking Slashdot readers flaming this article without even reading it. The Sacred Penguin is insulted and so its acolytes must rush to its defence.
What the article actually says is that Linux is taking its market share from the nasty old dinosaurs like SCO and building new share in the home geek market. Desktop Windows in offices, where the vast majority of suit-and-tie wearing people work, isn't affected, nor will it be until Word runs under Linux (and Hell freezes over and and Puget Sound runs with molten lava).
People are running Linux on net-connected servers with little or no interactive desktop usage. So when was this ever a big NT stronghold ?
But I have also learned something from working at the Unix help desk. Users don't care that the computers have a word processor. They don't care that the computers have a spreadsheet. They all come in and ask, "How do I get to Windows on these machines?" or "How do I start Word out there?" Users like what they know. If it's not Micros~1, they don't want to deal with it.
I'm really not sure that there is any way to get around that. I'm also not sure that it is a problem. Now hear me out. If most people just want Micros~1 Word/Excel/Power Point (PP is THE biggest waste of disk space in existence ever created, a mon avis), then fine. They'll use Windows to type papers, look at the web, and listen to music, and I'll use some sort of unix to do work. Do we really need these people to start using Linux?
Different people have different computing needs, and I don't think that all of this development effort should be spent trying to make Linux easier for Joe Blow to use while still making it powerful enough for me to do what I want. I helped a friend out with his new Linux box the other night. He had installed KDE. He was trying to install an ICQ client. He was frustrated that he couldn't just click on an icon and have it install automatically. Hell, he couldn't figure out how to unzip the thing. I kept trying to show him how to do things at the command line, but he would always ask how you could do the same thing through a GUI. My friend is a smart guy, but he didn't have any desire to learn how to do things from the command line, which I believe is one of the greatest strenghts of the system. He wanted Windows. I have no problem with that.
Now, Linux users, let me ask you this: How many of you use these cross-over products that are designed, at least in part, to get people to make the switch from windows to Linux (Star Office, Applix, that kind of thing)? I am asking out of curiousity, I'm not being critical? Would most Linux users use Star Office or Applix by choice? I only use those things when I want to read Word or Excel attachments that people have sent me, or if I want to send something like that so a Windows user. If I'm writing a paper I use LaTeX. If I need to do some math I use Octave. If we weren't trying to win people away from Windows, would this software even exist? Just wondering.
andy
Life is life . . . everything else is just a stupid T-shirt slogan.
I would like to declare this the honorary first post attached to the inevitable Salon/Andrew Leonard and Linuxworld/Nicholas Petreley follow-up stories...:P
-k. ^-^ ^D
I see more and more posts like this, wanting nice predigested URLs. The points made in the original posting are good, and if you haven't been paying attention over the years to reports from Gartner Group and similar organizations, why is it our responsibility to do your catch-up research for you? Go hit a decent search engine and find it yourself if it's not buried behind a for-pay interface. This is Slashdot, not a term paper. And if you don't have the time to do it yourself (as you say) why should you expect others to do your work for you?
I'm growing more and more skeptical of analysis firms as time passes. It's easy to produce a piece of research stating whatever the analyst thinks anyways, by simply taking a few points of data and extrapolating it to the absurd extreme. Gartner and their ilk have produced reports that say Linux will, in fact dominate the marketplace, and reports that claim the opposite within short intervals of one another. My own choice is to believe none of the above.
Trend analysis doesn't generally account for some important factors, like goodwill (or lack thereof) towards vendors, or technical obstacles and breakthroughs that may happen in a development effort. They tend to assume that obstacles (like NT's code bloat or Linux's lack of high-quality SMP support) are insurmountable and that the technical status quo will remain indefinitely. This means that, by analysis standards, current trends will continue indefinitely. If some of the analysis I've read over recent years had worked out as anticipated, then:
1: Apple would be in Chapter 7 bankruptcy
2: Linux would either
a: be non-existent
b: have over a 50% market share
3: Novell would be out of business
4: Microsoft Windows NT would have nearly a 100% market share on servers and desktops, and
5: so would OS/2
6: Microsoft SQL Server would have killed off Oracle
7: We'd all have fully interactive TV sets now (shouting at your TV doesn't count - most of them don't answer).
I'm not trying to paint all analysis with the same brush, but I really don't see much good stuff from these companies.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
>>>2) Also the whole Unix comlexity thing...come one.. it's like saying that books will never overtake movies in the entertainment department because it's so much more difficult to read a book Er, wouldnt you say that is the case right now??? Tell me, do people spend more time watching T.V./movies or reading books?
Surely the point is that alot of compute is
disappearing from the desktop and heading towards
either the laptop or the server with a LAN in between.
Linux fits ideally with the server, and as people
switch to more this sort of computing, the greater
linux's role is. It is the change in people's
computing attitudes that microsoft should
be worried about, not the OS.
(BTW - I use linux on both the server and the laptop, but I know people who can't leave windows
on their laptop, and that will remain for a while).
Furthermore, that's assuming there's only 7 million Linux users. With the last couple of years of sales plus everyone and their mom with a cd-burner passing out copies of Linux and with one disk loading up dozens of computers at the office or lab, we're probably looking at the low 20 million computers loaded with Linux. Those are computers Microsoft would lay claim to and that we have "stolen" from them. That's several Billion dollars Microsoft will perceive to have lost to us. A vast majority of Linux systems run on what is now the only hardware Microsoft will run on - x86. And we've edged Microsoft completely out of the Alpha game. That's gotta hurt them, if not for pride.
Sure, we're small, but Billion is still Billion in anyone's book and they're definately taking notice...
... says Linux's main attraction is its price, for heaven's sake.
What an utterly vacuous shot in the dark by an obviously cluefree nong. YTF don't these people get off their butts and go TALK to someone?
Analyst? ANALYST? Gimme a break. This is straightforward professional incompetence.
In short it's another paid-for advertisement masquerading as editorial content from a supposedly independent source.
I have participated in a number of IDG surveys before I refused to answer any more. IDG is the most biased suvey that I can imagine. At that point in time, I was already extreemly weary of ZD stuff, but still hoped that other groups would do the right thing. Their suveys would not allow for anything out of the box (OS/2, Linux, lesser brand UNIX, e.g. Consensys). When they report their findings, they make bold statements like, "NT clearly is building up steam. Other OS's are not even a blip on the screen." Well, of course they are not, you never even checked for them.
Having said that, I must admit that I too play the survey game with people. No matter how irritating it is, people seem to beleave something that in print even if the should know better. So, when I find something that supports common sense of experience, I point at it. This is very annoying.
I know people that consider me to be extreemly Linux biased. I explain to people this is because I've used both (Microsoft products even longer) and have nightmares getting the same results with more downtown from NT. I honestly don't have a problem with NT in a departmental role. On the other hand, I'm happy to supply bullets for people that want to use it for an enterprise solution.
Why is this relevent? Well, questions like, "Does NT crash more of less often than Win95?" Then, they report, "NT is preceived as extreemely relable my IT departments and managers."
As you can tell, I have a very low opinion of the big survey companies (IDG, Gartner, etc). As one person pointed out their studies are paid for by someone. The end result is that the results are not tarnished, rather, the questions and stated results are. Enough said.
Dig out a copy of the Resource Kit (95/98/NT, it doesn't matter), and review the material on system policies. There are a lot of things you can do to lock down these systems and save yourself hassle. While you're at it, go into the BIOS (you've password-protected BIOS access, right?) and turn off the floppy. You should be able to really tick off your users. :-)
Of course, your best solution is to pull the PCs altogether and get some nice 3270 or VT100 terminals. Linux will do in the short run, but if it becomes a popular desktop environment, you'll run into the same problems. Yes, you can lock down a Linux box, but if you're not willing to do it for Win[95/98/NT], then why should we expect you'll do it for Linux?
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
I was about to make a rebuttal/reply to your statement... But after thinking about... I'd like to ask a question... How do you define or determine the bounds of "*outside of the programming community*"??? And as for Joe Public not caring about O.S., true most don't even understand the innards of the O.S.( or what the $%&% it means ), that's why Nerds are out there to help them out... And oh yeah, Nerds have invaded the corporate world for sometime now... DUH! --coolj101 I've got two words for you.. SUCK IT!
I understand why you're so shocked that mr. big-time analyst has a liberal arts background, but let's get to the root of the problem: the analyst of which you speak is making recommendations that aren't based on reliable data. Would he be a better analyst just because he had a 20-year track record of programming in assembler? Not if he hasn't done any configuration or administration tasks, or surveyed people who have!
Doesn't matter what the so-called analyst's background is, as long as he/she really does analyze the situation. Listening to the Microsoft PR dept. doesn't count, obviously. Neither does talking to CEOs about what works in their company - how would they know? Real analysis requires real data, whether through personal experience, or through conversation with people who have personal experience. Ideally, both.
If your liberal-arts analyst had actually talked to the people who administer NT and Linux boxes, then he would have a foundation to stand on. His commentary would probably be a little more intelligent, as well.
Good enough for them to expand into fully supported Alpha and PPC versions...
duh.
For years there was NO commercial interest in Linux at all. Just an OS for geeks by geeks. If it never becomes more than that, fine. It will continue to grow and evolve because... Well, who can stop us? Who could really end Linux development? Some commercial outfit is going to "take over" the GPL? The money doesn't matter. We can code. We have a choice.
some of the newbie distros are picking up the slack for those who are too afraid/lazy/dumb/busy to learn
So the basic message to the newbie community is:
1. Your a frightened moron is you can't figure this out on your own.
2. Some distros of Linux are going to behave differently from others
This article did not impress me. While there is little that I would classify as FUD, there are also few details in what Linux's problems are. There are a lot of quotes in the article, but most them are by people with obvious biases.
You've got a Microsoft guy saying Linux hasn't hurt NT sales. An HP guy says Linux isn't ready for high-end servers. And a Linux consultant saying that Linux is cutting into SCO sales. Wow, these statements are shocking! Next thing you know a politician will say kids shouldn't use drugs.
This article isn't damaging, because there is nothing new in it.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
This is not altogether accurate. While sales of NT are in fact increasing, this is largely due to an expanding server market in general. The interesting thing is that NT's share of the server market is not growing, while Linux is growing in market share (as the article correctly stated). The Linux market is growing substantially faster (proportionately) than the NT market.
NT is not yet losing market share to Linux, although other vendors (i.e. Novell) are. I suspect that in the near future this may change.
There are actually 2 reasons why we should care:
(i) Large scale acceptance of Linux will ensure support for a wider range of hardware. Right now companies like Lucent (or others less arrogant) feel free to ignore the need for Linux drivers or programming info. Even if there are millions of people stuck with modems or sound cards they can't use with linux, the vendors of these cards don't care because they've _already sold_ that board to you; and you probably won't think to shun their products the next time anyway.
(ii) More importantly: a significant factor convincing PHBs to push toy OSs onto servers instead of using unix is that the Windows interface seems familiar, even if it subtly changes in every release. In other words, exposure to DOS/Windows on cheap machines has cannabalized unix from the low end because of its familiarity there, even though it is no easier to configure properly and substantially more unreliable. The promise that Linux on (or at least near) the desktop holds is that more people will be exposed to unix on low-end machines, making them less resistant to it in server space. This is what Sun and friends are hoping for. Solaris and SCO have never made themselves accessible to new users, put Linux can actually feed them new users in the long run, expanding their potential markets.
I haven't stated the above exactly as intended, but I hope to have gotten at the core of strategy in (ii).
Seems to me Gardner is talking about the DESKTOP
Not the server side... *shrug* The Desktop is Linux's future, but not for a little while.
(I use Linux on the desktop)
HP and SUN were talking about Server the side, that's there bread a butter, of course they will say it's not ready. Nothing new here.
"Think of it as evolution in action."
From experience, I can tell you that folks like the Gartner group only have a veneer of respectability. If Bob Young floated them some serious cash, they'd change their tune about Linux overnight. Don't believe the hype kids. People like the Gartner group don't like anything unless you give them some money first. This much I know.
It's horses for courses.
I develop in Access 97 for a bank and for up to 20 users, it's pretty good for low intensive applications. For rapid application development it's much better than the alternatives. Try linking dbfs, excel worksheets, oracle tables in Oracle or SQL Server
I have left Access databases running overnight and they have not crashed or screwed up in anyway. Of course we use Novell on the server side rather than NT.
Installation and configuration of computer systems for Joe Public are the job of computer manufacturers (sp?) like Dell, etc. Distros do not need to be "point-and-drool" right out of the box. Honestly, when's the last time you saw Joe Public buy a computer and Windows separately, then try to install Windows? All the free software community has to do is put together all of the different tools. It's up to computer companies to sell preinstalled, preconfigured systems (which would include setting defaults.. wow, look ma, I don't have to think anymore..! possibly setting up aliases so if Joe Clueless Newbie really does have to use a Unix shell he might not get so scared.. or maybe he'll actually like the original commands.. who knows?). Other than that, I doubt that the community as a whole particularly cares all that much about slamming down the gauntlet in front of M$ with regards to the desktop. Hackers tend to make things they feel to be particularly useful to them, or else things they feel the community at large could benefit from, whatever. That said, I don't think anything you said is anything that hasn't been mentioned a few million times or so now, and I rather doubt a call for "making GNU/Linux point-and-drool!" on Slashdot is going to have any kind of positive effect whatsoever.
By the way, with regards to your complaints about X: refer yourself to this site.
~ Kish
First, I don't normally flame articles, but maybe they should have tried to be a little sensational to get some attention. A Gartner Report has "all but put the kiss of death of linux?" A little extreme...
:)
Also, I thought linux was always considered to be competing with NT in the server space, and not the desktop?
And finally, I don't feel my linux use has meant a loss in sales to a unix vendor. Oh yes, I was this close to plunking down a license for Irix or AIX, but then I realized that I don't have several thousand dollars for an SGI box or an IBM server
To be fair, didn't the Gartner group recently put out a report trashing Win2000 over it's total cost of ownership? Mind you, I don't remember any articles labeling that the 'Kiss of Death For Microsoft Operating Systems'
Dana
In this case, it is.
I checked with Gartner on this point this morning and there is no report. I regularly read the reports by their senior Linux analyst, George Weiss, and have on occasions arranged teleconferences with him and technician management in my company.
It really frosts my ass to read this kind of stuff.
What a pity decent magazines like "Byte" have gone to the wall while tired old whores like "ComputerWorld" continue to ply their disinformation trade.
Buzz Lightyear
Where I work (not my URL) even our very, very stodgy CIO has noted that Gartner's batting average in predicting the future is woefully low. Our company cancelled our subscription to Gartner last month, deeming info from Gartner was not of any value for executive decisionmaking.
Its not really the amount of CPU's thats the only factor. Its how much ram it can handle, its how many processes it can handle, its how fast its file system is. NT Beats Linux at this because NT gets a bit sloppy to get its speed, rather than with superior coding. FreeBSD beats Linux in Memory and Filesystem handling, however NT is still reigning in terms of speed on the X86 architechture because of the way its designed - to allow one process to monpolize all CPU time, whereas Un*x doesn't want you to do that.
As a linux advocate, I do appreciate negative feedback... Illustrating flaws is a very important part of the improvement process. :-) However... Is it possible for an article to criticize linux without using the phrase "kiss of death" or "end of the revolution"? I understand how trendy sensationalism is, but come on... The author points out that despite his opinions, linux is very popular and becoming more so. Not to mention that the problems he cites as making linux unviable are: Ignorance (No one knows how to use it, no one knows how to install it, no one trusts "free software" because it is traditionally overpriced) Poor Development (REAL "Mission Critical" software like NT releases updates on a quarterly basis, and you are encouraged not to use them since they may damage your machine. Besides, fixing bugs isn't profitable.) Poor Support (Real tech support costs a few hundred dollars subscription, along with $245 "per incident", on top of the cost of an overpriced operating system; People in linux newsgroups and IRC channels can smell the Micrsoft residue on your Nick and just want to hurt you) Lack of software (Gnumeric, StarOffice, and mySQL are equivalent or better than their "legitimate" counterparts, and also free, which stinks of communism or something) Apocrypha (My uncle jimbo at HP says Linux is less stable than NT, costs more than NT, has a threatening, violent looking mascot, and causes cancer, blindness, hairy palms and communism in lab rats.) We can still learn something useful from this: If these are the most pressing arguements the Industry Experts can come up with, we must be doing a good job. ;-)
" ... when I fix a Linux problem, I generally feel pretty satisfied, as it turns out I was doing something wrong and I now understand what it was and how to do it right. When I fix a windows problem, I am typically just pissed off, because it "magically" went away ... "
In all seriousness:
A part of the reason I quit running Linux on the desktop (it still has a server role on my home network, along with the BSDs) was when I realized that I was positively elated any time I could get an app or window manager to have the ease-of-use that I experienced five years ago on Windows 3.1.
Uh,
1) Linux does not have an email client as good as Outlook.
2) Linux does not have a word processor as good as Word.
3) Linux does not have a spreadsheet as good as Excel.
4) Linux does not have a web browser as good as IE.
Of course, to you kiddies who have never had a real job where you actually had to USE Word and Excel, Star Office might seem great!
StarOffice is CRAP! I cannot attach a document to an email. I cannot add a spreadsheet to a document. Get real. Face it kiddies, if Linux was so much "better", everyone would be using it.
JMC
Why is AOL a success? Because they understand "Joe Blow". You think AOL sux, but Joe Blow loves it. He's grateful for it. He shells out $22 a month for it. Nobody in this thread understands Joe Blow, except the originator of it. You think you understand him, but you don't. And until you do, you'll never challenge MS on the desktop. Linux is not even close to being user-friendly in Joe Blow's world. And as long as you keep pretending that it is, you'll never get there.
Take a look at the bottom of this page. This is one of the original papers from the "Gartner" people.
The disclaimer at the bottom reads:
So... in reality... this is bought and paid for FUD from M$.
No denying that...
--
A PC without windows is like chocolate cake with no mustard.
Shortly after Gartner Group pulled this so-called report from its Web site, I was able to salvage most of it from my browser cache. It was at http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/article 1/article1.html and so on. Notice the word "microsoft" in there? That's explained by the following disclaimer in amazingly small type at the bottom of the "report":
Microsoft Web Letter is published by Microsoft. Additional editorial material supplied by Gartner Group, Inc. © 1999. Editorial supplied by Microsoft is independent of GartnerGroup analysis and in no way should this information be construed as a GartnerGroup endorsement of Microsoft's products and services. Entire contents © 1999 by Gartner Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. GartnerGroup disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. GartnerGroup shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
But wait! There's more! Microsoft Corporation, having thus planted the piece at the "independent" Gartner Group organisation, now gets to reference it as an independent expert source, at its LinuxMyths site:
Gartner Group Reports
New reports from Gartner raise important questions about the future role of Linux.[...]
And that, friends, is how the propaganda game is played by the pros. Next up: We'll no doubt see Rob Enderle of Giga Information Group weigh in with a concurring independent-expert opinion -- and then, gosh, I guess the "report's" claims will have become unquestionable fact.
-- Rick Moen
(speaking for himself)
A Critique
In response to "The Gartner Group has been whoring themselves to MS for as long as I can remember":
I'm not the world's most proficient Linux user. I have a linux box and a Win95 box sitting right next to each other on my desk. Guess which one gets used more often? The MS box.
"Why is this?" you might ask. "What a Microsoft whore!" you might comment. To that I would reply that I see many problems with Microsoft products. But I don't see viable solutions in any one OS out on the market today.
Microsoft Windows is a great operating system, but, LIKE EVERY OTHER OS OUT THERE, it has its flaws. You need to reboot too often. You can't network easily enough with TCP/IP. Security is a joke. And those complaints are absolutely correct. Nonetheless, I use it because it is the least of the evils.
Linux was not sent down to the people from Mount Sinai! Linux is a cheap hack of Unix, albiet one that is growing in popularity. But until they make Linux easy to use and hardware/software compatible, it will not be the answer.
Can you use a DVD drive with Linux? No. Can you play Half-Life under Linux? No. Can Joe User use his AOL account with Linux? No. Is Linux in any way user-friendly? Nope.
I would not put my father in front of my Linux machine if it meant saving the world. Where in Windows he can unzip a program using Winzip, in Linux he'd have to gzup -u file, then tar -xvf file. Oh, that's easy to do.
Any Linux autodetection sucks. My Linux box was given to me by a friend's parent, and I put Linux on it. It's an HP Pavilion 7420. No aftermarket add-ons except a 3com Network card. The sound doesn't work, (I haven't gotten around to running isapnptools in HOPES that it will get recognized then.) The s3 video card was NOT autodected the first time. I have to know the refresh rates of the old monitor I'm using, rather than picking from pretty comprehensive list. It's not a viable OS for the average home user.
Now I'm not saying that Windows help files are any good, or that their documentation is at all comprehensive, but at least it's there! Linux documentation is sketchy, at best. Man files are a joke; trying to understand them is like translating Russian to English, via Chinese. It's not an easy task. And the Linux Documentation Project, while a nobel undertaking, isn't nearly comprehensive enough nor is it always current.
But the Linux drones out there will just say I'm another Microsoft Whore, and I guess that's okay. 'Cause I'll stick with my MS until Linux programmers make Linux an easy to use operating system.
This article addresses many temporal issues, things that are relevent now, but are bound to change over a given period of time (evolution). It is inevitable that a consistently improving operating system will evolve, when compared to a legacy operating system, which by definition, remains stagnant.
There are issues to be dealt with, and industry spokespeople from magazines and publications provide excellent points, in roundabout ways. Largely, however, the we must be thankful for the time that industry critics provide in giving leverage against corporate dominance of this system.
Everyone should be aware: When Linux reaches a certain level of corporate involvement, it loses the development model.
to get to the Debugger, press [CMD] + [RESET] (or if your mac has the programmer's interrupt switch, press it on the side of your box) The default Mac Debugger is pretty arcane... You might want get your hands on 'MacsBug'
As for the other CLI, I have no clue. (MPW kinda-sorta makes it's on CLI, but i don't think that's what he's talking about)
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
Anyone who reads Gartner's tedious drool on a regular basis won't find this very surprising. Gartner writes for IT strategists about as closed minded as you can find. If it ain't a market leader is ain't a winner, and if it ain't a winner I might get in trouble.~ ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As my MCSE friend says: "I'd rather no
Anyone who thinks W2K is going to change the rules in Microshaft's favor obviously hasn't had the misfortune of using it yet.
I would rather cut off all my finger than trade bash for comman.com any day. No command line completion, no command editing, no double-tab suggestions, no history. command.com is about as functional as a 5 1/4" floppy. Get real. If you think you can build a more intuitive, extensible shell, by all means do so. I for one LOVE bash.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
Alright everyone. I think this quote from some guy has left us with only one option: give up on linux entirely. How can we possibly go on if there is a lack of standards in the Linux community? It's practically pointless to coninue using Linux when there is a lack of productivity applications. I think everyone should just abandon this sinking ship before it destroys us all.
For those who haven't noticed. The actual Gartner Group article is a Microsoft web letter. The disclaimer states that Microsoft publish it, Gartner have no editorial comment on it, and Gartner do not endorse the views in it or any Microsoft products.
To me this looks like MS ahve gotten their anti-Linux propaganda up on a reputable web site and it now looks like they didn't do it. It seems that the major news feeds, IDC is not the nly one, have it a bit wrong. This is not a Gartner Group piece at all, only the latest in a line of MS vs Linux crap.
ciao
for a while now...
^ ~
Microsoft is bringing mindshare on a product by attacking other products. But this article is from Gartner you say? That is true but the gartner group is basing its assesment on what Linux isn't as if NT is (what Linux isn't.) Its all up and down the Gartner article, but I can exemplify it best with these examples. Once you see what I'm saying you will see hundreds of these things jump out at you when you read the Gartner report.
"Linux does not have a commercial quality Journaling File System." --myth of linux
Somehow that statement, about Linux actually turns into a beleif that NT does have a journaling file system (which if it does it does not ship with it.) Linux right now can read and write to every filesystem I'm aware of that NT can.
Another is that Linux was not designed from the gound up with a graphical user interface. NT wasn't either, the windows95 GUI had to be ported to it by a hired by Microsoft (the same company that wrote Softwindows but the name excapse me). NT's GUI came around 3.0... Anyone seen NT 2.0 or 1.0? Weren't they based on OS/2 which also had a console in mind first?
The last in these myths (the one that Gartner really harrangues) is that Linux is like UNIX and is therefore difficult. This makes it sound like NT is, as in anyone can just pick up and use it. That is not true, it takes a learning curve just like anything else. This learning curve isn't as small as one thinks either, for example If an NT machine can't get out to the internet, how do I do a traceroute --the most important and basic tool in diagnosing this common problem? How easy was it to learn? Could it be done with NT using a GUI?
Whats worse is this learning curve costs someone six weeks (most of the time) and around $2000. Even then they do not know how to remotely administer NT or how to set it to do "timed" tasks (its not in the MCSE course material at least) write intelligent scripts to do repeated tasks, or to help junior administrators maintain the system etc...
As a side note: How do we fight this? Its easy, just keep stating truth and facts about what Linux is. Its a UNIX like operating system that is truely POSIX compliant, that can act as a NT server without the server liscence fees. It can also serve Macintosh machines as well as UNIX machines at the same time. As well as serve as an internet firewall and mail server. All this happens efficient enough as to not require extrememly costly hardware, and runs even quicker on that costly hardware.
It works on hardware ranging from dec alphas to palm pilot. The design model is open to more ideas and critisizm, and that has provided more bang for the buck. This provides companies like RedHat, LinuxCare, and anyone else who consults on Linux complete information, not just required information, to commercialy support these systems. This amount of information is much greater than Microsoft provides MCSE consultants and even those who teach them. This information is also provided freely with easier to access than Microsoft provides.
Security fixes are abundant and quick due to the open nature of the code. In comparison security problems like the Microsoft memory dumping password information into word documents go years without fixing.
Its fun to watch as the release date for Win2000 comes out how Microsoft starts pulling strings to see who still wants to ride their gravy train.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~
I quote verbatim ...
e 3/article3.html e 5/article5.html e 6/article6.html
----- Original Message -----
From: Les Bell
Newsgroups: aus.computers.linux
Sent: Friday, October 15, 1999 11:38 AM
Subject: Computerworld/Gartner FUD Embarrassment
> I notice that Computerworld Australia is promoting a lead story entitled
>
> "Gartner slams Linux with hostile review", which starts:
>
> -------------------------------------------
>
> A damning report from Gartner has all but put the kiss of death on
> Linux, but devotees of the OS maintain it's a force to be reckoned with.
>
> "Linux is the 'hype du jour' that is thought by some to have the
> potential to upset Microsoft's dominance on the mainstream desktop," the
> Gartner Group report says.
>
> -------------------------------------------
>
> However, a little research reveals that the report can be found (the
> quote above comes from the foot of the first page)at:
>
> http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/articl
> http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/articl
> http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/articl
>
> and the disclaimers at the foot of the pages clearly state "Microsoft
> Web Letter is published by Microsoft." and "Editorial supplied by
> Microsoft is independent of GartnerGroup analysis and in no way should
> this information be construed as a GartnerGroup endorsement of
> Microsoft's products and services."
>
> In other words, it's written by Microsoft, placed on the Gartner Group
> website to *look* like Gartner Group content. Since the Computerworld
> article never mentions the disclaimer or the true author, it comes
> across looking like an independent company has written an independent
> report which is damning of Linux, while in fact, this is not the case.
>
> Now, many of you reading this work for companies who pay Gartner Group
> large chunks of money for their indiustry analyses. You might like to
> bring to the attention of your management the fact that Gartner Group is
> clearly being paid by Microsoft to publish material which is biased and
> represents a conflict of interest. Make no mistake: Gartner Group is
> extremely influential,
>
> In addition, you might like to suggest to the author of the
> Computerworld piece, Ellen Creswell, that perhaps she should do her
> homework. You can reach her at Ellen_Creswell@idg.com.au.
>
> Some of you might recognise my name, and will realise why it is
> especially sad that I should say: the standard of technical journalism
> in Australia today is crap. I am really glad that I am no longer
> involved. I would be ashamed, if I published something like this.
>
> Best,
>
> --- Les [http://www.lesbell.com.au]
davie (dwollmann@ibmhelp.com) wrote:
> alias copy="cp"
> alias move="mv"
> alias delete="rm"
>
> We call this a shell, and it's smart
> enough that it can accomodate just about any
> user.
Just to be a PITA: you really can't do perfect
DOS emulation in a unix shell through any
combination of aliases and shell scripts.
The unix shell handles wildcard expansion before
the arguments are handed to the script. DOS
requires each command to hack it's own wildcard
expansion. Overall, this is kind of dumb, but it
does allow for things like this:
rename *.doc *.pos
Writing a shell script to do anything that gets
close to this is a relatively advanced problem --
and I don't believe it's possible without
requiring some escaping/quoting/substituting to
get the asterixes through the shell intact.
(You can see jwz's solution in the "Unix-Hater's
Handbook".)
1. Command shell that doesn't involve a lot of learning. "move" should be the command to move a file, "copy" should be the command to copy a file, "delete" and "remove" should remove a file. Joe Blow doesn't care that when all we had was 6 letter commands, using "rm" for delete a good idea. We don't have those limits any more, we shouldn't be limited by them. (My suggestion is to call this DOS, for Dumb Old Shell, and make it work much like the MS-DOS command line.)
2. Plug and Play Everywhere! Joe Blow does not want to mount and unmount CDs himself, nor does he want to figure out the IRQ, base I/O address, etc. for his hardware. So make sure that Joe Blow doesn't have to deal with those things.
3. A good GUI/WM combination that comes default with all Linux distros. Joe Blow does not like command line interfaces and will avoid them wherever possible. So give him a GUI he can use easily and not be (too) confused by.
4. Official suppourt from hardware vendors. If Joe Blow can't buy a new peice of hardware, plug it in, turn it on, install some drivers, and start using it; Joe Blow doesn't want it.
The upshot of this whole comment? Take lessons from Microsoft and from MacOS. They've got the (relatively) painless-to-use CLI and the universal GUI. Just because M$ and Apple are the big commercial doesn't necessarily make all their ideas evil; we should feel free to clone the parts of their interfaces that make computers easy to use.
-Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
>I would have to say that InstallShield is the >standard way of installing packages.
don't forget wise...
and microsoft package and deployment wizard...
and self-extracting zip files...
I think this is a great standard! As to the Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V issue, I find mouse-select / mouse-button-2 to be far superior. Netscape is the only program I've found really lacking in that respect. But I do agree with the larger point, greater consistency in these small points of style and convention would be very helpful.
I would've though a more reasonable quote would've been precisely the opposite! But then the nice thing about Industry Standards(TM) is there's so many to choose from!
However it's interesting to note that HP think Linux doesn't scale beyond 4 processors - kind of fails to track with MS' assertion that Linux doesn't scale *at all!*
This kind of arrogance and lack of understanding of people's needs and goals ensures that Linux will fail to ever become mainstream. Let's be honest with ourselves here. How many people *outside of the programming community* really care what OS they are running?
Whew! Sounds like one AC has some problems to work out in the area of ``interpersonal relationships''.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
You people out there that are "gurus" should
stop reading Slashdot and start working on
applications. If that is what "the enterprise"
boys want, get it to them.
you could start with a grammer checker
from the article
"Linux's major disadvantage in the enterprise space is that there are very few currently applications available for it."
I guess a lot of consultants prefer to install shoddy products on their customers' machines so they get called back to fix a lot of problems at their $120 an hour plus billing rate. If you can keep your customers in the dark about the products out there that will never need fixing because they never break, that's fine. So I suppose slandering those products at every turn does make sense in some circles of the industry. People are wising up despite this though, and the free gravy train isn't going to go on forever for those unethical consultants.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
True: Linux may not have many standards, but you can standardise on a distrobution. Decide on what one you think is best for your operation then stick with it.
The same argument could be used for Microsoft people. Nobody varies off thier microsoft os once installed - people either use NT, DOS or Windows - you install and then don't change much from that.
Its a well researched article but still echos some well known microsoft FUD: "The lack of standards in the Linux community, coupled with a lack of key productivity applications and with Unix complexity, will continue to make Linux a poor choice for the mainstream business productivity user."
Its unclear what standards they refer to. Is it desktop? is it distros? is it package management? again these are things you pick the one you think works best for you and stay with it. I'm most cases it won't change radically in outward appearance over the years, unlike certain vendors if you go from a 3.x to a 4.x release you won't have to retrain your users because they thought a new layout would be nice, and you won't have to pay out multi-hundreds of dollars to replace all your obsolete development tools to support the new layout.
In all for such a large scale project as linux people have settled into a pretty good set of standards. Most apps will run on SuSE, RedHat, Debian etc...
The arguements put forward in the report are the ones that Linux will have to overcome in the next few years for it to truely succeed.
Finally, I do think the HP spokeman mentioned on the report needs to browse on over to freshmeat.net and see what apps are available. Someone needs to point out the vendors that have and will be producing major database apps for Linux. In many cases people are using a Linux engine without realising it, so I think the productivity argument is not a valid one.
*THWACK*
./install ; make ;make install thing; everyone should know better than that)
I don't believe I EVER stated that NT has a standard, infact NT is NOT even mentioned in my post.
The only thing that I tried to convince you of, is that Linux does NOT have a "recognized" standard. RPM may be a defacto standard, but no Linux god has said all packages must be installed by RPM.
The Solaris gods have said you will use pkgadd, the Irix gods have said inst, the Wintel have said "setup", no Linux does NOT have this (the entire nature of Linux is this, the lack of some requirements allow for quicker innovation). Of course, the big issue with all of these is: nobody HAS to conform to these, which gums up all the works. (and don't even try the
Being "grumpy_geek" I tend to be nitpicky on things and saying Linux has a standard ain't true. Redhat Linux has a standard, Suse Linux has a standard, and so on. Instead of saying Linux has a standard we now HAVE to say distribution x has a standard to be correct.
Look at the links in the Gartner report, they point to a M$ area and Gartner disclaims authorship. In other words, M$ paid to insert their FUD. Then the CW writer didn't do her homework.
It is, once again, full of s?i?! Typical babblings about "no apps", "not robust enough" etcetera. One can only think that people doing these "evaluations" have not bothered to actually extensively _test_ the systems, but have infact read other FUD-based documents and formed an opinion based on those. And there is, of course "The Man" who controls everything (except us!, that is). Just Say No To Thought-Control!
What outstanding products made Gardner to be so important? I didn't heard until now something about they. Did they work in IT industry?
I never claimed anything of the kind. All I claimed, was that linux (unixes) have installation methods that are better or at least equal to those of windows. Yes, I think Open Source is going to make it, but my argument doesn't depend on it.
Oh, please. Please, please, please don't be just another ABM voice in the wilderness. To say you can use a "roll your own" system in an office environment is just plain nuts.
Suppose we put you in charge of MIS at my site:
How, may I ask, are you going to
A) Train 1100 personnel in Linux, with no tangible loss of productivity?
B) Support Linux, given the lack of drivers for many hardware platforms and skilled techs
C) Support the applications, same as B
D) Correspond with consultants, clients, and other workers sharing MS, Corel or Lotus files? By converting everything? Take a Wordperfect document, convert it to WordPro and see what you get. Or even WP to Word and back. MESSY!
I hate to say it, but Linux is too young and LACKS the office software to be useful in business on the desktop. It need a LOT more cohesion and STANDARDS. This is why you don't see UNIX on the desktop, even though it is FAR more powerfull and older than M$!
WHY DO YOU THINK that Macintosh isn't more widespread? I know of many, many shops that moved away from them due to expense and their little anti-MS war that resulted in no new versions of office for several years.
Hey, for those of us who KNOW what we're doing, Linux is great. For the unwashed masses, they don't CARE about our "petty little war". Do you think a Real Estate analyst who makes ten-million dollar deals cares? No. All s/he wants is to be able to fire up Outlook, attatch a 3 meg Excel spreadsheet, and know that the person who gets it can read it.
And you know what? They can. We all b_tch about M$. And business practice wise, we have a point. But the whole "M$ sucks because it always crashes" arguement is stale, and well, mostly unfounded.
Expecting "flaimbait" status from reactionary moderators,
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
An end user do care about the kernel stability. He may not know what that means, but he see that he don't have to reboot. Restarting netscape from a start menu is somuch faster than rebooting, even with the fast reboot linux offer.
And the end user don't have to delete lock files either - we can provide him with a netscape start script that goes
killall -9 netscape
rm ~/.netscape/lock
netscape
Real easy. Just click on "netscape" and it just starts - no matter what happened before. If netscape freeze - just click on the start thing and the frozen one disappears.
A frozen desktop is worse of course, but I have never seen those. Probably a went away with some older version of X?
Ok. I must admit, some of the things he said have some truth in them. But what the hell does he mean by "no standards". That is just a bunch of bullshit. What standard is this guy talking about? Linux seems to support all the "Standards" that the average person would need!!! Is TCP/IP a standard? What about Posix? DNS? SMTP? HTTP? NFS? not to mention countless other "standards" Where did all of these "standard" UNIX programs come from? Why am I able to compile all these nifty Linux sources on my FreeBSD system? Hmmmm, if Linux has no standards, I guess that must be impossible and I am lying. Yeah, Windows NT sure does have standards doesn't it everybody? Gotta love those Java standards Microsoft has. Not to mention portability! For christ sakes! Seeing something like that just annoys the hell out of me. I feel like breaking something! :) Anyway, can anyone here enlighten me as to what these oh so important "standards" are which Linux is missing?
I don't know offhand how much MS revenue comes from server sales, but its pretty significant. NT server costs a bundle just to install, and on top of that you have the client license charges for everyone who can log on. Eroding server market share hurts MS far more than eroding desktop share.
In addition Linux is now usable on the desktop, and its use on servers should create an acceptance of its use on corporate desktops as well. These people understand Total Cost of Ownership, and they are getting tired of writing huge cheques to MS every year and then watching their machines fall over every day.
Linux users account for approximately 0.08% of the hits to my website
Interesting. Do you have any trend information? I'd really like to see it.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
That's what all the Microsofties think - if they just release W2K, all will be well. Sadly, they forgot WHY they are losing market share:
1. stability of the OS
2. code bloat
3. stability of the OS
4. failure to impose their own "required" shared library standards on themselves (MSFT products), not just all third-party vendors
5. stability of the OS
Until they solve at least 4 of the above 5 problems, they will continue to lose market share. Perhaps not by a 2x measure, but at least at a 1.8x measure.
Did I mention that their OS cost as part of the total computer package, especially for servers (e.g. Cobalt Qube for $299 vs $699+ for Msft) is another major hindrance?
Will in Seattle
This coming from the group that decided network computers and e-money were the hotest tech items of 1998? Or the group that decided TCO of handheld devices was over $2700/year (read through their press releases..they're pretty funny).
I dunno...i think I'd trust a Sesame Street review before I believed these guys....
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
They only touch on the report in 1/5th of the article. The rest being other sources. Here are the choice quotes they chose to use:
"We believe Linux deployments for desktops will not usurp OS dominance from Microsoft."
Hmmm.... that seems to mean linux will not get more than 50% of the desktop os market. Makes sense to me. Look at the number of AOL users out there.
"Linux will continue to appeal to its devotees and, as it improves over time, to broader audiences,"
That doesn't seem like a slam. It sounds more like a observation of good things to come.
"Linux is the 'hype du jour' that is thought by some to have the potential to upset Microsoft's dominance on the mainstream desktop,"
Lets rephrase... "Linux is the increasingly popular OS that is thought by some to have the potential to upset Microsoft's dominance on the mainstream desktop,"
Hmmm... see a trend. What a wonderful distortion of the facts.
The Gartner report only stated what was already known (at least by us) and is actively being worked on to improve.
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
And StarOffice, which has a similar look and feel as Microsoft Office, has a happy install wizard to satisfy those who don't know what a command line is. Coupled with SUSE Linux, the overall install process is shorter and just as easy as Windows 98. The only difference is that SUSE Linux works write the FIRST time, and anyone can do it. Really!
See the actuall Garter group reports at: http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/article 3/article3.html http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/article 5/article5.html http://www.gartner.com/webletter/microsoft/article 6/article6.html See the fine print at the bottom of the page.
If you look way up above you'll find a thread where people talk about the document and Who Wrote It.
...
It sounds like MSFT's Linux Myths, because that was probably used as a template to create the document.
Just because there's a conspiracy out there by a corporation with more cash reserves than all the Linux companies put together, doesn't mean that you need to be paranoid
But it does mean that they still don't get how the Net works: we keep finding out the truth and it bubbles up and pops right in front of MSFT's surprised faces.
Will in Seattle
It's that:
1. Technically, they like Linux enough
2. They like that they can tweak the source
3. They like the profit margins enabled by PCs in constrast to workstations
4. They like the profit margins enabled by Linux in contrast to proprietary OSes.
5. They like that Linux is all the rage and mainstream. And if you're not already an HPer, you'll buy into Linux more readily (even for many Unixers this is so, because learning Linux gives you a better personal ROI than another niche flavor).
"Linux does not have the robustness built in it yet for mission critical applications," the HP spokesperson said.
Apparently this spokesperson has never run an HP-UX system -- I'm assuming HP-UX was the OS of comparison there, since there isn't the faintest possibility of someone referring to NT as robust. Just comparing average uptimes of various systems I've used, Linux > HP-UX > NT.
Sure, I'll tell you what a "mission critical application" is.
Think of a nice little spacecraft, on its way to Mars. Think of the software that inserts it into the proper orbit.
That's a mission critical application.
Of course, if you have bozo scientists using foot pounds per square inch because the US is the last country in the world (literally) to not be on metric - you can still crash and burn.
OK?
Will in Seattle
My point. Ummm. My point is that "resistance is futile, our success is inevitable" assumptions are dangerous.
Nothing more.
I've seen it lock up X and the keyboard requiring either telneting in from another box or the old reset switch to recover. From a user standpoint that's the same as it taking down the system.
This is half truth for my case. Yes, I don't want to use M$'s products, but no, I replace Windows with Linux. At work, I develop on Solaris, and uses M$ office suite on Windows. Recently I knocked off Windows and uses Linux + Star Office instead. At home I uses Linux as my desktop, which otherwise would be Windows. I can't imagine using SCO or Solaris x86 as my desktop.
If I'm a typical Linux user, then more Windows are being replaced with Linux than Unix are.
The lack of standards in the Linux community, coupled with a lack of key productivity applications and with Unix complexity, will continue to make Linux a poor choice for the mainstream business productivity user.
Check out this article Free Software Fares Well as 'Suite' Rival For Microsoft on IHT, Thursday, Oct 14, 1999 edition. Some quote I extracted:
Basically this article says Star Office fare well compared to M$ Office and is a valid alternative. It doesn't mention using Star Office on Linux, but it does say Star Office is virtually an alternative OS that Windows user would find it as easy to use.
If you're not brave enough to try new things, and is willing to pay more to use Windows, then stick to Windows. If you're brave enough and want to cut cost, Linux + Star Office is quite a good choice. In a business enviornment, let the system administrator handle the tough job, you'll find the difficulty of using Linux as a productivity desktop is not really that high.
To push into mainstream, Linux needs more good and useful applications. I believe two years will address a lot of this issue.
We believe Linux deployments for desktops will not usurp OS dominance from Microsoft.
Only time will tell whether Linux will usurp M$ dominace or not. But as Linux will never go under, do we have a dateline here? The Linux commmunity will repeatedly attempt to break M$ dominace until, of course, we succeed.
The problems that you describe are not only in the report-writing consulting world, but exist throughout the entire discipline of managment consulting. Recommendations are constantly made about where an industry or company should be going with NO knowledge of the underlying technical details of the industry or product. Analysts spend a few miniutes looking at Yahoo! Technology news and then make sweeping generalizations about an industry that sound eerily like the press release that was used to write the story. This has only gotten worse as the rise of the Interent and the web has increased the demand for "knowledgeable professionals" and misguided people have stepped in to fill a role that they are not qualified for.
The worst part of the Gartner, etc. knowledge deficit is that they ask the wrong people and accept their answers as true, because they don't have any idea how to check the truth in them. So they listen to some executive complain that he couln't get a video conference because of the firewall configuration and write a report that the firewall is dead and that we need a more "open" computing infrastructure and that firewalls are getting in the way of the flow of information (which they are, but probably for the right reasons).
The Economist had a great bit last week about consultants:
"HERE is a cautionary tale about a telephone giant and a management consultancy. In the early 1980s AT&T asked McKinsey to estimate how many cellular phones would be in use in the world at the turn of the century. The consultancy noted all the problems with the new devices-the handsets were absurdly heavy, the batteries kept running out, the coverage was patchy and the cost per minute was exorbitant-and concluded that the total market would be about 900,000. At the time this persuaded AT&T to pull out of the market, although it changed its mind later."
Finally, I would caution you about banging on a liberal-arts degree. A good liberal arts degree (mine is in history) should mean that the person has some critical thinking and reasoning skills and should be able to learn. Unfortunately, too many analysts have never spent any time on the business end of malfunctioning or poorly designed hardware or software to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Then again, I'm probably unusual in that I'll admit when I don't know something and I'll go ask or figure it out before giving an answer.
I can't help but wonder.. are you insinuating that many (most?) geeks who now use Linux at home used to use SCO stuff at home..? What, no one who uses Linux on their boxen at home today ever used Windows there in its stead? Or was this just an incredibly badly worded assertation? (yes, I'm honestly confused) =P
I also found it interesting that you chose to preempt any inflammatory comments with an offensive remark of your own. Perhaps you should consider being, more, ah, polite?
~ Kish
For those who aren't aware of the power of Gartner:
Garner is one of the 5 largest consultancy organisations around and alot of PHB's are in fact using their advise. Organisations rely on these reports for their IT planning. If Gartner says: "Novell Netware 5 is good" then Microsoft has really something to worry about.
IBM (big blue) felt the power of Gartner. IBM reorganised and drasticly changed their business plans because of a single Gartner report (IBM Mainframes will die was the outcome of that report). IBM was doing well but many jobs were lost.
The only right thing to do is to do nothing about this paper. Don't fight it, don't counter it. Just keep on using Linux and all will be well. Someday Gartner will see it's mistake.
Here's the bottom line from that article:
This article is in the webletter/microsoft/articlex directory. There are a couple of other like-minded articles in the same directory.
Obviously this is Microsoft marketing drivel. The Gartner group has been paid my MS to spew this for them. The MS Anti-Linux group is hard at work!
Why don't some of you people actually read the article? The ONLY thing the gartner group says in the IDG article is basically this: Linux isn't ready for the end user business desktop. There aren't good standards, and there are missing applications that are needed. All of the "linux is dead" garbage in the article is from IDG. Yet people on slashdot are screaming "Gartner Group is MS Whores!" and other ridiculous statements. *I* make my living from Linux. All of you immature, synaptically challenged reactionaries who just scream at the top of your lungs about anything without even bothering to comprehend what you have read are harming Linux far more than an arguably correct assessment that Linux isn't quite ready for "normal" end users yet. What I am interested in, is how IDG goes from the "Linux isn't ready for the desktop but support is growing" conclusion of the Gartner group to their "Linux is dead" attitude. If you are really looking for "MS Whores", I'd look at IDG.
Linux is certainly NOT Unix. What do you think GNU stands for? Linux was created because people wanted an alternative to Unix. (What Unix actually IS today is somewhat muddy - I believe the only legitimate descendant of Unix is BSD, but I could be wrong).
The author of the posted article is correct and brings up a valid point. While Linux is gaining market share it is gaining it partially at the expense of true Unix OSes. This is true in my experience - lots of people who are already using Unix at their workstations are switching to Linux for various reasons. Fewer people are switching from Windoze (so far - not to say it won't happen).
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
Now, see, here's a good example of the Linux mentality. None of the problems I mentioned occur under Windows, and I have a pretty plain-vanilla system (Dell), with a video card that shipped over a million units in the first six months. You can cry "hardware problem!" all you want, but it remains that none of these problems occur under Windows 95.
Someone else says I should recompile the kernel in order to get sound working. Now is it any wonder that the Gartner Group came to the conclusion that it did?
Yawn.
AC is as AC posts, my email's there if you want to continue displaying your stupidity and closed-mindedness in private rather than hiding behind a mask.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
Steve Ballmer of M$ Spoke at a Gartner Group conference in Florida yesterday. I wonder if that was cash, credit, or check.
Get a free ipod.
Take a look at the actual Gartner reports mentioned in the IDG article:
http://www.gartner. com/webletter/microsoft/article3/article3.html
http://www.gartner. com/webletter/microsoft/article5/article5.html
http://www.gartner. com/webletter/microsoft/article6/article6.html
Each of them ends with the following disclaimer (in fine print):
Microsoft Web Letter is published by Microsoft. Additional editorial material supplied by Gartner Group, Inc. © 1999. Editorial supplied by Microsoft is independent of
GartnerGroup analysis and in no way should this information be construed as a GartnerGroup endorsement of Microsoft's products and services. Entire contents © 1999 by
Gartner Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has
been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. GartnerGroup disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. GartnerGroup
shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the
selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
Consider the source.
Sorry CN. StarOffice is okay. For home use. If you can work around the little quirks and lack of compatibility with certain file types. But it just doesn't cut it when dealing with a production environment.
I can understand you having favorites. I prefer Red Hat instead of Suse. But to say that your solution would work in an enterprise environment is just not realistic. As I said before, yes it would work for folks who KNOW what they're doing.
But even then, what would you do in this situation:
You have a user using your Suse & Star Office. Gets a 15MB Excel spreadsheet, along with a 48 slide PowerPoint presentation that he MUST use to give a seminar on the next day.
He has a brand new Dell laptop (note: Linux friendly!), and MUST be able to get on the Seattle site in the morning. They run Token Ring, you run Ethernet.
With Win 95 w/ Office 97, you have to change PCMCIA cards.
With Linux & StarOffice? Yikes! Never mind the Excel conversion. Never mind the PPT conversion. How about the fact that there are no Linux Madge drivers?
This is the sort of thing that actually HAPPENS all the time. Whereas in home use you can control your environment, in business you have A LOT LESS CONTROL, and more deadlines. Programmers and webmasters have it a bit easier in this respect, as they can get away with rolling their own and generally work around using any M$ products.
Now I like Linux alot. It's my OS of choice at home. But it is currently LIMITED in where you can realistically deploy it in the workplace! Get over it! Eventually, this MAY get solved. But is takes TIME. It took Microsoft a DECADE to become the de facto standard on the desktop. Do you remember Windows 2.0? (Yes, that's a TWO there.)
What Linux needs is more hardware support from vendors and better convertability with M$ and Lotus products. Until then, it remains the OS of the "Power User".
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
The microsoft guy (Wilkinson)had this to say: "IDC figures show Linux comprised just 3.5 per cent of PC server shipments last year."
I don't understand how this can be a valuable statistic as the majority of people I know bought a machine with some other operating system installed only to have replaced it with linux.
Does anyone else think that Linux is great because it is so similiar to Unix? I certainly do.
Sorry, but this is NOT a Linux unique problem. I routinely use Netscape on an NT system at work, and it freezes, crashes, etc. I have to manually kill it's server process about once a week (sometimes more often). I've actually had less problems with Netscape on Linux.
As others have said, don't blame the OS. If Outlook (being the piece of excrement that it is) hangs, I don't blame NT...
Beyond that, if you don't like Netscape for Linux, try Opera or one of the other available browsers.
I don't. I'm having plenty of fun with Linux even if I do have to engorge BillG's wallet some more when I'm at work. (And sometimes at home...)
Why should we care or want to be "mainstream"? Linux need only be useful (which it is) to those that like that sort of thing. Why care about those that don't!
Hatred, even directed at those worthy of it (MS), is a poor choice of motivation.
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
I would have to say that InstallShield is the standard way of installing packages. There's even a version of InstallShield included with VIsual C++. Not everyone uses InstallShield, but most do.
I like Button1/Button2 myself. It makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately it leads to two problems for me (EEMMV):
At work, I have a two-button mouse (I really must get that replaced.) At home, I have several machines with three-button mice. I find myself, when at home, trying to paste by clicking the left and right buttons simultaneously. That doesn't work plus it screws up whatever I was trying to copy and paste. :-)
After having used the Windows/Macintosh select-then-copy metaphor for so long, I find myself selecting something then going over to paste it where text already exists. Selecting that text to delete it kills my selection process and I have to go back. This is just something I have to train myself to do, though -- clear the destination before trying to move the text.
(Boy, this is really getting off-topic fast, isn't it?) :-)
I agree that this would be an optimal solution... that's why Scott McNeely and Larry Ellison are pushing a return to mainframes (thin-clients, web-clients).
However, you shouldn't underestimate the number of PC's deployed in small-mid sized companies. Most just have one server and an I.S. person to help people un-box and un fsck systems.
Additionally don't forget that what people use at work, they like to use at home.
I don't know offhand how much MS revenue comes from server sales, but its pretty significant. NT server costs a bundle just to install, and on top of that you have the client license charges for everyone who can log on. Eroding server market share hurts MS far more than eroding desktop share.
Yeah, I'll agree that this could definitely put a dent in Microsoft's profits. However, servers also tend to be less visible, so Windows is likely to remain synonymous with "Operating System" in the minds of most people for at list a little while.
In addition Linux is now usable on the desktop, and its use on servers should create an acceptance of its use on corporate desktops as well. These people understand Total Cost of Ownership, and they are getting tired of writing huge cheques to MS every year and then watching their machines fall over every day.
Perhaps, but it'll take a while. Many companies are very attached to their Microsoft Outlook or Lotus CC:Mail email systems, and it'll take some convincing to get them to switch. Many large companies are also obsessed with uniformity, requiring everybody to have the same software installed and the same configurations, so they may only switch to Linux if they can switch *everything* and *everybody* to Linux. That might take some effort as well.
Interesting. Do you have any trend information? I'd really like to see it.
Unfortunately, no. It's one of those free web-statistics tracking things where you put an IMG on your page, and they collect stats about the people that load the image. This may slightly undercount Linux visitors, as Lynx doesn't load the image, but it'll also undercount users like me who surf on Windows with the images off (using Opera, in my case). It also doesn't collect any trend information, though my observations show that Linux's share has improved slightly (from around 0.05% to 0.08% over the last year or so). IE has also increased its totals to around 75% while Netscape is down below 20%, compared to a 60-35 advantage of IE over Netscape a little over a year ago.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is the same group that also says to not roll out W2K untill it's up to service pack 3 - unless you want your office to pay good $$$ to be a Microsoft® crash test dummy and donate your time and effort to helping out poor Redmond millionaires. We'll see just how much patience ordinary office workers trying to do a job have with the next paradigm shift!
RHAT ^1/16
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Which is so that people who write crap software can pretend their software isn't as crap as it is because it meets a bunch of standards, and nobody ever questions whether or not the standards are crap. Linux doesn't need standards because it just works. End of story. It doesn't need labels and tickets and glossy packaging and billion dollar marketing campaigns and all the other crap that a certain other operating system, if I may call it that, needs, because it fundamentally works. It goes. It keeps going. If it falls over, it's because you just tripped it up and not just because of some random occurrence. Fix it and it goes again. You don't have to try a fix several times over for that fix eventually to work with no explanation as to why that fix didn't work the first 7 times. A lot of standards simply say "Here's what I do", and as long as you do that, you meet the standard. So if your standard is "We write shit software that craps out every 10 minutes" and that's what you do, then you get the TickIT. Most other standards I've seen seem pretty much the same (including BS-5750, ISO-9xxx). I suppose it would do the community good to meet *some* standards, but are there any out there that are actually worth meeting? By standard I'm talking about the marketing standards like the aforementioned, not technical standards like TCP/IP, HTML 1.1, etc. It dowsn't matter that Losedows deliberately breaks all the technical standards with each release, from a marketing viewpoint.
I find it interesting that so many people are so quick to bash Linux, stating that it is immature, or that it has a lack of standards. Many negative reviewers are extremely adamant in stating that Linux, as it stands, is not mature enough to take on the desktop or the server market.
And let's face it. Linux has a number of areas that need improvement-- user-friendliness, installation (though I *still* think Slackware and RedHat are a damn sight easier than 9x and NT), and maybe some of the device support (*maybe*).
But that's why Linux changes. Device support? Lucent is even going to be coming out with Linux drivers for their Mars and Mars-2 chipsets. User-friendliness? RedHat, Caldera, SuSE, etc. are all working on that. Ditto for installation. The 2.4 kernel will take on issues of multiprocessor scaling. IPv6? We've had that covered for quite a while, now.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Linux, as it stands, is a great solution for tech-based companies (even high-tech). It *does* have areas that need improvement, but Linux is *not* a static product. Reviewers *consistently* find some nagging detail (no USB support!), and developers frequently rise to the challenge and implement it! User-friendliness complaints are being decimated by Gnome and KDE. Lack of Office-like programs are moot, given StarOffice and WordPerfect-- which are *still* being improved. Compatibility with other operating systems has *long* been a goal of Linux, hence SMB, NFS, and IPX support (yes, Novell is technically a suite of applications, but you get the picture).
So, please, tell us what we need to improve. We'll do it. That's why we like Linux: because we *can* do it.
It was a shock to me when I had to agree with the Gartner Group's analysis of anything. They have been so steadily wrong for so long that I had to double-check outside for any horsemen of the apocalypse. :-) Regardless of whether this month seems to be Microsoft's to launch attacks on Linux (see this article) -- it would be a logical conclusion that this is another Microsoft-paid opinion piece from the Gartner Group -- there are very good points here, and I think clarifications should be made.
Gartner's piece states that Linux is to be avoided for business-productivity applications. Let's not forget what a "business-productivity" application is. It's Word, it's Excel, it's Access, it's PowerPoint. All of these are targeted at single-user applications. (Some might try to say that Access can be used for multiuser applications; let me tell you from experience that you can only get up to about five people before it really starts bombing out. Where I used to work, an Access-based application was totally corrupted by someone leaving their computer on overnight. I don't consider that a multiuser application.)
The problem is that there is really a pretty sad offering along the lines of single-user applications in Linux-based, and indeed other open source systems. I have a Linux workstation here and love it to death, but I'm an administrator and a developer. I have StarOffice for firing off memos, of course -- but there is simply no way I could effectively get the rest of the office to use Linux, even if I had the authority to send out a mandate from on high that Microsoft was to be abolished. (Now, perhaps I could get Macs in here...) :-)
Where Linux as well as other UNIX clones and derivatives do excel is in multiuser applications. I don't care if you have figures showing that IIS performs better; I can do more and I can do it more effectively, and I can do it on an OS that was designed from the ground up to be shared among multiple users. To turn around a key point from that previous Microsoft piece (paraphrased: "Linux was not designed with a GUI in the core"), Windows NT was not designed with multiple users in mind. Its design is based on an OS that still really only can be effectively used by one person at a time. (Want proof? Go into \WINNT sometime and look at all the .INI files -- one person's settings easily override everyone's.)
Let's not also forget the key benefit of free or open source software. I can change it if I need to. I've done so on quite a few incidents, to fit my needs when the stock configurations didn't. My NT system on the other corner of my desk goes largely unused for several applications because I can't change its applications to do what I need them to.
What would it take to bring Linux to the desktop, or as Gartner puts it, the "business-productivity" market? Quite a bit. The latest round of GUI stuff is getting there but there are still so many key points to sweat out. Printing a memo off is still not a no-brainer on your typical Linux system unless it's been set up by someone with a clue. But in the meantime, Linux and other UNIX derivatives are what I and other administrators and engineers swear by for our desktops. We just can't get away from the power. :-)
"My point. Ummm. My point is that "resistance is futile, our success is inevitable" assumptions are dangerous." Dangerous to whom? Microsoft seems to make the above assumption regularly, and has almost succeeded at stamping out every other OS on the desktop. Does that mean you should you quote Gates along with Lenin, Marx and Pol Pot? What about Hitler? Comparing murderous dictators with supporters of open source software might not be dangerous, but it is stupid. Nothing more.
Obviously those "research sources" have not witnessed the reaction of the uninitiated when exposed to a KDE screen:
"OOOH! What's that??"
and immediately after they start using it:
"KDE works great"
Software is a lot like clothes. People might not want to learn things, but they can't help wanting new stuff and new looks. Inconsistency is OK with humans. And being most people quite irrational..
KDE screenshots everywhere!!!
EVERY OS competes with every other OS
Yes and I wish MS would acknowledge this!
Again, Linux may be "competing" with Unix, but I see it helping Unix against NT. So, can you compete and help the opposition at the same time? If so, then Yes it does compete. If not then no it doesn't.
I didn't expect you to read my mind, but I was stating that Linux works well with Unix, and NT doesn't. NT may seem to work with Unix, but once MS gets a strong hold on the server market, you will see that stop.
RedHat competes with Caldera, SuSE, Debian, Slackware, etc. and each competes with each other. But I see this as good and healthy competition. Under GPL each one seems to improve the other, all trying to stay on top. But the way Microsoft competes, it is to hurt the opponent and noone (but MS) benefits.
The note about installation "make/configure" and so on was just to say there is generally a way things will work. It's not the best way. RPMs and other utilities are probably better, but are still young. I'm hoping that some "install wizard" should come out and be the end all of installation tools. But I have yet to have any app run on one distribution and not another. I do need to download and install libraries sometimes, but once I do than everything seems ok.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
EVERY OS competes with every other OS
Yes and I wish MS would acknowledge this!
Again, Linux may be "competing" with Unix, but I see it helping Unix against NT. So, can you compete and help the opposition at the same time? If so, then Yes it does compete. If not then no it doesn't.
I didn't expect you to read my mind, but I was stating that Linux works well with Unix, and NT doesn't. NT may seem to work with Unix, but once MS gets a strong hold on the server market, you will see that stop.
RedHat competes with Caldera, SuSE, Debian, Slackware, etc. and each competes with each other. But I see this as good and healthy competition. Under GPL each one seems to improve the other, all trying to stay on top. But the way Microsoft competes, it is to hurt the opponent and noone (but MS) benefits.
The note about installation "make/configure" and so on was just to say there is generally a way things will work. It's not the best way. RPMs and other utilities are probably better, but are still young. I'm hoping that some "install wizard" should come out and be the end all of installation tools. But I have yet to have any app run on one distribution and not another. I do need to download and install libraries sometimes, but once I do than everything seems ok.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
It's all very well to go for a 'good GUI/WM' (and it's a crying shame that this is routinely a blind slavish copy of Windows- you'd think that at least somebody would be trying a blind slavish copy of MacOS), but there is a real problem with 'default with all Linux distros'. One of Linux's biggest promises for the people who have ALREADY BEEN USING IT, is that you basically get to invent whatever GUI you want, in a very personal sense.
Replacing this with a blind slavish copy of Windows would take away a key Linux advantage for current users while offering nothing at all in the way of applications and 'business productivity' programs.
There's also a very real concern- shouldn't we be trying to do better than Windows, since it is doing so badly in terms of living up to its promise? If we're supposed to be making business productivity stuff, shouldn't we try to figure out ways of operating software that look wizzier and cooler than Windows, but are actually easier to use through being simpler and more direct? In many cases I think a modified 'kiosk' would be just the ticket.
Not in any significant amount. Sure, maybe 1,000 copies of NT weren't sold in the past year. Why should Microsoft care?
And even if linux should become the holy grail of the server operating system, Microsoft will not die that easily. They're into far more things than simply NT. Linux users serverly underestimate Microsoft. Just because you drop NT sales by 2% does not mean MS will shut down it's entire OS devision to commit itself to working on linux. Microsoft didn't become this big by sitting on their asses while competitors waltz in and steal their markets.
I don't believe I EVER stated that NT has a standard, infact NT is NOT even mentioned in my post.
The only thing that I tried to convince you of, is that Linux does NOT have a "recognized" standard. RPM may be a defacto standard, but no Linux god has said all packages must be installed by RPM.
Your mistake is in attacking Linux for not having a standard installation method as an example of a lack of standards in general. This would imply that NT does adhere to standards and installation methods are an example of it. If you weren't implying that, then your statement makes very little sense.
I could say that Linux rocks and NT sux because NT can't mow my yard. That statement would only be relevant and make sense if Linux did mow my yard. (come to think of it, that would be pretty cool. :).
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
But, but... the rate of increase of the rate of increase of the rate of increase is slowing!! o_O
*hehehe*
You know what really kills me about this..
/free cost issue is a very small part of it. I'm guessing the fact that IT WORKS is a big part.
1) the "Linux is the 'hype du jour' line. The MEDIA is resposible for the hype, that does not have a single shred of relevance on the quality of the operating system.
2) Also the whole Unix comlexity thing...come one.. it's like saying that books will never overtake movies in the entertainment department because it's so much more difficult to read a book. Pure Crap
3) The whole "the only reason it;s popular is becasue it's free blah blah blah" Well..I've payed for my last two copies and I'll continue to pay for them in the future. There are many reason that Linux has become popular, I'm guessing the low
Why is so hard for some people to realize that there is plenty of room for different OS's.
Apologies to George Orwell
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
Guess they've never figured out how to use document templates off the local file server, eh?.
Until bosses actually judge the quality of their employees work by results and content instead of just appearance, this'll continue to be a problem. BTW, there was a study done once to see why certain office employees were not more productive after having been given access to a PC. Prior to having a PC, a person was able to crank out a one page interoffice memo in about ten minutes. The one page memo was taking 15-20 minutes to create on a PC. The reason it was taking longer was the activity you described: tweaking fonts, etc. There are current reports that indicate the the massive computerization of business's office workforce hasn't result in any measurable productivity gains. The people who pooh-pooh these reports say things like: ``But the workers are able to accomplish much more complicated tasks...'' To which I would like to respond with: ``Yes, but how much of that complexity is being imposed on their job by the computer itself and/or the execrable software they're forced to use?''. Quite a lot I suspect.
On the boss problem: I worked with a guy back in the early '80s who I disagreed with on report formats. We both had people working for us that were to generate reports on their work. Some people were quite proficient with SCRIPT, which if you're not familiar with it was something very similiar to nroff but ran under IBM's VM/CMS operating system. PCs were beginning to be available in the labs and a few people were using WordPerfect and a couple of people were even using the sole Mac in the lab (an original tiny-memory Mac). This other guy would invariably gush over anyone's report that was done on the word processor regardless of the quality of the work being done of the quality of the reporting. Some of the best technical work was being done by people who preferred using SCRIPT yet this guy turned his nose up at all of it. The prettier report must have been about the more significant work. The saddest thing was that there was some truly great work being done whose reports were being run through SCRIPT (and sometimes, in a pinch, printed on greenbar on a DECwriter) that this guy never was able to appreciate. (I should point out that these were internal reports; anything going to the outside world was made suitably pretty.)
I had hoped someone like that'd be an aberration (Ahhh, I was young and idealistic), but we all know that's not the case. Lately, I encounter these types masquerading as the office ``power user''. They're the ones I wind up showing how to automatically create numbered paragraphs and headings. They always make a sound like a cave man seeing fire for the first time (and that always makes my day).
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Don't be so sure Win2K is gonna suck. Rumor has it being late because Ballmer is really demanding stability this time. They have some smart people who might actually be capable of quality work if the market starts to expect it of them.
I'm assuming based on comments my friends who work on it at MSFT make. And based on that, I don't think it's ready for prime time.
But I still think it's WAY too late with the code base, no matter what revamping they go through at this point.
Will in Seattle
If this is correct, then this represents a new low in astroturfing. They must have known this would look like a Gartner Group analysis.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
The real problem with C++ is all the undefined behaviors that can't be detected unless you run specific code under a strict interpreter (and hardly any of those exist). iostreams can potentially be more efficient than stdio because of strong typing and opportunities for inlining, but existing implementations have tended to be the first version that compiled.
http://www.gartne r.com/webletter/microsoft/article3/article3.html
http://www.gartne r.com/webletter/microsoft/article5/article5.html
http://www.gartne r.com/webletter/microsoft/article6/article6.html
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
Research Note
Technology
28 September 1999 Will Linux Be Viable Competition for Windows Desktops?
M. Gartenberg
While we do not view Linux as a serious competitor for Microsoft at the desktop, Linux will not disappear from the computing landscape through 2004.
Core Topic
Client-Operating-System Technologies ~ Hardware & Operating Systems
Key Issues
How will IBM's, Apple's, Netscape's and others' competition with the Microsoft Windows family for market share on corporate desktops affect users?
How will the technology and markets for client operating systems evolve during the next five years?
With the recent initial public offering (IPO) of Red Hat and its current valuation as a multi-billion-dollar company, and with the growing hype in the press over Linux and its variants, the question of Linux's viability as a mainstream desktop operating system (OS) has arisen. While many feel that Linux is the heir to Microsoft's 32-bit Windows offerings and will soon surpass Windows in volume shipments, we are not nearly as sanguine about Linux's prospects. Windows has achieved a level of nonsubstitutable infrastructure (see Note 1) and is tightly linked with hardware and peripheral vendors as well as independent software vendors (ISVs). To displace Windows, Linux would have to offer some compelling feature or "killer application" that is so overwhelming that it justifies a migration. The problem is that any application that can be created under Linux can easily be ported to Windows, thus obviating any advantage. We currently see three potential scenarios for the future of Linux at the desktop.
Note 1
Nonsubstitutable Infrastructure
Nonsubstitutable infrastructure technologies support the following characteristics:
- High switching costs
- Total or near-total standardization within an organization
- Strong third-party/vendor support
- Functions as underlying technology for other services/applications
Examples include the TCP/IP protocol, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks, e-mail, office suite applications.1. Linux will become a major success and will succeed in supplanting 32-bit Windows as the dominant desktop operating system (0.1 probability). For this scenario to be feasible, several things in the marketplace would need to occur. If we assume that Linux will gain measurable market share in the desktop audience, then the door will open for additional momentum. If this were to happen, it would be possible for the Linux distributors to leverage this with increased support from third-party hardware vendors to bundle Linux instead of or in addition to 32-bit Windows. As a result, third-party ISVs could view the Linux marketplace as profitable and support the platform with native applications. However, we think it is late in the game for this scenario to feasible. Some major force would be required to break the Windows inertia, and Linux does not offer a compelling force against 32-bit Windows. It remains a complex Unix variant that offers little advantage to mainstream users.
2. Linux will fail to supplant 32-bit Windows as the dominant desktop operating system and will fade from the market by 2004 (0.2 probability). It is very unlikely that Linux will vanish from the market during the next five years. Linux will continue to be supported and maintained by a core community that has embraced the OS with near religious fervor. We expect that future releases will focus on polishing the product but will not offer a major feature or enhancement that will be enough of an incentive to drive the installed Windows base to Linux.
3. Linux will fail to supplant 32-bit Windows as the dominant desktop operating system but will remain an alternative operating system, gaining no more than 5 percent of the installed desktop space by 2004 (0.7 probability). Despite the lack of appeal that Linux will have for mainstream users, other users will still flock to Linux as an alternative to 32-bit Windows. The Linux community has demonstrated long-term loyalty toward Linux that will continue to grow. While standards for such things as the user interface will remain poorly defined, homegrown applications at no cost, or almost no cost, will provide the minimum level of functionality to keep the OS alive. In addition, as PC vendors continue to look for ways to lower the costs of their systems, we expect that many "white box" systems will offer Linux as a lower-cost alternative to Windows and broaden acceptance in that segment of the market.
Bottom Line: Linux is the "hype du jour" that is thought by some to have the potential to upset Microsoft's dominance on the mainstream desktop. Despite the press hype, we believe that Linux deployments for desktops will not usurp OS dominance from Microsoft. The lack of standards in the Linux community, coupled with a lack of key productivity applications and with Unix complexity, will continue to make Linux a poor choice for the mainstream business productivity user. Linux, however, will continue to appeal to its devotees and, as it improves over time, to broader audiences.
This document has been published by: Service Date Document # End-User Computing 28 September 1999 T-09-2550 Personal Software - Operations & Applications 28 September 1999 T-09-2550 PRISM for Distributed Computing 28 September 1999 T-09-2550 Spectrum for Midsize Enterprises 1 October 1999 T-09-2550 IT Journal 13 October 1999 T-09-2550
Entire contents (C) 1999 by Gartner Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner Group disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner Group shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Please read the guidelines and policies for GartnerGroup copyrighted materials.
Gee, I wonder what business study we will see on slahdot tomorow?! Will it be The Boston Consultancy Group, some obscure 'independant' benchmarking company, some usability study? Prepare for the FUD... This is just the beginning, do not underestimate the power of the MS money...
Their big "success" benchmark seemed to be server sales, i.e. more workstations sold with WinNT compared to the "3.5% Linux server sales". If I'm reading this correctly then they're not taking into account all the people that delete WinXX off their computers and install Linux themselves, rather than buying it pre-packaged, or people that build their own systems. If I'm correct, then these statistics are disregarding a majority of the Linux systems out there. I'm not going to scream FUD since this could have been a simple oversight, but one that shows that these people obviously have no clue about Linux.
----
Dave
All hail Discordia!
- Dave
How precisely do you reconcile points 1 and 3? Joe Public won't use a CLI if a GUI can save him from it. Moreover, suggestions that one should "dumb down" a Unix-type shell are inflammatory and absurd. Do you honestly think I want to type in "remove" rather than "rm"? Besides, have you ever heard of aliases? If they really wanted to, computer makers could preconfigure your system to allow for these magical things, aliases.
Not only that, but are you trying to insinuate that MacOS has a CLI? Isn't one of the main knocks against MacOS the notion that all it has is a GUI? Maybe I just haven't played with Macs enough.. And who in the hell do you think really uses the CLI on a Windows system? Joe Public? Suure.. By the way, there are already major inroads into making Linux "pretty" with graphical "point-and-click", or do you not keep up with current trends?
~ Kish
C++ is _actually_ crap, regardless of where it comes from.
But it's true: VC++ is bad by implementation, in addition to crap by specification.
Lack of scaleability beyond 4 CPUS?
thats incorrect. I thought linux supported 16 cpus... basically... this article doesn't appeal to me, but there is no use arguing.
just my 200 pesos
Stupid people do stupid things... Smart people outsmart each other... --System of a Down
Remember that the Kiss of Death merely means that The Man has singled someone out for murder. In that sense, the author is right: Micorsoft has singled Linux out for Death by FUD.
The question is, does The Man have enought muscle to pull it off this time? It doesn't look like the past year's FUD has done much to slow down the adoption of Linux, let alone kill it off.
Personally, I think the 4Q99 FUD storm is just a last ditch effort by Micorsoft to prevent W2K from being stillborn. Every postponement, every announced reduction in features, means someone has time and motivation to consider the Linux alternative.
Meanwhile, just remember: A Kiss of Death isn't as bad as a Blue Screen of Death.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You're absolutely right. Gartner has -never- been a good source of analysis, as far as I'm concerned. They are only second to the 'kings' of ill-informed analysis, Dataguess (infamous for their consistant praise of Windows and slamming of OS/2 and others).
It's hard to imagine anyone making an educated decision about technology based upon these supposedly independant 'reports' by groups like Gartner. Just who are these people, anyway? As an IS manager I could care less what the opinions of some suit-and-tied 'analysts' are.
You can guarantee that this 'analysis' will be on Microsoft's front page before the day is out.
The user interface is "fine" (in fact, far more usable for a naive user than Linux, IMO) because MS spends beaucoup bucks testing usability and hiring human factors people. That, and they stole a good base UI from the Mac (who, in their turn, stole it from Xerox).
Usability for the naive user is one place where most Open Source projects (particularly Linux) have a long way to go, because there is a dearth of human factors experts working in Open Source, as far as I can tell, and no one has been willing to bankroll user testing. (Though with Red Hat's recent influx of cash, I hope we see a change there.)
Another aspect of usability -- perhaps the most important -- is consistency. MS is very good at giving all their products a consistent graphical interface. This does not seem to be a priority in the Linux community. It should be.
What about a User Interface Specification, not unlike the Mac UI spec or Windows Spec? It could define a minimum set of behaviors and appearances that each conforming UI would provide as a default (with the option to change as many as desired by the implementors, of course).
phil
typing this on RedHat 6.0 running Gnome and Enlightenment
Uptime (including the fabled 5 nines) is measured over the course of a year 24*365 = 8,760 hrs/year * 60 mins/hr = 525,600 mins/yr 1 reboot a month @ 10 mins per = 120 mins dowtime/year = 525,480/525600 - .99977 or 99.977% uptime.
99.9999% = less than 6 minutes of downtime a year, an impressive feat for ANY box and OS.
This assumes your box reboots in ten minutes (including all services) I have a few large AIX boxes (8 way, 4 GB ram, SSA) that run multiple instances of Oracle that can take up to 15-17 minutes to boot. Fortunately they only need rebooted but once or twice a year for maintenance issues mostly.
That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.
> Oh, close, very close. The missing app is the ... Dancing Paper Clip. Linux will never make > it into the mainstream with that important piece of functionality missing How is the "Dancing Paper Clip" any different from Xeyes, Oneko, Xant, Xroach, or any other X toys?
You are actually taking ANYTHING by the Gartner Group seriously? I thought only PHB types paid any attention to their drivel. Where I used to work Gartner was GOD. The managment types hung on their every word. The thing is, unless something was BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS, they were generally wrong. They covered their BS by making very broad, general statements so they could later claim they were misunderstood. This a case in point. "Linux is not ready for the desktop." Duh! It is best as a server, FOR NOW. Another year or so and look out! Cpt_Kirks
Few enough. Why should we care what they run? If they go on buying crap, they deserve to pay through the nose to keep it lurching along.
This article (yes, I read all of it) is really nothing new or even worth getting all excited about.
It has the same amount of information and misinformation we should expect from a mainstream publication (net or otherwise). In fact, it is inane enough not to deserve my own comments.
However, I wanted to say one thing. We have all heard it before. We all know it's true. But a lot of us seem to forget it when these types of articles float to the top of the murkey sea of Linux awareness.
Whatever Linux lacks, it will eventually get. And if Linux does not get it, it is because we did not want Linux to have it. Linux is not stable enough for you? That's okay, we'll make it more stable. Not scalable enough? We'll make it more scalable.
I for one think that we should drop the idea of Linux versus Microsoft or Linux versus FreeBSD or whatever. Instead of asking "How can we make Linux better than NT or Win2K", we should ask "How can we make Linux better, period".
As for making Linux "better" than the BSDs, I think that is irrelevant. The two are so similar that any differences are rapidly becoming more and more meaningless. Whether you use Linux or BSD (or Solaris or *gasp* NT) is simply a matter of choice. Remember choice? Free will? Maybe the choice is carefully made or poorly informed; but it is *your* choice, not mine.
And that is partly what free software is all about: freedom and the opportunity to choose an OS that works best in a given situation.
I know I digressed off topic, but I think these are issues we all need to keep in mind whenever we read any article for or against Linux.
Nothing can possiblai go wrong. Er...possibly go wrong.
Strange, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong.
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
The point with PnP is vendor buy-in. M$ has actually done a decent job with this (at least Win PnP has a consistent interface for this, unlike Mac). Thus, Linux distributers will have to work with vendors to achieve this.
Which of course could mean distros costing more $$$.
You start out making (reasonable) predictions as to Linux's server market share. How do you jump from that to saying that Linux will reach a 10% overall market share by next year, thus damaging Microsoft? From my own (non-scientific) research, Linux's desktop market share is somewhere below 1%, more likely less than 0.5%. Linux users account for approximately 0.08% of the hits to my website (slightly more than Solaris users, who are at 0.05%). I'd consider 3% desktop market share (comparable to Apple's) to be a difficult achievement for Linux.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If this is indeed the case, and the non-technical user only cares about spreadsheets, word processing, and e-mail, then why should we be adament about changing the platform that they do it on? In essence, why do we care? The joy of Linux is that it is a system for the geek in all of us, the one that allows us to change anything on a whim. I would imagine that as the desktop enviroments improve it will only reflect this idea further, with massive amounts of customization that will please its writers but will alienate the non-technical business user.
I say the desktop should be written for the Linux community first, with the emphasis on working well, even if it isn't terribly easy for today's business users. Write it for those who do care.
http://www.mew.org/mgp/
Friend used it for his thesis presentation.
James
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
BOTH mac and winblows have notsignificantly re-engineered the interface from the original XeroxPARC concept.
I'm personally hoping the proliferation of Linux GUIs will allow some real innovation to occur ...
I'm sorry. I read this, and I started laughing. Standards? Ha. Any operating system that runs (3rd party) programs is not going to be completely the same. I used to be a windows guy, and then a mac os guy, and now I'm a Linux guy. What they see as a "Lack of Standards", is a chance for me to customize my box more. The only reason Linux seems to be less standardized is because there are so many choices. And frankly, if everything were the same, it'd plain suck. Those are just my thoughts, I'm sure some of you would agree, and some don't. I just thought the perspectice of the article was not fair, since it's going to be that way for a lot of OS's.
Yah... it sounds like the Gartner consultants couldn't switch from anything that didn't support their beloved Powerpoint. Maybe they don't have much else to do but give presentations.
Applix has a module that's pretty much the same as Powerpoint. I guess it depends on what you do with your PP presentations. If you schlepp them around on your laptop then you could switch. If you have to share with MS users you may have problems switching. Sorry, but I don't know if it can import Powerpoint files. The last time I had to mess with PP was a presentation that I did some time ago so I count myself as an extremely infrequent PP user at work -- Some people live in the damned program! I've only played with the demo files that come with the Applix presentation module. I usually do slide presentations using the Gimp or xv. I'm not interested in giving presentations that have to include bullet points that fade-in or slide around the screen (If that's what the audience is interested in seeing... well, you know).
It's not like you couldn't be totally MS free...
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So in another 2 doublings or so, say about nine months, Linux will have 10% of the NT Server market. This is a psychologically important figure. At that point lots of press stories will be printed pointing out that Linux has now started making significant inroads into M$ revenues.
The thing that keeps M$ on top now is its reputation for invulnerability. Its certainly not its reputation for quality or value. But this is a very brittle thing. Once it cracks it will crumble and collapse.
So I predict that Linux will reach 10% market share next July or so, and that this will be seen as a major event. Once you hit 10%, 80% is only three more doublings away. So Linux should achieve market dominance some time around mid-2001, and Bill Gates will no longer be the richest man on Earth. Microsoft will probably be taken over some time in 2002.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
A Response
Please get Linux into your local high schools--we're taxpayers. Why let your tax money go to pay for crappy commericial software? If we let the older kids play with Linux and develop with Python and widgets, etc.-- what will they think when they have to decide on the OS for their upstart? Something they had no hand in making? How old was Linus when he started out? Hell instead of Math competitions between schools, make Linux power app competitions. Longterm, the future of Linux lies in local schools worldwide not in dominating the business world at present. That will all come with time.
Let's not forget what analysts are good at: being anal. Most of these "analysts" don't know their knee from a knot in a tree. It's to be expected that they make market predictions based on their wet dreams.
Quote the HP Spokesperson:
"Linux does not have the robustness built in it yet for mission critical applications."
Why... thank you for your comment. Now can you tell me why you are using Embedded Linux Systems in your L and X ranges of HP Entria Thin Client stations and X-Terminals.
Story is here
You can't tell me that companies aren't putting Linux in place of "traditional" unix workstations. Linux is competing with all OTHER operating systems, if you look at bit closer the Linux distributions are even competing with each other! There are lots of Sys V unix vendors out there, and they compete with each other.... oh, but Linux surely doesn't compete with Unix, Linux is the only exception to the whole entire marketplace.
Standards... well then tell me the standard way to install a package that works accross all Linux distributions?
I'm not bashing Linux, but you haven't convinced me at all.
Money isn't free, bud. Stealing markets? Why steal when it is simply the natural diffusion of a quality innovation across social groups worldwide. Can you stop the manner in which a society adopts new products? They (greedsters) try with FUD, Licensing, Patents, and other modern methods, but it is really not a win-lose situation for everybody. Maybe MS will win and Linux/FreeBSD will too. Maybe somebody will create a cool app that will bring more people to Linux. Microsoft wasn't much to the majority of people until the 1990's anyway.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." (M. Gandhi)
(Sounds like M$ is between the laughing and fighting stages...)
The user interface is "fine" (in fact, far more usable for a naive user than Linux, IMO) because MS spends beaucoup bucks testing usability and hiring human factors people. That, and they stole a good base UI from the Mac (who, in their turn, stole it from Xerox).
Not to nit-pick, but Apple licensed the Xerox GUI.
Also, while MS might spend a lot of money to test usability, but I find many aspects of Windows to be counter-intuitive.
For example, when I first started using Win95 at home (before then I used mostly MacOS/Solaris)I had a problem with file associations. I tried just about everything trying to find where you controlled file associations. I was expecting to find it in the document properties or in a control panel or something. Finally, I picked up Windows Annoyances and found that it was in Windows explorer under View:Options
Now does this make any sense, that you would change settings with the View menubar???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!!!!
I agree that Linux GUIs have a long way to go, but I have yet to come across anything near as boneheaded as this in my one year of Linux use. And while Windows users are dependent on MS to make improvements. If a Linux user sees an improvement or wants to change something, s/he can change it themself. In the long term, this is going to result in a very refind GUI. And not just one GUI, we have a choice of GUIs that are compatable with Linux applications.
Seriously, would you recommend that the people you know currently using Windows switch to Linux? I think it's a pretty clear "no," though in a few years the story may be different. I'm a longtime UNIX user, have a CS degree, and have been programming since 1982. Still, I haven't gotten Linux to be as reliable as Windows 95 on the same machine. For example:
1. Accessing the Zip drive frequently locks up the machine, requiring a reboot.
2. I had to wait six or more months for a driver to show up for my Voodoo Banshee, then that driver resulted in a black screen about 20% of the time I started Xwindows, requiring a reboot. Eventually this was remedied, thank goodness.
3. I still have problems with fonts in an rvxt window leaving pixel garbage when I scroll. I figured that might be a Banshee driver problem, but I've tried three different versions from two sources (including Creative) and it hasn't gone away. A bad font, perhaps?
4. No luck getting sound working. I'll probably have to shell out $20 for a reliable driver.
To be fair, the Windows mouse driver locks up about once a week, requiring me to use keyboard shortcuts to restart the machine. But that's actually less frustrating than the Linux problems.
That's no FUD, just an honest (and unfortunate) personal experience.
>coupled with a lack of key productivity applications
... appeal ... over time, to broader audiences
coupled with a lack of Microsoft products...
>and with Unix complexity
and with Unix power
>a poor choice for the mainstream business productivity user.
a poor choice for somebody who wants to run Word.
>Linux will
I'm sorry, that's the kiss of death? That Linux will get bigger?
>according to Microsoft, Linux has not affected sales of Windows NT
Lie. Even one lost NT sale means it HAS affected sales of NT. Duh.
>"it's having some success in fairly defined areas, such as education,
>technical environments and some ISPs," [Microsfot said]
A fairly defined market? Excellent. Better than a vague market.
>"The NT market is so huge and powerful
Oh, how very concise. No FUD here.
>While the operating system is generally not free at an enterprise level
Not free? Since when does the price change depending on who's using it? Lie.
>Most enterprises will go to one of the top three or four suppliers
Self-evident. "Most people buy from the places that sell the most..."
>Most Linux users are people who don't want to use Microsoft's products,
>Blair said. That means the OS most likely to suffer because of Linux's
>success is Unix,
And how does the first sentence imply the second? I'd argue Unix will PROSPER because of the rising popularity of Linux.
>Linux's major disadvantage in the enterprise space is that there are
>very few currently applications available for it.
That's exactly what they say about Macs when they're dismissing them. Good thing Freshmeat doesn't exist.
>Linux does not have the robustness built in it yet
>for mission critical applications,
Like when you really need a Navy ship to stop dead in the water.
>lack of scalability beyond four processors
Like Win9x, or WinNT was it? NT scales well to how many CPUs? Oh right, 128 CPUs, huh?
Geez. I'm a Macintosh user, and even I can pick apart the report.
I want Linux to be mainstream, the reason I wanted OS/2 to be mainstream when I used it, and the reasons I finally abandoned it for Linux.
.mov format was not supported in Linux. Same with the Al Yankovic' new music video.
I care because, if my OS becomes more mainstream, I can download a file, whether it is a movie clip, or a soundclip, or a document, and know I have the program to read it and play it. Because the creator of the clip are aware enough of the penetration of my OS to make sure it runs on it.
Last Star Wars trailer. Had to run it in Windows, because the
Want to visit a site with ShockWave? Can't. No plugin for it.
Being mainstream basically means I can forget about worrying about compatibility with Windows. The developer of the product I'm interested in, have already taken care of it the worrying.
Je ne parle pas francais.
To be slammed by the Gartner Group is a good sign. Perhaps MS may actually be getting a bit worried about Linux?
At a large financial firm I worked some 8 years ago, the Gartner group faxes were read like biblical dictates from above by those who were making the strategic decisions, i.e. looking for reasons to wait for "Chicago".
this aricle is just chock full of insightful revelations like the next paragraph....
"Linux will continue to appeal to its devotees and, as it improves over time, to broader audiences,"
where do I pay for more?
The Gartner group is missing a key thing that I painfully rediscover any time I install a Linux or Windows system... That complexity will always result in pain (see second law of thermodynamics).
They indicate that the complexity of Linux is a liability. Well, it is, but it is just as much a liability under Windows, but without the tools and controls to address it that are available under Linux.
It used to be that Unix was (relatively) hard, and DOS was (relatively) simple. This was mainly because Unix did so much more then DOS (i.e. networking, multi user support, multi tasking support, etc).
Now DOS (windows) and Unix are much closer in terms of overall capability. And complexity.
Gartner misses two points. First... Microsoft (and most other sources of support) will only really support a very small subset of available hardware (hardware "certified" to work with windows). If you try to get vendors to help you with other products, good luck.
If I were to create an equally small subset of "supported" hardware, I could make Linux darned easy to support and configure as well.
Secondly, the average desktop user NO LONGER DOES their own support. I know, because I (and the rest of you out there like me) do it. I probably solve 200-300 windows problems a year for friends and family, and some can be darn difficult.
I find I spend about the same amount of time setting up both Linux and Windows systems. The difference is that when a Linux system gets working, it stays working. I can count on some random catastrophe on my windows box about once every three months.
The other difference is that when I fix a Linux problem, I generally feel pretty satisfied, as it turns out I was doing something wrong and I now understand what it was and how to do it right. When I fix a windows problem, I am typically just pissed off, because it "magically" went away after performing some random activity (like reinstalling the same driver a third time, or reinstalling window's itself). No explanation, no permanant fix, and I have to leave wondering how long it will be before they call me back to fix it again.
Really, all this article says is that current operating systems contain a large degree of complexity (inevitable in our age of networks and bloated office applications), and that Microsoft has successfully captured the productivity market (read: Microsoft Office).
Both statements are true, and neither "spells the death of Linux".
Ironically, I think the increasing complexity that is inevitable in our computing culture will be an additional driving force to promote Unix...
Unix has been complicated since it's birth, and we have spent 30 YEARS now giving you tools to manage it. You get your unix system, and you get thousands of tools to use on it.
Windows is just now getting complicated. When you get your windows system, it comes with only one tool... a stick of dynamite. The solution to many failure modes it to blow up what you have and start over.
I think Linux needs a better infrastructure to encapsulate error detection and recovery, system configuration and administration, and a better high level encapsulation of the human interface. The foundation is in place however, and tools like gnome, kde, and linuxconf are quickly moving the right direction.
I think Windows needs a better foundation and architecture... it is designed to be flawed at it's core. The user interface is fine (due largely to the fact that they stole it from the mac), but everything under the covers is a mess, and getting worse with every release.
I think Windows is a fantastic consumer wrapping around a terrible design and architecture. It is a credit to a lot of people at microsoft that such a haphazard mess runs as well as it does.
I think Linux is a practical industrial grade wrapping around a great design and architecture. It was designed for smart people to use to do hard jobs well.
I, for one, would much rather be faced with the problem of replacing the industrial grey boilerplate around a state of the art factory with some nice pretty stucco, then have to pull the pretty paper of a great big ball of snot and have to unravel it and keep it working.
Bill Kilgallon
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
I am trying to figure out why they are so hyper about standards. They are like pringles, you can't have just one. (look at optical disk device drivers, what a mess)
Simply by using the couple "install shell script/tar ball".
That works with every linux (and unix) distribution and it's the way the companies choose to install their closed source software (they often optionally add the rpm packages for the rpm fans).
Goodbye,
Antonio
I have a confession to make I like Unix, I Like Linux, I even like Mac. But I code server applications for NT. And client applications for Win 9X Why do you ask? Because going all MS makes it so much less painful over all. NT is not the best server platform, Win 9X is not the best client. And they are not the cheapest either. BUT going all M$ is a nice compromise, considering my coding time, my clients cost for their platform and my clients end users time to learn how to use the system. Sorry, linux. You are the best in your strong areas, but I, and probably many with me, stick with MS until the competition is better in all areas. (May the day come...)
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Yes, there is a serious problem with Gartner group (and other) reports. Unless you are in the trenches with the techies, you really don't know what you're talking about. The Gartner people are smart, but many of them are seriously uninformed. Their senior analysts, who usually do have a track record in the industry they cover, generally haven't developed software in years (the Bob Metcalfe syndrome).
jht makes an important point: even if you ARE technically proficient, it is very tempting to make predictions that fall flat. I love #1 -- who didn't read about 100 different smarty-pants analysts, including Gartner, who predicted the end of Apple? OK, in fairness to Gartner, they tried to temporize their Apple predictions with "probabilities of decreased market share" and "recommendations against" for businesses, but it amounted to same thing.
CEO's (and other executives) really do have a serious problem. They must make technical decisions for their companies, and they have nowhere to turn but to the Gartners of the world. When the CEO is called in front of the board of directors, s/he's got to 'splain him/herself. Years ago, the question from the board was always "Why not IBM? Why did you buy this other crap?" So they bought IBM, defensively. Now they buy Microsoft, defensively. The so-called "Linux hype" has broken up this cozy little defensive arrangement, and the Gartners of the world must scramble to provide their clients with new justifications to provide to their bosses.
Slashdot readers should also understand that there are lots of dirty secrets surrounding these "reports." For example, if your company PAYS for industry coverage by Gartner, generally speaking your company gets an opportunity to present ITS side of the argument in a way that it normally would not, just because of its ACCESS to the analyst(s) writing the report. Gartner will deny this to their last breath, but it's true.
Another dirty little Gartner secret is the quality of the "analysts." I happen to know a Gartner analyst personally, who has been quoted many times in the mainstream press making pronouncements about Micros~1 and others. This person's background? Liberal arts. Has absolutely no clue -- and I should know, I've had to answer a lot of this person's stupid questions over the years.
So the bottom line for Gartner is that they need to rotate out the fuddy-duddies from the 70's, whose last remembrance of Unix is v6 in college on a PDP-11/70. Then they need to ask some important questions about why the majority of competent technoids is so damn excited about Linux and the Open Source movement. Simultaneously, they need to recruit (and pay!) technical people who actually know that they're talking about. For starters, how about people who have hands-on Linux experience and who can explain why we can accomplish
- about 100x more,
- about 100x faster,
- with greater stability,
- in certain problem domains,
with Linux than with Microsoft.
As long as Gartner fails to understand WHY there is a nerd revolution, and WHY Linux is so exciting to the people like us who, increasingly, actually control the technical infrastructure of the world, they will totally miss the point. Their liberal-arts analysts can only see the world through their Microsoft laptops (which constitute, in many cases, the only computer they've ever actually used).
By comparison, NT and Windows in general is a farce and merely an extension of a product that was supposed to be a "Home PC" from the beginning. Windows is merely a response to Apple's gui OS, not a product that was designed from the ground up to be functional. This opinion is from someone who makes a living servicing Win32 machines...their breaking all the time keeps food on my table. Meanwhile my fileservers and print servers and database servers running Linux haven't needed service for months.
Isn't that the same dataguess that made the news few years ago by producing an analysis showing that the Pentium bug was irrelevant in practice, just days before Intel themselves finally gave in?
Say no to software patents.
I had a 64-processor Solaris setup at home for months until someone finally clued me in on this `Linux' thing..! ;)
~ Kish
The majority of users use the systems that's put in front of them and if it's comfortable to use, then great. Most people's desktops will have a few "Office" applications, an email client, a web browser and any proprietory systems that they specifically need to perform their job.
There are word processors out there for Linux that are as "easy" to use as Word. There are spreadsheets out there that are "easy" to use as XL. There are plenty of different databases available. The integration is a key feature of Office and Smart Suite - but that's achievable too.
The availability for Linux of email clients and web browsers is not an issue.
The question of proprietory systems is the thorny one, though. If your transaction processing system or whatever is based around a Windows app then porting to Linux may be viable but it's a chicken and egg situation that's not really so dependent on Linux standards but on a corporate IT strategy that has a project manager with teams of workers weaned on Gatesware and with business critical apps that would cost a fortune to port.
That's the crunch. You can't port the apps if people haven't got Linux machines to run them on or the time to support the learning curve and you can't give them Linux machines if they haven't the apps to use on them.
There are niches developing, there has always been a place for *ix in many corporations, it might be able to extend but it does need a focussed strategy. MS has that focussed strategy and its worked wonderfully albeit with a flawed product. No-one's saying that Linux doesn't have it's flaws and at the moment, one of those flaws is no realistic champion.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
Agreed!
;)
I DID have a look at that spending graph, and it occurs to me:
WHAT THE HELL DOES "SPENDING" HAVE TO DO WITH LINUX?!
They do mention (my opinion) single viable reasons why Linux might rank low: "heavy use of recycled equipment". They kinda overlook the obvious one: Free! No licenses! Real Simple! Not Complicated! Cheap Support (email the guy who wrote )!
This strikes me as a fairly misleading point to raise in the first place. They then stick several cavats on it (only one of which I agree with).
I'm not impressed. I question its placement in there analysis.
And just for saying something remotely negative about linux, I question their heridity, hygine, and sexual habits.
Desktop Windows acutally -is- being affected. If it weren't, you wouldn't be seeing sales of Applixware or Star Office. For that matter, Sun wouldn't have -bought- Star Office. They didn't do that out of the kindness of their heart, they did it because there's gold in dem dere hills! (KOffice is vastly superior to MS Office, anyway.) Besides, if you want to get technical, Word DOES run under Linux, if you have Wine installed.
Actually, most of the Linux installations I've seen are desktop, or combined desktop/server. I've seen VERY few dedicated Linux servers. Not because that's not a good configuration, but because Linux can handle both tasks extremely well.
Productivity software - methinks Oracle, Informix, IBM DB/2, Code Warrior, Star Office, Applixware, KOffice, Klyx, BMRT, PoV-Ray, The GIMP, URT, Emacs (!), the complete KDE suite, Enlightenment, the complete GNOME suite, GNU Plotutils, the various Linux PIM suites and FlightGear prove that all the bases that Microsoft claims for NT are covered by Linux. (FlightGear beats the socks off Excel's FS, any day!)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"
"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"
--Terry Pratchett
Damn, I'm about ready to bust this guys nut. There is more than enough good productivity software available for Linux, and more is always on the horizon. For the lazy of us who don't want to go downloading stuff, we can usually find pico, emacs, joe, or whatever for word processing. Maybe some people don't like those apps very much, but the output is more portable than a stupid .DOC file. Then for your more powerful environment, look at StarOffice. Now that is a nice office suit without too much of the BS Microsoft has. Quick and functional, mostly. :)
Unfortunately, this is absolutely correct.
The following diagram may help to illustrate the flow of "information" in today's business world:
---------------
|GARTNER GROUP|
---------------
|
v
-------------
| Mgmt. |
|Consultants|
-------------
|
v
Pointy-Haired Bosses
The best way to spread open-source thinking is to continue improving software until it is so clearly superior for particular applications that no one can deny its utility.
I was just at a Gartner Group session and the presenters were generally clueless about anything other than 'namebrand' products. IDG and Meta are in the same (leaky) boat. They are wrong so much they have started putting 'probabilities' on all their reports rather than just making flat statements. Evey the probabilities are way off.
-c
Get thee gone to the Gnome developers pages at:
http://developer.gnome.org/
Seriously though, the desktop is becoming less important. The important applications are going to be web based...
What I wouldn't give for a web based accounts app.
Deleted
Hehe, that's easy. Xeyes didn't have Millions of Dollars spent in R&D to create it. Er, I mean they weren't developed by Microsoft.
-Brent--
This seems like just another story right out of the box that is designed to bash Linux. Sounds too familiar to the "Linux Myths" page posted earlier by Microsoft and if you look carefully some of the key arguments are actually taken verbatum from that and from Microsoft. Not to mention that their facts are all wrong about Sun releasing their source code. The damn thing isn't available yet. Again, The Gardencrap group was not very original with their comment relating to few applications being there for Linux. How can any article like that assert such claims without proof. It was spoken just like a Microsoft add for NT Server and offered us no facts or reasons to believe it. If Gardencrap says it then it must be true...right?
plays well into the M$=BSmediaHYPE theory. the old guard IS rattled.
This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me:
"Most Linux users are people who don't want to use Microsoft's products, Blair said. That means the OS most likely to suffer because of Linux's
success is Unix, he says."
Wouldn't this mean that _Microsoft_ would be the one to suffer from Linux's growing popularity?
Maybe I just DGI.
Actually, the right thing to do is:
1) Look at what Gartner is telling PHBs to use.
2) Learn enough about whatever that is to pretend to be an expert.
3) Go to PHBs and pitch consulting services related to what Gartner said they should use.
4) Wave the Gartner report around, use it to bludgeon competing consultants who suggest alternative, superior technologies.
5) Laugh all the way to the bank.
A fool and his money are soon parted. Some people feel a moral obligation to participate in this process.
One question: DO WE CARE?!
Personally I couldn't care less if Gartner Group slams Linux or not. I don't care if Linux becomes a "mainstream" OS or not.. as long as Linux keeps on being the kick-ass OS and development platfor it is.
No productivity apps for Linux? Who cares? Who needs 'em? Not me.
Since when has powerpoint been used for anything productive?
OH NO! Hide the children! Fork the processes! Gather your PC's into a Token ring! It's a negative review of Linux!
Wait a minute. We've seen these before. Shades of Mindcraft and Microsoft. Never mind.
And who knows, these people at the Gartner group point out the obvious. But what is not so obvious is the very things they view as a weakness is our strength. No one person or group responsible for Linux. And yet, we accomplish so much.
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
Translation: Linux is not suitable for idiots.
Of course, from the kind of idiots I've had to support, I'd say that computers are unsuitable for use by "business productivity users".
-Corydon76
well then tell me the standard way to install a package that works accross all Linux distributions?
tar xzvf name.tar.gz;cd name;./configure;make all install
And what's the standard way to install on win? Run install.exe and hope it works? Yeah, that's a lot better.
there are 285 documents (minimum - I searched using the complementary account) in the Gartner database referring to Linux. Why is that?
It would be a point in time about now, that Linux advocates should just admit that Linux already is one of the available solutions for the question "what should I run my services/applications on?" - to even "what infrastructure should my embedded devices' software be based upon?"
Everything that has been accepted has to face some resistance and down-playing. It should go ignored. Instead, a wise (market) leader will concentrate on serving its domain (nation/market) as well as it can, so that eventually it will be the best domain there is. You don't need to conquer people who come to you willing to participate.
Concentrate on how to serve the users better, not on the marginal commentary, except as a source of constructive criticism, when there is such.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
And it doesn't shout at you, get in the way, or much else.
I just came across this horrendous MS propaganda page today (it may have appeared on /. in the past but if so I missed that one)... take a look at the links at the bottom.
^X^S ^X^C
The article reads as if the author had strung together all the one-sentence Linux cliches floated over the last half decade. Notice how disjoint the sentences read? Some of the cliches are true (or used to be); nevertheless, that doesn't excuse putting forth a quickie hack as a considered piece of research.
The real problem with a report like this from Gartner (we'll ignore idg.net for now) is that there are a LOT of companies that basically RUN THEIR BUSINESS on what Gartner says. I realize this isn't a smart move -- but I know that these places exist.... It's in those businesses that a report like this will do the most harm.
Your Linux box crashed because of Netscape!? A full on kernel panic? I must say I've NEVER seen that happen. Can you recreate it for us or are you just spouting out rhetoric? I don't remember any user level process with non-root priviledges ever crashing my system. And in all honesty, I've never had a user level program take down NT either so I'm not being one sided here. Win9x on the other hand can constantly crash from user processes going down.
Who is NT competing with? Unix and not Linux.
If NT is competing with Linux, then how can Linux not be competing with NT. But if you just answer Unix, then this arguement doesn't hold up.
My company has been switching to NT from "traditional" Unix workstations and servers. The sole reason was for cost. Now that Linux is in the picture, Unix is not lost. It's now cheaper to buy a few Unix servers and a lot of Linux servers than to buy all Unix servers. So, instead of replacing all Unix boxes with NT, we now have a few Unix with Linux. The reason I said that Linux was not competing with Unix, is because NT is competing with Unix. It's not easy to incorporate NT with Unix, but it is easy to incorporate Linux. If it wasn't for Linux, Unix would probably be out of the picture here.
I'm not saying that there are not those who are replacing Unix with Linux. I'm saying that Unix would probably have been replaced with NT. But if Linux is chosen then you still can have Unix interaction. Example: A new professor came to our University and wanted to set up a cluster of Solaris machines. The administration said it was too expensive, and why not use NT instead. I talked with the professor, and we all agreed (including administration) we can have a few Solaris machines and several Linux ones. So here is a case Solaris is still being bought, but it would not have if we went the NT route.
As for standards: is installation the only standard out there? Yes you can make/configure tarballs, I even installed rpm packages on Slackware with the rpm2tgz utility. But once you have something installed, it works fine on all platforms. The standards I'm talking about is communication between the utilities. Why do I have trouble installing something on NT that I installed easily on Windows 95? If you have different platforms, of course you will have different ways to install!
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
I'm a market research analyst(thats analyst, not marketer) for one of the big 5 computer hardware and software companies. My organization works extensively with Gartner Group (and about 20 other research vendors) and I thought I'd make a few comments here.
1)Remember, when dealing with research companies that they generally are very conservative in their analyses. I can't tell you how many times I've had some project manager question the data that comes out of a Gartner/IDC/Forrester report because the report was incredibly conservative.
2) As another general rule, Gartner et. al. are concerned with large trends. I realize that Linux and the open source movement is a larger trend than they want to give credit for but it still does not account for much of the market. That IMHO is one of the reasons they feel safe giving it a less than stellar outlook.
3)Regarding standards, applications, and support, Gartner is correct on an Enterprise basis. Linux is still a risky proposition for most enterprise. BUT, everyday there are more apps and support for Linux, not to mention the open source community. It will just take time for the large enterprise market to embrace it more enthusiastically. We all know how fast multinationals move (can anybody say molasses in January!)
4)As has been said many times here, better does not always win. Linux may be the best thing there is but that doesn't matter if no one knows or cares. In some ways this article is a good thing because it shows that the vendors are (and have been) talking about Linux. That, of course means that it is having some impact.
5) "HP says other inhibitors to Linux's growth include general industry mistrust of freeware, difficulty in installing and configuring it, lack of scalability beyond four processors and the scalability of its development and support model."
This is a crucial quote in the article. I know that you have all heard it before, but it is a pivotal set of problems. I realize that some of these problems have been addressed, but it is a question of education. The open source community needs to have a voice that will be heard by enterprise. Slamming articles that do not paint a rosy picture of Linux does no good whatsoever. As important as the open source movement is, its really too bad that SOME of the most vocal supporters have nothing constructive to say. "You're a stupid @#$&^!!!" goes nowhere for converting the masses.
Okay so I got a little off the subject, sorry anyhow thats my 2 pesos
Poo-Bah
I know Kung-Fu! -Neo
matt@swo.com
While one cannot say anything about the kind of bribery that the GG or its employees might be taking, one thing is for sure:
The MIS people DON'T WANT the GG telling them they must start switching for Linux. And this is the people that _today_ are paying K$ for each of their drivel reports.
Why they don't want? Because:
1.Switching to Linux means forgetting about one-week M$ seminars in ski resorts, M$ babes, etc.
2.They are unqualified at Unix technology (or plainly _technology_, for that matter)
3.If they categorically dismissed Linux in the past, it means accepting they were wrong.
4.You need less employees to maintain Unix, ie, it goes against empire building.
5.If it doesn't work, you can blame M$, and you can just sit and wait to see if the next release will fix your problem. With Linux, there's no excuse for not attempting to find a solution.
# On every sane unix, running this script with # an argument (say "X") causes that argument to # be printed out, but check out what it does # on hpux #!/bin/sh doit() { shift } # run this script with one argument ... doit $1 echo "surprise: ["$1"]"
Ah, you just described how to build the application from source.
Great. That's at least half the software that enterprises need to run.
What about the other half that is distributed as binary-only packages?
Oh, that's right, we don't have to worry about that, because they'll all be out of business soon. Yeah, right.
What they're not realizing is Linux is an OPEN SOURCE PROJECT and that IT WILL NEVER DIE because as long as the source is available, people will constantly use and improve it. Gartner is treating Linux as "Linux Corp."; they just don't get it.
:)
As for desktop productivity applications, fine: they're not there yet- but they will. As for Linux as a server, any large e-commerce site worth it's weight in gold or more has custom written software all the way from the presentation layer through the business logic down to the Database. Linux has this covered in spades with the amazing array of robust tools that are readily available... except for, of course, Frontpage for KDE. Oh, never mind, nobody cares.
I just represented my company at a local job fair, and we were all suprised with all of the Unix/Java/C++ talent we were seeing. Furthermore, we were seeing Linux on quite a few resumes! A couple of years ago I hesitantly put that on my resume too, but considered it a fluff item. Not anymore!
Final word: If you hear FUD from your MS-aligned industry peers, think this: They're scared because they think Linux will invalidate their personal investment in the training, reasarch and knowledge they have on the MS platform. Since I have to straddle the line with both camps, I'm not ruling out anything, and I'm learing as much as possible about both sides. MS-FUD people remind me of grumbling COBOL programmers "having" to learn new technology. If you don't have that natural thirst, get the hell out of the way!
Disclaimer: I'm not a Microsoft advocate, I'm just an old timer who has been here before.
Why is Linux gaining market share? Much of it has to do with NT4.0 being 4 or 5 years old now. However NT5/W2K will almost certainly ship in the next 6 months.
I hate to say it, but I've seen this before. Before NT 3 shipped, Novel & co were taking the oportunity to erode MS's market share. Where are they today?
My opinion is that W2K will ship, and while it wil be OK, it will probably continue the quality slide started in NT3 -> NT4 caused by being large, complex and closed. The adoption of W2K may be slowed until service packs come out if the problems are bad.
The Linux vs. Win2K market share fight is the interesting one, not his Linux vs. Nt4 thing. Right now Linux has a head start (it's out of Beta), but don't automatically assume that your doubling will continue through next year and the next. MS will change the ground rules.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog