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Forrester Report: Linux Hysteria Will Fade In 2000
sirch wrote to us with the latest research from Forrester Reports. The report alleges that this year's massive hyping of Linux will fade in 2000, as well as stating that it's not probable that CIOs will be switching over in massive numbers to Linux. However, the report than goes on to say that Linux will probably see continued growth, through "dominating new application segments." Not really that surprising of a report. One of the interesting points is the prediction that by 2004, the other Unices and Linux will have converged to the point that binaries for any one will probably run on all the others.
Do an internet search on something like java +job and see how large the market is. Just because you don't see Scott McNealy on CNN doesn't mean his software isn't still very popular.
i would disagree
with you though, if i were to
meta-moderate
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120
chars is barely sufficient
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
you dare challenge me?
I turn you to many shreds.
resistance? futile!
--
to moderator:
yes, this is way offtopic
please do not hurt me
use your points for good
by sending a comment up
not marking this down
void recursion (void)
{
recursion();
}
while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
people everywhere had java shoved in their faces, constantly told it was this huge new revoloutionary thing. After being told over and over how great it is, most of them actually went and looked at it, to find it was horribly slow, usually unusable, that "write-once-run-anywhere" was a joke, and that most java more or less didn't work. The simple fact was that java was not _ready_, that it was still in growing pains. But java was treated as if it were ready for _anything_, and it was all over the place, where it didn't belong. You'd open up random webpages, have your computer stall for 10 seconds while a little message that said "java VM loading" blinked, and be treated to an ugly banner app written by a 14-year-old that would sometimes crash your computer.
so yes, people got exposure to java, but they also got dissilusioned with it. It stuck in their memory but the memories were of something highly dodgy. Now that java has matured a bit and, thankfully, retreated to server applications wehre it is much better suited, i'm still sure a bunch of people are left with somewhat bad memories of it. Java seems like it does have a future ahead of it, though, despite Sun's valiant efforts at self-destruction.
What i'm hoping is that the linux hype _does_ die down before it starts getting pushed in places where it doesn't belong, paving the way for people to think linux is as dodgy as java is because they use KDE, discover it's horrid, and think that's all linux is. Hopefully linux will go from sheer unrestrained hype to steady growth and winning on its own merits in those areas where it is very strong.. and not wind up being pushed as the Next Big Thing on the desktop, where it probably isn't ready quite yet. (hmm, that's kind of what you were saying, isn't it?)
This isn't a great thing to be comparing, though, since linux is much stronger than java ever was, infinately more useful, and DEFINATELY much more mature. In fact it's about as mature as you could help for in every area except GUI, which isn't neccicarily important. ah well. Either way, we are left with one incredibly irritating byproduct of the java hype, namely that LiveScript got renamed JavaScript, forcing us all to constantly explain to people that there is no connection whatsoever between java and javascript..
-mcc-baka
i hope to God that 24 hours ago i will not be running IRC.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
(The supposedly non-standard) Kerberos authentication in NT5 is going to break Samba bad. The old NTLM protocols are still supported, but as soon as a shop goes all Windows 2000, those should be turned off, and it's going to be hard to put a Samba server in the corner and not have anyone know it.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Who marked that "troll"?
You wasteful moderator..
Mark stuff up instead
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
>W2k Pro runs fine on my P 200 with 64MB of RAM as well.
Just like Win95 ran fine on a 486 DX50 with 16 megs of ram, eh?
Writing portable code is getting out of fashion. With many small utility-type programs, we're seeing it today: "Use this with Linux, or don't use it at all!"
No dude, people are going to install Linux, look at the pretty desktop, realize they can't configure it. They don't understand and don't have the patience to learn how to set it up and configure it correctly. I can see the hype dying down, but luckily it's caught the interest of people that can contribute to it. I have no problem with the fact that most people aren't going to use it as their desktop OS. There are just some people you don't need using linux (these are the same people that have trouble using windows and understanding basic computer concepts) There's no reason to be upset about it.
Just like Win95 ran fine on a 486 DX50 with 16 megs of ram, eh?
Ahh, it's always so much fun being told my experience really didn't happen by a moron who's never even used the product. Let's all bow down to the eleet skillz of C.Lee.
Happy trollin', zealot.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Try Vodka, get stoned. Man, it's the New Year!
m'kay.. Forest Gump... Let me get this strait. *Win2K... **Pretty GUI **Wasted Desktop **Horrible File Management **ooo... It finaly supports Multiple Processors and amounts of ram above 128M(usualy program dependant) **You can't see whats really going on behind the sceens. **Can you say DOJ? **A Shadowed Mouse????? (waste of CPU???) ***$299.99($300.00)*** **did I metion the price??? **Not a drop of Source Code for anything. Don't like that new bug in explorer.exe?? Too bad! Buy the Upgrade for $100.00 *Linux x.x.xx **FREE!!!! **FREE SOURCE CODE!!! **XWindows... email xfree86, xig, and metrolink and ask them each how many ppl use there product... **So... You want a shadowed mouse... Learn C++ and C and Make a shadowed mouse patch for XFree86...(It Shouldn't be all that hard)! **Don't like the way a program works.. uses memory, Cpu, etc... the way it looks... the whole thing... Fix it! Write a new Program! Or be a complete l0zer and use Winbloz and conform to there Unjust way of waiting forever to release fixes and upgrades or a small .diff fix! Basicly is what I am saying here is that If you have to hate the way They make you hold your tool, Make your own tool and use it the way you want to. Your not even on the topic anywaz!!! "Jee I wonder why my thead is Zer0" Open your eyes, Open your mouths, Close your hands and make a fist. System of a down
Windows has a bunch of hype going for it... check out any paper magazine aimed at PHBs/Real (L)users and 30-50% of the ads are for one MS product or another. And, of course, when W2K is released, there will be more commercials and banner ads than you can shake a 10baseT at. RedHat/VA/Penguin Computing/whoever will have to fight back with hype of their own, so the hype will not die down anytime soon.
When the hype does die down and Linux is on store shelves all over the world, the Linux community/distro packagers will face a new problem. To borrow from business-weasel jargon, the market will be "mature" or "saturated" and no longer "the Next Big Thing." This means less quick money for those involved, and there will be some sort of backlash when/if Linux becomes really popular. (Maybe the backlash has already started, if you check the more extreme BSD-phile comments posted along with this article...)
Anyway, Linux needs no hype to survive or even thrive, as people can see by looking back to the 0.XX kernel days. This is foreign to marketing peoples' experience, thus they probably can't write about it with any degree of accuracy :-]
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
These "reports" are done by the kind of folks who won't lend you any money without an articulately written, "fact"-laden (invented "fact" or not), future-predicting business plan.
I cannot tell you how sick I am of trying answering the questions with a straight face:
Where will your company be in 1 year? 3 years? 5 years?
For example, I'd like to have seen Netscape's "Business Plan."
1 year: Dominator of the huge upcoming Web Browser market. Oh, by the way, the WWW is going to be the biggest, most widely used used part of the internet along with e-mail. Really.
3 years: Defunct. Bought out by America Online for oodles of $$$. We all will be on yachts and starting "Remember Netscape?" websites (remember that the WWW will be the biggest, most widely used...you know...).
5 years: Not Applicable.
For some reason I don't think their business plan looked anything like that.
(Microsoft's crystal ball was working, though...their plan was something like: 1 year--dominate the market; 3 years--dominate more markets; 5 years--dominate even more markets; 10 years--dominate more markets; 15 years--dominate any markets missed in earlier years.)
But I don't place any faith in these kinds of things because if the people at the companies that these predictions are made about don't even know what the next year will bring, how would an outsider?
And that goes double for a phenomenon like Linux that's not even tethered to a single company.
Doug ---- Co-host of Ghostly Talk
they said many of the same things about win95 when it was first introduced.
I've said this before. But quite frankly the scripting functionality of modern windows, especially Windows 2000 is actually better than that offered by Linux.
Microsoft realized this was a weakness, and that's why they release Windows Scripting Host.
And part of what makes Microsoft's scripting so much more powerful is that they've presented within their scripting engines easy configuration of the entire system.
Other things that "happened-but-didn't" include the the death of Unix, high powered CIA/FBI/NSA "security" ratings for NT, Al Gore inventing the Internet ... etc. etc.
back when i was in college, the most stupid and one-dimensional people went into psychology, or marketing. i wouldn't trust anything those morons say.
When Windows 95 and NT 4.0 were both late for release, the media turned to hyping up OS/2.
It's something the media does... they have to report on things, but when the current product is stagnant and you're sitting around waiting for this promised new version... you get bored.
So Windows 2000 has been late by about 18 months or so, the media got bored and started looking at Linux.
Next year Windows 2000 will dominate all the media, and in another year or two they'll start looking for some other product to look at. (Well now that linux hasn't lived up to it's hype, remember) Maybe it'll be BeOS, or MacOS X, or whatever.
I believe in this case what they are referring to is the ability to run the same binary on various Unix OSes (including Linux) on the same hadrware platform.
For instance, PA-RISC Linux and HP-UX would be binary-compatible, as would SunOS (on SPARC) be with SparcLinux. This would require some amount of work, but it is not wholly infeasible.
I don't believe they mean that you would be able to run the same binary on, say... ia32 Linux, Tru64 on Alpha, and MacOS X on PPC.
DNA just wants to be free...
I think the 3rd world adoption of GNU/Linux and *BSD will have a huge effect eventually. There are no real downsides any more, since sufficient applications to do ordinary but important daily work have become available. This should snowball even more irresistibly than Windows snowballed from its start, given the great price :)
We just have to figure out better ways for open source contributors to pay their rent than having day jobs in the Windows world ;-/
But that's starting to happen too.
Linux for the desktop might be alright for some people, but from my experience (doing tech support), many users (especially the new ones) don't need anything that's harder to use/install/whatever. In fact, for a large group of them, Windoze (or even Mac) is too hard to use. What is really needed is an operating system that is even easier than any that is currently available, and doesn't even give the most ignorant user enough rope to hang themselves. In fact, there should be a whole super-easy computer with all the basic software that the average idiot needs already on there. Hmmm, I think I'll patent that idea and make a gazillion dollars.
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
You can get the entire Using Samba online at O'Reilly's web site.
Note that Samba currently has problems with most PDC and BDC scenarios and share ACLs among other things, and I'm not too sure that Win2K hasn't also introduced some issues with Samba compatibility.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
or do they predict that we will all be using the same processors by then as well..
I would posit that the great majority of mid/upper-class, first-world skript kids, college kids, scenewhores, old-school-unix-people, Anything-But-MS zealots, computer enthusiasts, autistics, CS majors, programmers, hackers, tech workers, corporate research departments, social marginals, hardcore gamers, prodigies, and curiosity seekers have now been exposed to Linux/BSD and have a pretty good idea of how it fits into the Grand Scheme of Personal Computing. Who else is left? MS zealots perhaps, but I would imagine that the potential market for a sophisticated open source Unix-style OS has been significantly tapped.
Of course, I'm just pulling that thought out of my ass, but I have personally brought linux to about 10 people, but I'm out of technically-competent people who are open-source virgins. They either love it, or use it, or don't understand it, or tolerate it, or hate it, but they've all been acquainted with Linux/BSD.
I think the Linux hype is over because there was never really anything to get insanely excited about. Linux is just better-distributed and packaged BSD, with a license that is trivially different from BSD style licensing. Wee. I think Linux still the greatest thing since sliced bread and oxygen, but it's not going to knock Win9x off the Common Desktop, it's NOT going to stop MS from owning the mid-small server market with their trillion dollar cap and Windows 2000 (which is a STUNNING improvement over NT4), it's not going to displace Commercial Unixes by virtue of technological superiority (or even parity for that matter), and it's NOT going to revolutionize life as we know it.
Bah humbug.
-troll taker
Uh..I'm still waiting for this supposed Linux hype and hysteria. When a new Debian release is accompanied by reports on the 6oclock news like a certain other OS was about 5 years, *then* we have hype. Right now, the exposure of Linux has been in a couple IT magazines, places like slashdot, and linux IRC channels. Right now, which has more consumer recognition: Windows, MacOS, or Linux?
See my point?
Oh, and power to the stocks.
Most of the posts here are rather critical. But marketing people are marketing people because they know how marketing and advertising hype works. The hype will start to die down in a few months. This is not an end to Linux that they are suggesting, far from it. All they are saying is that Linux use will continue to grow at a steady pace, and the hype will die down to an appropriate level. Linux will become more a common thing, like Windows is now. What hype does Windows have? Very little, it is just so well known it doesn't need the hype that is around Linux. As Linux becomes more familiar to the average person, the hype will fade. That is not a bad thing at all. If it fades due to a better product, well we will all benefit from that better product. If it fades because Linux is so common that the average person barely takes note of Linux software on the store shelves, because they expect it, we all benefit because it means Linux software and hardware is easier to find. Either way, we benefit, not from the loss of hype, but from the cause.
see my other post
(response to anon. coward)
do not challenge me
void recursion (void)
{
recursion();
}
while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
Jeez, change is an understatement. I've been using Linux in anger for about seven months now, and the amount of stuff that has happened in that time is incredible. Even CNN has mentioned Linux (A story about VA, predictably). MS users have been trapped for too long, and the first chance of freedom has triggered a huge amount of interest. And I'm speaking as a VERY disgruntled Win95 user.
iBCS has been running SYSV binaries for a while.
FreeBSD has been running Linux binaries for a while too
As long as the underlying instruction set is the same, and the api is the same (good ol' UNIX standards), then it ain't too hard.
Of course, cross platform across different instruction sets is simply painful, involving either an emulator or transmeta black magic
--
How do you keep an idiot in suspense?
Tell him the next version of Windows will be faster, more reliable, and easier to use!
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Many will respond
To this silly thread; waste points;
Scores will rise and fall
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120
chars is barely sufficient
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
from haiku person
I write a haiku for you
it is topical
sorry for the troll
people here need to laugh more
are too serious
discuss your haiku
please visit this discussion
come and say hello
We need to stockpile
as much haiku as we can
for post-Y2K
It's neccicary.
We are not just paranoid.
Please stop mocking us
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That said, I'm not sure what purpose articles that try to play fortune teller serve.
Dont you remember in the Hithhikers Guide to the Galaxy? Deep Thought took some 7 million years to find the Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, And Everything. In the meantime, the philosophers got insanely rich by arguing pointlessly over what the outcome would be.
It doesnt matter whether or not their prediction turns out to be false. All that matters is that they get people in a frenzied debate and pay them for their ideas. They know that their predictions are nonsense, but they also know they are being payed to make them, accurate or not.
Clever, I must say...
Dilbert: I have become one with my computer. It is a feeling of ecstacy... the blend of logic and emotion. I have reached...
GNU Linux is really nice but it isn't for the masses and probably won't be. People are intimidated by the prospect of editing source code, most would rather pay a few bucks if they can just have a program with buttons and a File menu. I personally think after this year the home machine Unix will probably come in the form as a commercial unix for the PC. Linux will be more for IT managers and people that really want to go hardcore with their computers. The other story here about documentation for Linux is one of the reasons Linux will probably always continue to be daunting, even with companies like Redhat providing oodles of support. People go into Best Buy asking if they can buy a few megahertz for their systems or if the internet comes on their computer, an open sourced operating system isn't going to appeal much to them.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Why not use these "predictions" as directions to work towards. They think all *nixes should be able to run each others binaries? To work! We've got code to hack. Let's do it. This may involve writing a generic Linux/x86 environment so other architectures can run x86 code, but it can't be a bad thing....
Just an idea.
... and today's pet project has
I'm going back to my GNU/Solaris and GNU/NT systems now. Richard is such a scum.
Actually its probably a good thing that Linux never got really hyped (like all the way down to the average luser). This way when it (or its successor (*BSD, Hurd)) comes back after the hype surrounding W2K dies (and it will eventually) OpenSource has another shot. Linux wasn't ready for the desktop yet. KDE wasn't finished. GNOME wasn't even as far as it. The games aren't all there. USB isn't done. But the next time MS is over its promised ship date on an OS and their hype window closes, Linux (or some other free unix) will pop back up and this time we'll have a fully ready replacement for Windows. The fate of Java will not be the fate of Linux because Linux development is not dependent on any one company (it would be nice to have all the companies' (like RedHat, VA) support but its not necessary). -AX
this is first haiku
i piss off moderator
he no like haiku
WinNT is based on OS/2 (well, sort of). IIRC, it started out as a joint project between MS and IBM. At some point, the parties split, each taking the code that had been jointly developed (forking) and each continuing the development. In the end, IBM had OS/2 and MS had NT
Haiku nazi here:
Far too many syllables!
No haiku for you!
Finally, Forrester predicts that by 2004, Linux and proprietary Unix will have so much in common that many binaries will run on either platform.
I can also remember when people would tell me that macs and windows computers would soon be able to run programs interchangeably... And (thank god) that hasn't happened....
If anything, i'd think they'd be more different...
Huh? Def Leppard?! That was Neil Young and Crazy Horse, which I always thought of as more folk rock, very bluesy - not metal by any means.
Why would the craze around Linux fade? It's finally starting to hit the mainstream marketplace. If anything, it's going to shoot off like a rocket. We'll start seeing commercials and ad's all over the place, and every uninformed consumer will be going into best buy and compusa asking "well, uhhuh, whats linux?". Thankfully, It is also getting easier to install and use. This means that more people are going to be using it, more drivers will be available, more apps as well, and Microsoft will finally see what it's like to be the little guy.
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
This is my second bottle today, I'm seriously considering quiting my job and becoming a full time drunk.
We will only reproduce.
Redmond and Seattle are two separate cities.
I would like Linux to fade away and just do its job well. Most of the current hype has been from idiot media people who "discovered" linux (and thence Unix which most of them never knew exist and seem to describe as a "program" that runs on "main frames"). The current frenzy is not coming from the "Linux camp" itself. Linus's goal of "world domination" is meant in humour people! If the media can't get a clue and just end up not producing their normal volume of drivel I won't miss it ...
I mean who cares whether Linux "peaks" and ends up with "only" 10 or 20 million users? If the media views that as a failure it's like saying Belgium a worse country than China beacuse it's smaller or something. They just don't get it.
I like this article... but maybe I'm just optimistic. Common sense in the Linux market could be too much to ask for.
that was offtopic
I would moderate you down
but I don't have points
void recursion (void)
{
recursion();
}
while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
Well said, let them put their money where their mouth is.
going slightly off topic, you have to wonder about the intentions of these groups. Often times they have vested interests in influencing stocks one way or the other.
Notice how often analysts who have a 'strong buy' rating on a particular stock, will switch all the way to 'hold' or 'sell' when the stock takes a dump after dissappointing quarterly results.
You can bet they sold their stock prior to changing their recommendations.
Your basic point seems to be, Linux ain't like Windows! No, it isn't -- that's why it's called LINUX. There was a good post on this subject recently, and the guy has a good essay on his site which deals with this in greater depth; but, in a nutshell, if you want Windows, use Windows!
Look on the right column links of that place. Everything is E-something. This must be the place to be E-leet (or whatever they call it.)
<Putting on glasses and a "Yoda Lives!" t-shirt> Screw Forrester! Why was this even posted on Slashdot? Everybody knows this is bogus because with Internet time being so fast, nobody can predict what's going to happen in the next few years.
Now shut up so I can tell you that Linux will soon achieve world domination and Microsoft will be bankrupt by 2002!
:-)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Why do all these marketing types think they can predict technological advances? (I'm not saying it's impossible to have cross platform binaries, I just don't really trust this kind of articles for predicting them.)
People who are making decisions have to base these decisions on SOMETHING. Reports like this give them something credible to fall back on when they are trying to explain their actions. :)
Inventors, financial analysts, etc., like to know this stuff so they can more accurately predict whats going to happen in the future, and maximize their profits.
Business owners and those in change of deploying IT solutions like to know this sort of thing so that they can plan for the future, and maximize their profits.
Basically, it all comes down to money, but hey, doesn't everything?
Oh, and I love the source of this article: The E-Commerce Times. Ahahahaha. I love it.
It has a long way to go before reaching a plateau. You haven't seen anything yet.
I see that happen in 3,or 4 years.
Price practice: 19.95 "buy one get one free with the 'Back to School Sale' coupon."
CY
These guys think they know what's going on, but usually they don't... on the contrary, I think Linux usage will grow, from a 15% of the server market right now, to probably some 40% or 50% of new servers, be them web servers or normal data servers. I also think most other Unix operating systems will dissappear, with the probable exception of Solaris and AIX... all the rest will fade away into obscurity...
Meanwhile, Windows will continue to lose terrain, both on the server market (which has already started), and on the client market (just starting)... on many cases, the giving away of StarOffice by Sun Microsystems will be the drip that overflows the bucket, since some 90% of office users use only, well, Office.
They didn't say that Linux would be less popular, just that the excessive hype around it would fade. Refrigirators are quite popular, as are telephones, but you don't see much hype around them do you?
maybe in some small planets - I asked an acquaintance if she'd heard anything about 'Linux' and got the response, 'Isn't that a furnace company?' (Lennox) :))
Nowhere near the massive multibillion dollar ad budget overhyping of those other guys. Linux is real, the other guys are the smoke and mirrors that are destined to dissapoint (and don't blame ME! It's THEIR property - YOU bought it, I NEVER recommended buying their licenses!)
Boojum
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Well, Amazon, Yahoo et al, still haven't bombed yet, despite generating no profits to date.
Ok, let's start with Linux fading. Assume that's true. Ok, now what's going to replace it. It has to be closed-source, otherwise the conditions wouldn't be right for Linux to fade. But, by the mass market switching back to closed-source, you create the conditions necessary for Linux not to fade. (Unfixed security flaws, instability, over-pricing, etc.)
Reducio Ad Absurdium.
Now, let's take the argument that Unixes will move together in a way that they will be binary-compatiable. This is already the case with iBCS and *BSD's Linux binary system. It would seem to follow that this is not a meaningful prediction as it has already occured. Indeed, iBCS has been a fundamental part of Linux for some considerable time, and was probably instrumental to Oracle porting it's database to Linux, owing to the large number of people running the Solaris version under Linux.
Conclusion - by trying to prove the report valid, I seem to always be reaching the conclusion that the report is invalid. This shows that the report really IS invalid.
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)
I can't let this slide. Linux did *NOT* originate the ELF binary format.
Then it was this Minix stuff is a toy.
Followed by "this Linux stuff is just for hackers".
Then: "Well, they've only got 1% of the server market" - followed immediately by "... 15% ..."
Now the Linux craze is over.
Same negativity. Perhaps someday they'll get something right. But no one keeps track of this stuff.
Just like weather predictions.
(Psst - don't let the moderators know that this is haiku!).
I wouldn't doubt that we'll see articles like this every year until one day they'll have to say that "next year *nix will start to lose its #1 market share." Well, maybe thats wishful thinking, but...
I think it's only a matter of time before CIO's start to see the benefits. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen eventually. I won't got into the reasons since you know them already. Forester is only saying this because of what's true today. I certianly don't look to them for future trends.
These research organiazations are simply too entrenched with the way things are today and how they were yesterday. An open source business model simply doesn't compute in their minds, therefore, it can't work.
Highly profitable open source corporations and widespread use of linux or whatever other flavor don't have to be related. Redhat doesn't need a market capitalization of $100 zillion like microsoft to have a large share of the OS market.
but it's not a proper Haiku (it has 18 sylables. A Haiku is supposed to have 17 in the arrangement of 5, 7, and 5.) Try this:
On slashdot it says:
They do not trust in Linux!
The shame, oh the shame.
they just try to predict anything which end ups
virtually all of the time being untrue as well as
all the other "prediction firms"
they want to tell me my horoscope too and read my palm
they have no benefits for saying anything either way so they are not accountable they spout bullshit and since most of the time its untrue it must be dealt with
Compelling Reasons, volume 1:
IIRC, there was a report from Gartner or whomever that stated that companies would start thinking about migrating in 2001, when the first service packs should begin arriving. That's a year after; and Win 9x-users will have to wait for their next Big Thing, the allusive Windows Millennium.
Win2k ...hhahahah
Do you have a clue ? Companies just spent billions on y2k and now you think they will upgrade to Win2k just because it is there? You need a really good reason to spend millions on a new OS. I think that it is MSFT that is in for a real shocker here. I think you might see the Linux hype die out and some stock prices drop, but
you will see Linux gain market share as well.
Question: Will NT 5 actually have full directx support?
Self-styled "industry analysts" like Forrester, Butler Bloor, Gartner etc have repeatedly shown themselves to be clueless where open source is concerned. But they can't afford to be silent about the current biggest thing or they'd lose credibility so they try to come up with what they think are safe predictions based on an extrapolation of what they see today. The problem is that since they don't really *get* it, all they can do is extrapolate from how things appear on the surface to the ignorant.
For example, their feeling that the prominence of Linux will fade is based on the misapprehension that its rise has been based on hype, like so many other media darlings. But, as so many here can surely testify, this is not so. Linux is where it is today because of the real benefits and the real potential it has.
Their prediction that CIO's will not switch to Linux is based on a similar theory that Linux is in some fundamental way not a serious OS, and also on an assumption that Microsoft will continue to represent the safe choice for budget holders. We already know the truth about the former. My own prediction as regards the latter is that Windows 2000 will be an unmitigated PR disaster because of the risks inherent in such a bloated product stuffed with such a huge amount of new and relatively untested code. Sensible CIO's will at least recognise the possibility of major technical problems and will keep W2K at arm's length at least until the first major service pack appears. In the meantime they will be much more open to experimentation with alternative platforms such as Linux.
Finally, to suggest that binary compatibility will be achieved by 2004 is to betray an embarrassing level of ignorance about the subject they're discussing. We already have binary compatibility by and large across a number of OS running on the x86 platform by virtue of compatibility libraries; applications compiled for Linux will already run on SCO and BSD and I believe Solaris will provide this too very soon. In any case, Linux has provided iBSCD compatibility support in the kernel for a number of years, allowing one to run compliant native SCO and (as was) Interactive Unix applications under Linux.
With Linux's current substantial (and increasing) market share and developer mind share, this level of compatibility only needs to advance modestly for across-the-board compatibility to be commonplace within two years at the most.
Their predictions are worthless nonsense. I say again, these guys have no clue; their opinions are only of interest in that they are indicative of how equally clueless PHB's think.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
All of this hype about "reports" on OS's seems a bit odd... since when does scientific (or unscientific for that matter) research determine what computer products are good? MajereDB8@altavista.net "Insert Signiature here..."
Britney Spears and Pokemon are kinda cute, but neither can sing. Linus, sorry, he's not cute, but he does know how to program, and he's been programming linux longer than the others have been around. I give up, what do they all have in common.
And will CD-ROM.com's steady growth in BSD sales (FreeBSD flies off the shelves in University bookstores aroud the world) just entirely collapse leaving the puny upstart struggling for life? Or maybe since Apple, IBM/WhistleJet, Intel, BSDI have all benefitted from and contributed to BSD will the company actually grow yet again in 2000.
One sure fire prediction: every fscking news agency in the world will report on Windows2000 and people will line up to buy it - not really knowing why. Now which OS is hooked on hype? I think it's the one that *needs* 90% market share and 100 million dollar advertising budgets just to survive.
Please state REASONS you think what you think, don't just state your opinions! No one cares.
Yeah, it seems to work great on my 200 MMX with 64 megs! I am really pleased with it so far.
I look at MS's Linux Myths and I see that Forrester has released anti-linux stuff in the past. There is a footnote: "Forrester Research, Software Vendors Crown Server OS Kings, Aug. 31, 1999"
While I don't doubt that win2k will be a much improved beast and fix a lot of annoying things, I doubt it has moved far along the road towards fixing the things that Linux does well. Like configurability, scriptability, and the everything you need on one disk aspect of a Linux install. I doubt the hard-core server stability is yet with this all-new OS either.
On the other hand it will continue to have benefits for some users on the desktop.
Basicly Linux and Windows advantages/disadvantages are converging - Linux from the server end to the desktop and windows in the opposite direction. What happens when they meet?
Economics wins. Linux is free and windows is not. One day, soon or not-so-soon Linux wins because the cheaper product always wins, especially when it's better to boot.
Forrester is a bunch of clowns that say anything for a buck. They'll come out with another report saying the exact opposite next year.
clueless media types babbling about Linux today will be talking up Win2K equally cluelessly
One of the things I have noticed about MS product introductions is that they rarely live up to the pre-hype, and there is always some backlash after the product hits the street. People installing the prerelease versions are generally early adopters who focus on the upsides of the product - building the prerelease hype. After introduction the media tend to focus on the problems that occur. I don't know about you, but I sure remember the wave of problem reports that hit once people learned that Win 95 didn't support their legacy sound or network card, or some archaic software they had. Not to mention it had a number of very annoying bugs on introduction, and the the first patches/upgrades generally caused more problems than they fixed.
This makes me believe that there will be some hype associated with the the release, but as soon as people start finding that the software isn't perfectly 100% back-compatable, AND that it has a higher price than they expect AND it really isn't a consumer OS AND like any major new release there are going to be a lot of bugs you are going to see a lot of backlash in the media. There will be a lot of business organizations that will delay implementation because they don't want to beta test on enterprise servers, or because their techs are not yet W2K certified, and the media will also pick up on this.
It's the same thing you saw with Linux - as soon as you saw media the hype start about Linux as a Windows replacement there were a raft of articles about how hard it was to install, or how it wasn't ready for the desktop. That Linux as a Windows replacement stuff has mostly died out already.
Right now the media hype associated with Linux has little to do with Linux as a Windows replacement; it is driven by the stock market's appetite for technology stocks. I think that the Forrester report is making a big assumption that this enthusiasm for Linix IPOs is going to die out any time soon. The growth potential for Linux in all sorts of applications is still there, and somebody is likely to find a workable business model. The internet appliances Forrester cites positions Linux too strongly for what a lot of people think is the strategic direction for the growth in computing. This is precisely where Microsoft has seems to be it's weakest with it's losing Wince product.
I think that this article is pretty acurate in it's predictions that the "hysteria" around linux will slow down during the next year or so. Right now, part of the reason why linux is receiving so much hype and media attention has to do with the the Micro$oft DOJ trial and the fact that Linux is being touted as the only real rival to Microsoft right now. Corporate adoption of Linux is going to remain a slow road, mostly due to legacy applications that are still platform dependant. My organization could move to Linux right now, but we have so many third-party applications that we have to use in our particular end of the financial industry that we are stuck on Windows until the unforseeable future. This is why the future of Linux is tied to the Web Browser. More and more of our outside software vendors are dropping their proprietary dial-out software with web based applications on the internet. Internally, we are working with some of our smaller software vendors on converting our current document tracking software from a VB application to where it will run in a web browser. Once enough of our applications are running over the web browser, the need to run a proprietary operating system will be circumvented, and then (and only then) we will have the option of moving away from Windows. However, thanks to Samba, we do have the option of converting our servers from NT to Linux. We will be investigation this option over the comming year (although we will be simultaneously investigating the possibility of moving towards Windows 2000.) Linux has not reached the stage of World Domination quite yet, and it won't for quite a few years. What it will do is return the computing industry to the days when you could choose a platform that best suits your needs (and not just because it's the only thing available.)
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Not to be too harsh, but almost everyone in this discussion is confusing application development with equity markets.
:) ). Stock prices will take a header, and this is an slightly more informed guess. But Linux doesn't depend on high stock prices to continue the pace development; individual companies do. If they go bankrupt, c'est la vie.
Lots of great applications - technically proficient, even brilliant - were dogs when it came to sales.
Companies which marketed them lost money, went belly-up. IBM lost five billion dollars in a single fiscal year - more money than most third world countries take in - while holding 10% of the US's patents and an immense share of R&D expenditures.
Linux will continue to be a fine operating system. I'm quite sure of it (now, criticise *my* almost wholly uninformed guess
How many software companies from ten years ago are still in business, anyway? It's the nature of the high-tech industry: live fast, die young, and leave a pretty corpse.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
Rather, it's a standard that was adopted by Linux. It alone doesn't provide the ability to run binaries; for that to work you need to supply dynamic libraries that look like what the executable expects. That's assuming the executable is dynamic. A static executable needs system call emulation. That has even less to do with the executable format.
Haven't taken the time to read the report yet, but I have to say that if the synopsis here is accurate, I'd tend to agree. But I'm assuming that the biggest reason Linux'll fall out of the "next-big-thing" spot is not just because all hype runs its course (although that'll have a lot to do with it), but because of Win2000.
And it's not just because, come Feb. 17, the same clueless media types babbling about Linux today will be talking up Win2K equally cluelessly. Hate to say it (well actually I don't hate to say it at all), but from all reports it looks as if MS has finally put together a competent OS. Now that they've reportedly fixed most all of the glaringly laughable faults of NT 4 (low uptime under strenuous use, DLL hell, forced reboots after minor reconfigurations, etc.), Linux will have to compete more on philosophical issues--open vs. closed source; full control and modularity vs. one consistent interface--than on obvious superiorities.
Frankly, folks, we have to realize that a big part of the reason Linux got its day in the sun this past year-and-a-half is because NT 5^H^H^H^HWin2K was about...a year-and-a-half late. Now, I think in that time Linux has made some important and irreversible changes for the better in the computer industry. For one thing, you can bet that without any credible server-side competition, Win2K would be a lot less polished than it will be now, and that's a change for the better. For another, I think even MS has to think twice nowadays about trying to fool the public into adopting new, closed standards (witness their recent support of XML in Office 2000 and elsewhere). Finally, I think the old "you can't get fired for buying Microsoft" climate is beginning to be questioned in many if not most companies.
But, suddenly Linux won't have the advantage of competing with patched-up 3-year old software. Now, on the other hand, three years from now Win2K will probably be on SP 6 or 7, awaiting the next much-delayed overhaul, while Linux (or perhaps some other free unix-alike? HURD perhaps??) will be chugging along with its steady organic improvements.
But for the next little while, Linux will have some real competition. And, while it may slow up corporate adoption in the short term, that's a Good Thing. I know most all of us here believe in the superiority of open-source development. Now it'll have the chance to really prove itself.
what do they all have in common? you decide
(see above)
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
Sniveling coward!
Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?
Sue me like eToys?
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Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
Go back to Microsoft you zealot!
I hate to burst your bubble, but Linux will NOT be replacing Microsoft on the desktop for several years because of the way it was designed. Do you know why games are designed for Windows (other than the dominance factor)? It allows direct access to hardware. Linux was designed from the ground up as multi-user, so direct access to hardware wasn't even considered (for good design reasons). If Linux is going to take over the desktop, it needs to do a Microsoft-style OS split (a la 9x/NT) and make one version for servers, and another for the desktop.
There would be severe consequences from trying to add direct hardware access to the current Linux kernel. The biggest is security; how can you easily regulate a multi-user OS like that to not let the wrong person directly access hardware? It'd be a nightmare to implement. But without direct hardware access, you are going to gain 0 game developers, and therefore gain 0 home users. I will have a Windows partition on my system until I can run all my games elsewhere, and so will thousands of other users.
You make some good points, but I think your reasoning's backwards about Win98. Nobody was excited about Win98 because, once you look past the cosmetic changes to Explorer and the scrolly slidey menus, it essentially was a service patch.
Remember Windows 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11? They happened all over again, except they were prettier and they were called Windows 95, 98, and 98SE.
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Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I HAVE LINUX ON FLOPPY, BUT NO JOYSTICK,
OR HPIB!
Your comment brought to mind a vision of scruffy little college kids acting all tuFF, running around wearing "Frigidaire" and "Western Electric" t-shirts. And it made me laugh.
Think about a Beowulf cluster of those Frigidaires!!
The report may be correct that some of the hype surrounding Linux may subside in the new year, particularly after win2k takes the media limelight.
As the report points out, Linux will continue to grow, faster in some areas, slower in others. Linux is becoming a significant player in the server arena, and will likely prove to be a desirable choice for embedded systems and appliance-oriented computers.
There will be uphill battles as well - companies and most home users are unlikely to make a wholesale change to Linux, at least not until the added value is greater than the costs/headaches of changing and until there is more support for certain types of desktop applications such as financial software. In addition, you can bet that nearly every hardware vendor in existance will support win2k within a few months of its release while Linux remains on their back burners.
But even the areas where Linux's growth will be strong are not the only measures of success - there are more subtle ones which are often overlooked, particularly in these types of reports.
For example, Linux and other open source projects (such as Apache) have made it much harder for Microsoft (or any other single company) to replace open internet standards with closed proprietary ones and hence lock out diversity.
Also, Linux (and Apple, to some extent) has reintroduced competition in a market which just a few years ago had been written off as hopelessly dominated by one company. Like it or not, you can be sure that the final release of win2k will be better than it would have been in the absence of competition from Linux
The value of these types of success are difficult to measure in dollar terms, but we will all enjoy the benefits even if many of our friends and co-workers continue using Windows on their desktops.
here is my theory: I don't see how you can push BSD lisenced product as customer products (i.e. stuff that being sold simply because of the strong misleading marketing.)
Example being: alkaline battery vs. HiMH; Kodak vs. Fuji; Nike vs. everybody else; MS Word vs. Wordpad; etc. etc.
Whenever you hype up a BSD linced product, somebody can simply take it and slap a lock on it. The different of linux is that everybody can take everybody else's code. You bet Redhat will take some of Mandrake's code. This is very important to ignoant consumer market. Admins don't care since they know what they are doing. Selling BSD licensed product is like (I know I'm going to get missle for this,) Macys selling their shoes, claiming that it's EXACTLY like the Nike shoes the Basketball players waring, except that they will refuse to accept any Nike socks when being used. What Macys doing is openly dare Nike to close the design of the shoes. Nike can't do that because that will declare the failure of BSD. I'm sure the Macys shoes won't sell, but they only need one incident that this to expose the "weakness" of BSD.
"Why would anybody do that?" You ask, What if one of the linux distro decide to do that? What if Redhat decide to do that? They only need to give people the impression that BSD OS are incompatable whenever a BSD company goes IPO. NOte they won't call it OSX or whatever differently, they will call it *BSD to confuse people. This only works in consumer market, server market is uneffected.
So exactly what's BSD have that linux doesn't already have? Besides "make world" and "Old School Admin"? I know linux have JFS and cluster. "Exactly like linux except easier to be bitchslapped." You answer a newbie.
Post as AC, hehe.
Despite the fact that Electical-related companies such as Ontario Hydro and Michigan Electric have recently taken Wall Street by storm, Forrester says it sees no sign of CIOs abandoning historic solutions for Electricity any time soon. However, the firm does predict that Electricity will continue to grow by dominating any new invention.
Chinks In The Electrical Supply Armor
Additionally, Forrester predicts that moderate demand for Electricity will translate into "more rational requirements" in Y2K.
"Michigan Electric and Ontario Hydro realize that reselling a natural phenomenon is a tidy little business at best -- not a recipe for growth," the report points out. "While both are expanding into technical services and quality assurance, the services game is a people-intensive endeavor that takes years to develop, and service firms like Chernobyl treat quality as a loss."
Some Will Thrive
Nonetheless, the report predicts that power supply firms with "defensible assets" such as Coal Heating, Ltd. and Turbo Gas Supply will continue to thrive in the upcoming year.
"Coal Heating, Ltd. has built person-years of engineering into its innovative appliances, such as stoves, that don't use Electricity," the report notes. "Turbo Gas Supply is developing a proprietary clustering product that links Electricity together with Gas to produce an explosive product. Great for massive jobs."
New Applications Will Fuel Electrical Growth
Still, Forrester sees Electricity thriving by piggybacking on new opportunities such as running e-commerce applications. :-)
"Parallel clusters of Electrical generators will go beyond Web serving to power customer appliances at high-voltage sites," the report says.
Electricity will also begin powering more consumer appliances such as TiVo's personal video recorder, because it can't be done any other way, Forrester notes.
"Expect Electricity to appear in car stereos, home entertainment systems and consumer Internet appliances -- hidden from view behind friendly interfaces," the report adds.
Electricity Will Become Indistinguishable From "Hydro"
Finally, Forrester predicts that by 2004, Electricity and "Hydro" will have so much in common that many devices will run on either power source.
What BSD has is a real fucking distribution. Linux doesn't. It's trash thrown together, that doesn't hang together.
If Maya Angelou can take her time, :P
and write a poem which doesn't rhymn,
then so can I.
As linux becomes more user friendly it will replace more and more peoples desktops. Consumer-oriented Linux is still in it's infancy. Linux is technologically superior to any M$ OS products, and it has a better developement model. Open Source developement is inherently superior to closed source, it is inevitable that Linux will improve faster and better than M$ can keep up with. The only real hurdle with Linux is making it easier to use and marketing it. M$ is easier to use right now and has a huge marketing engine behind it. Linux will only grow, it will only gain more users, in the desktop market, in the server market, and most of all in the appliance market. The internet is still in it's infancy, and Linux developement is inherently linked with the growth of the internet. More and more people become part of the internet phenomena, the Linux community grows, Linux developement accerlerates, Linux blossoms. p.s. I don't even use Linux yet so no one can accuse me of being a Linux zealot.
If you're talking about binaries that can run on different versions of UNIX for the same processor, they already exist. IT'S PART OF THE POSIX STANDARD! For an operating system to be POSIX compliant: it must be able to run binaries from all other POSIX compliant operating systems for the same architecture (providing the libraries, databases, etc. are available). If Windows were POSIX compliant, we wouldn't need WINE. ;)
But I agree with the other comment posters here. Linux has not yet begun to fight. Corporate adoption of Linux thus far has been one of sympathy and support -- wait until supporting Linux becomes a MAKE-OR-BREAK factor for ISVs. THEN the Linux growth will begin to slow, but not before!
CIOs are smart people. They're not going to continue purchasing expensive Windows products when there are better quality Linux/Open source products available for free. The only thing stopping them is they are afraid of increased support costs. Their users are more familiar with the Windows desktop and the complexity of Linux/Unix can be frightening to many.
CIOs are waiting for one of two things: Normal people adopt Linux en masse and get used to it at home, in school, etc, so they come to work and know how to use it. Or Linux improves its users interface and unifies and standardizes its configuration controls so that normal users can figure out how to use their computers.
Amazon hasn't.
... of salt. I work for one of these "analyst" firms. Maybe 10% of them have a clue. Most are full of pure marketing drivel they heard somewhere else.
i bring my lawyer
"'telectual property":
I think that's 'nuff said
void recursion (void)
{
recursion();
}
while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
What will happen to Linux is any one's guess. I think some of the stock prices are currently over valued and eventually the market will self correct.But this can be said for a lot of tech stocks not just Linux related ones.As Warren Zevon would say,"I'm just looking for the next best thing "
Of course the hype surrounding Linux will fade. All hype fades eventually. In this case, though, I think it's a good thing.
Hype fades when one of two things happens. 1.) The product being hyped dies, or 2.) The product being hyped reaches a level of acceptance where it no longer needs hype.
The reason that Linux was hyped in the first place was the surprise people felt when it became apparent that this free operating system REALLY WAS stable and reliable. A whole bunch of people got hit with the clue stick all at once, and the result was an enormous string of media articles about Linux.
But now people know about Linux, and soon the columnists will find something else to write about. In the meantime Linux will continue to improve and gain marketshare. That's what it did before and during the hype-fest, and that's what it'll do when it's over.
All this is saying is that burning coals eventually turn white.
That's when the real BBQ happens
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Well, one:
We'll still be standing tall. Look at all the items promised by MS but will not be delivered when Windows2000 shows up.
Two: The real competition will be who can improve faster, and better.
I will have to get /. effect
medieval on your ass
with
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Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
The problem is right now people can say "Yea Linux is great" but they don't even use it. How many people do you know that will say "Linux is really stable and fast and neat" yet have never even used it ONCE? It's pure hype. I've heard of people talking about how "Linux never crashes" Anyone who has used it knows it can crash.
My point is, people are buying into the hype. The hype was Redhat would make tons of money, they haven't. All this stuff chips away at this magical hype people want to buy into. All of the things said about Linux may be true but the problem is people buy into hype, good, bad, undecided, whatever. As long as it's hype.
Look at Java, no one could tell you why Java was so great they just knew it was The Next Big Thing (TM). When it failed to be The Next Big Thing(TM) it became a joke. Java is a perfectly fine language and it's quite useful for some things, hype has almost killed it.
The exact same thing will happen to Linux, I warned you guys early on not to try to over-hype Linux. You should have let it got more mature before trying to shove it down everyone's throats.
Oh well... I have to go take my medicine now.
There is no such thing. However, spewing out that grunge crap, that's punishable by death or being forced to use only Microsoft products for the rest of your life, whichever you prefer. Most will take death.
jhartzell
Look at all the items promised by MS but will not be delivered when Windows2000 shows up.
Like what? Load-balancing component server support? NetWare file system support? 24-way CPU support? It's not like Linux has these things either, and it's doubtful that shops will miss them.
Windows 2000 is two years late, but the major pieces are there - ActiveDirectory, dynamic DNS, remote installation support, plug-n-play. The real question isn't the missing features, but the fact that the average MS shop is going to be scared of the complexity of this stuff.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
You miss the point. The original source will always remain open. The can never slap a lock on the code because when they fork the code, it is not the original code anymore -- unless they want to give back to the community.
BSD coders encourage the use of their code in commercial products.
This has been proven time and time again with BSD OS's, apache, X and a ton of other products.
Oh, and your argument that hype will kill them is as absurd as Microsofts Linux myths page killing off linux.
How many of you out there have been using Linux or a free *BSD for more than five years? Not many, I bet.
I have and am a kernel coder. Re: the fear that Linux 'hysteria' will die off in 2000: *big deal*.
I began using Linux years ago for one reason, and one reason only - it works. The fact that it works as well and sometimes better than a commercial Un*x is a nice added incentive to continue using it.
All this lip-flapping about market share and potential global equitiy positioning strategy is meaningless garbage. Take a hint from someone who's been around for a while - whether your OS of choice runs the latest buzzword-compliant version of a productivity software suite does not matter. The percentage of people running Linux compared to Windows does not matter. What matters is whether your OS choice works for you, and if it has the potential to keep you happy in the near future.
Keep that in mind, and ignore the market analysis droids.
Perhaps the form of binary compatibility they were referring to was Binary Compatibility That Is Stupid Eazy To Use. For many many Windows users (I ought to know, I've been one for quite some time) something doesn't actually exist unless you can see it in the dialog box.
Which is probably why Microsoft always gets praised for "new innovative features" when they're just grabbing old ones - they didn't create it, they just simply put it in easy-to-swallow integrated form.
I guess folks expect Linux to start doing the same.
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
On the stock market and amidst the people who will use the latest new thing no matter what, you may be right. But the core of people like me that has formed will remain.
Linux meets our needs. It is controled by people like us. It is cost effective. It is full featured to the core. And flexible. And allows us to do things our selves to whatever extent we need and want.
We will never go back. We will never lose our enthusiasm. Or so we think :)
cheers,
sklein
Sort of like a closed source programmer, eh?
This is probably true. Windows 2000 will be released in February, hate to tell you this, but to people who have been subjected to Microsoft's incompetent OSs for years, Win2K will seem like a gold standard to them. And that's a lot of people. Anyone who has pilfered a copy of the late Win2k betas (come on! own up! I did it) can tell you that this is a far cry from any Microsoft operating system I have used in the past. It's fast and, dare I say it, pretty stable for casual use (I've heard different stories under heavy loads). I think a lot of people will flock to Windows 2000 come 2000, and I might be one of them. Sure, I'll use Linux for all my servers and critical tasks, but as far as a GUI goes, it has anything Linux has to offer beat by a long ways. In short, Win2k will be such a major departure from anything the casual user has used before that I think the media and Wall Street might forget about Tux the Penguin for a little while.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Sorry to disappoint you but the "community" can't make you rich. (I'm talking $, not spirit or anything like that.) Commercialization is the only way. Sure you can sell some books or t-shirts to the "community" but that just doesn't cut it.
Not only possible, but probable. Just don't say that on /. or some crack head will cry you a freakin' river about 15% market share (something that doesn't really exist).
IT'S BETTER TO BURN OUT, THAN FADE AWAY!!!
Err... sorry, suddenly channeling bad 80's glam metal.
Wonderful thing all of these informed people making reports predicting all different things. Pity that there just as likely to be wrong as right. Sheesh.... I can't even count all of the Gartner group reports I've read that have ended up missing the target.
And off-topic, by why weren't all the reports that
the Spice Girls hype would have ended and we wouldn't be hearing from them any more.... it's been over a year since their death has been predicted.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
When do CIOs ever do anything in large numbers? These people seem to think that Linux "happened" in 1999 and that, if it doesn't take over the world by 2000 it's "failed". I suppose this comes from following commercial efforts that need to generate a certain number of sales before they run out of venture capital.
1999 will be remembered as the year that Linux gained credibility as a server OS. Commercial vendors of server software have started producing Linux versions. The adoption of Linux in the data center has now gotten some momentum, but it will take a few years before we see Linux everywhere. Even NT didn't infiltrate companies over night.
2000 will be known for the year that Linux gained credibility as a desktop OS. GNOME and KDE will release new, more polished versions. Corel will release it's desktop suite. A bunch of other vendors will release versions of their end-user software for Linux. You're still not going to see massive adoption, but it'll be enough to continue the growth curve that's been going for the last nine years.
Remember the cause and effect => Linux growth caused the hype (not the other way around). Obviously the hype can't last forever, but there's nothing to indicate that the growth rate will decline.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
...that Forrester Reports hysteria will fade after the year 2000 and will only be remembered as a foot note in the history of a legendary operating system called Linux.
Let's see. Linux has been amusing me and getting things done since I first cobbled together a bootroot combo in late December 1993. 6 years later, it STILL works for me. The hype wasn't there until recently, remember?
So, who cares if Linux isn't the darling of the press? As long as it continues to excel on technical merits and do what I need, the rest is meaningless.
I suppose the trendys will just jump off and go onto the next fad, but I can't say that's really a loss. Let them go bother the various BSD folks (first FreeBSD, then probably NetBSD, and OpenBSD after that) as *they* have their time in the spotlight. Eventually they'll move onto something else and it'll all be pure again.
I for one would be perfectly happy to see this - during the "Java Hysteria", everyone was so pro-Java it was being used for all sorts of applications it wasn't suited for... hell, Java is the flavour of the month, lets write a database querying language in it! ;)
And now, where is Java? Well, the exposure it got through this "hysteria" has served it well - it got to people's attention, and is now widespread in applications best suited to it. All around success story (so far, Sun's maneouvers may put paid to that but that's another story)
So I wish the same to Linux - eventually the hype will end as the media moves elsewhere (though I predict they won't get over it until the David-and-Goliath type battle with Microsoft has a resolution one way or the other, however minor), and it will come to be used as a solid, great desktop and server environment for the technical user. and the non-techies will have their webtv boxen or interactive tv or what-have-you, and everyone will be happy.
Fross
Very level-headed arguments, and a deft attempt to address a class of stocks, when they're clearly focused on one stock, Red Hat. These same arguments were being made the day Red Hat IPO'd, and yet the stock has climbed dramatically over the past several months.
If stock price were just about the P/E, then Yahoo would not be valued at $100B with earnings of less than $100M, and Yahoo is actually really interesting parallel to Red Hat. It was one of the first, it has a doubtful profit model, and its valuation seems largely to be a function of its first-ness and how quickly people go to Yahoo when they think "search engine". That's important for advertising revenues, but also for the ease with which they can release product themselves. And what do you know? Yahoo is not a flash in the pan. It's stock price has been going strong for over three years, now.
Red Hat is also one of the first Linux companies, it has a doubtful profit model, and I think its valuation is based on where people go when they think "I want to know something about Linux." In fact, I'll bet Red Hat can show that they're one of the most heavily-hit sites in the Linux community. People scoff at Red Hat's "other" business model of selling CD's you can get for free, but if you're getting all the eyeballs first, it's nothing to sniff at. They are selling different features on essentially the same product for $30, $80, and $150, respectively. You can buy them online at their own site, where all the eyeballs are ending up.
There's an undefinable sense of "potential" that I (and obviously others) associate with Red Hat, and I think if the Forrester folks really want to put their theories to the test, they should try to twist up the courage to short RHAT. Red Hat is a risky stock, but shorting it is going to be riskier in 2000 than buying it.
VA soars to 300
RHat raises it ipo price... twice iirc.
Another company whose name I forgot mentioned Linux in a press release and their share value tripled.
The hype has mainly been confined to the stock market so far, but it's spreading to mainstream internet magazines and it is already starting to "meet the press", so to speak.
void recursion (void)
{
recursion();
}
while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
Good on you for checking out the Samba thing! There's a little bit of ignorance on initial config out there, but the new o'reilly book is supposed to be good.
Samba really is good and it works like a charm. The only thing it doesn't do is act as a domain controller, but to most people, that's not too important. Just have one NT box for that and have every thing else by your Linux/Samba machines.
Ohhh... you forgot the fact that the world will end tomorrow !!!!!! AHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Medieval? I am
/. effect
a night who says "Ni!" (not "it")
Tremble before me
Cut down a big tree
with a herring... and bring me
another SHRUBBERY!
But please don't say "it"
Or I shall counter with a
large
void recursion (void)
{
recursion();
}
while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
why was this given a score of zero? it's one of the damn funniest comments i've read all day besides that seemingly endless supply of haikus at the beginning of the comments...of course, why am I asking about moderators giving incorrect scores...as far as I'm concerned moderators score comments about as incorrectly as humanly possible...
this is a haiku
I just made it up right now
this is the last line
What disturbs me most about them, however, is their unrelenting effort to cash in on the good name of Dr. Forrester of MST3K fame. Shame on them!
-Bish
"Slash one! Slash two! Three slashes and your done!"
Who cares about cross-platform binaries? If your app is written a) correctly b) for Unix/Linux you should just be able to recompile.
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
They do not trust in Linux
Shame on them. The End.
Brought to you by the sleep-deprived one.
--
http://gabrielcain.com/
They say Linux will be less popular but will be used in all manner of consumer devices as well as e-commerce sites and in high-performance clustered computing areas. Sounds like a success to me. What was the point of the report exactly?
All good things must come to an end, and I'm sure the current Linux hysteria is one of them. It's just like the Java hysteria a couple of years ago; eventually it ran its course.
Do you have a clue ? Companies just spent billions on y2k and now you think they will upgrade to Win2k just because it is there? You need a really good reason to spend millions on a new OS.
The reason: M$ office 2002
It runs on win2k only, and you're starting to get important documents in that format. Oddly enough, Office '02 seems to have problems re-exporting documents that work with Office 2000. AbiWord 5 for windows handles both formats with ease, but the boss won't authorise it (he likes the new realtime-radiosity-rendered talking pencil sharpener in Word).
Where exactly do these people get their predictions from? The bottom of a coffee cup perhaps, or the configuration of an elephant's latest dung? I think the 5 year thing comes from the communist era.. but 5 year plans came from the time when plans actually took 5 years to implement.
Anyway, what is required (IMHO) is a site that keeps tabs on all predictions ever made by an individual or a group, along with up-to-date information on what predictions came true. Then we could check who really can predict the future and who are just a bunch of morons who run a newspaper. As a side effect, we would know which pundits are actually time travellers in disguise...
Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
Now, Ratt, Poison, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Cinderella...now that's glam metal.
But that's close enough for /., I guess.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to teasing my hair.
Projects like GNOME and KDE are bringing Linux to more and more of the computer population...and they still continue to grow.
In my opinion I think this report's falso.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Oh, there's going to be no stopping Microsoft's hype machine this time. Unless you retire to a Trappist monastary, there's no way you are going to escape it. However, I think there is incredible potential for fiasco.
First of all, there is a simple basic journalistic instict, even deeper and more atavistic than the slashdotter's anti-MS knee jerk: where there is left there is right, where there is up there is down. OK, everyone says Mother Teresa was a saint, so find somebody who says she was a cross-dressing profiteer who sold homeless peoples' organs to Arab transplantees. Journalists call this "balance", but it has nothing to do with fairness: it's just that where there is no conflict, there is no story. While on a relative scale Win2K hype will outshine Linux hype, the Linux hype will go nova too -- the question is which story will burn out first.
The other big factor is that guy in the funny black robes that MS definitely did not invite to the party. He's got a bucket of -- ice water? Watch out, it may be more like Helium 2.
And then there is technical risk. While it is clear that Win2K cannot reverse the tide of Linux, it may be able to ultimately marginalize the inroads of all Unices the way Windows 95 capped the potential growth of MacOS (generously helped by Apple's contempt for the bourgeousie). To do so, Win2K will have to be a nearly unqualified technical success -- not perfect, but as near as dammit. If it fails to do so, it will be a tremendous strategic setback.
This is because Win2K's heroic proportions reflects a Microsoft philosophical position: that there should be two operating systems: NT on anything that we currently call a computer, and CE on everything else. Aside from the degree to which this serves Microsoft's stockholders, MS's ideological defenders will tell you that the software market is a "network" market that benefits from consolidation. Fewer platforms to target means a more efficient applications market.
Win2K is the first OS that has the potential to do this. Current entry level desktops are incredibly powerful, and Win2K is stuffed fully of goodies to tempt the enterprise user to put all his eggs in the MS basket.
On the other hand, having two operating systems that span the entire range of applications (except maybe real time) seems rather like trying to build a swiss army knife with a functional metal lathe and a bread machine built into it. It's an impressive accomplishment, but unlikely to deliver the kind of convenience you expect in a pocket knife.
As I've said before, the opposite of NT isn't Linux: it's having a range of OS's each suited to each purpose.
Win2K may open up some new enterprise markets for NT, but somehow I doubt it can do much to seure the low end: the workgroup and small business servers. It may also prove problematic on the desktop, as we enter the era of near zero cost computing power and ubiquitous networking, and as free desktop systems get sufficiently good to be usable by people who think of an RPM as a something an LP has 33 1/3 of.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
we'll soon see if Win2K lives up to the hype. If it's really stable and delivers comparable (if not better) performance, it's going to be really hard to convince people to switch to linux.
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This is the best thread
To come around recently;
Stars fade in bright light.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
Yea, you know what. You could even take all the Posix compliant programs in the world (both of them) and run them on your NT box too, thus eliminating the need for Linux.
NO ONE WRITES TO POSIX. Grow up. If you are going to make an argument, base in reality. If you write to Posix you are ignoring the advantes of the OS that you are actually running, wether it is Linux, AIX, SCO or even NT. That's pretty stupid.
If you are going to try to write a program that is write once run everywhere, try Java, then you are not limited to Unix. ANY OS will do...
jhartzell
There has never been one report that didn't call Linux an upstart or a challenger or anything better than second best. There has never been a story from the commercial trade press that advised their clients to dump Microsoft and go with Linux. You can't de-hype something if it wasn't "hyped" in the first place.
The thing most people seem to be ignoring is, "What is Win2K flops?" The Win95 users weren't so excited about Win98, why would the NT4 users be excited about Win2K? Doesn't it require DRASTIC changes to their systems? It's not like popping in a Service Patch.. Microsoft hasn't put together a decent operating system here, most of the new "features" in Win2k are things that either are stolen from 3rd party tools that do the same thing already or are bug fixes to plug the holes in the older versions of Windows. But there's no real innovation.
I do expect there to be a converging of the Unices. It's kind of funny that most commercial RISC hardware manufacturers have dumped WinNT support and are now trying to port Linux to their architectures. Alpha dumped NT for Linux and Tru64. SGI dumped NT and is porting Linux to MIPS as well as merging IRIX stuff into Linux. HP is porting Linux to the PA-RISC; and Sun is porting Linux to the UltraSparc. UNIX convergence? Well DUH!
Stocks of these types are largely based on expectations of future growth. Many stocks these days trade at huge multiples, but most all of them which constantly trade at these high levels continually meet or exceed their revenue growth expectations year after year. Making general statements about the viability of linux in the marketplace will have little or nothing to do with the future performance of related stocks. It's not just psychology, and it's not just substance. It's neither and both.
I don't even know where to start on that one, except to say that you obviously do not work in the industry.
CIO's. The same idiots that caused the NT rage four years ago. Yea, they're pretty bright. Really. Especially with the current trend of hiring CIO's with business backgrounds instead of technical backgrounds. That way you get a CIO that is more concerned about his stock holdings than providing solutions to your user base...fun fun fun.
CIO - Someone who pretends to know technology and business, but is actually worse at both than an entry level help desk tech. Note, in several cases Father-in-law is on board of directors for company...
Wasn't there some project called Unix98 or something that's goal was some kind of common binary format for all the major unix and unix-like oses?
I think you're dead wrong. I see no reason why FreeBSD will die. Try and justify yourself. I think FreeBSD will grow for a number of reasons.
1) The License: Like it or not, some people just don't agree with the GPL. I don't have a problem with the license itself, but some certainly do.
2) Technical differences: Different Layout, longer history, technical superiority in some areas (perhaps only perceived, I don't want a flame war).
3) Empirical: FreeBSD has been gaining users faster than ever.
I don't know that I'm right, but if someone has a reason why I'm wrong I'd like to know what they are. Linux is certainly a good OS, I know many who swear by it, and an increase in available apps helps FreeBSD too (Linux emu is a good thing IMHO). If nothing else, personal preference keeps me with FreeBSD, and I don't see any reason why that would change. Btw I agree that AIX and Solaris will remain, and that UnixWare, OpenServer, and other Unixen that simply replicate Linux/FreeBSD functionality at a greater price will probably fade away...
PS. Looking back at my comment, FreeBSD is my OS of choice, but OpenBSD will survive too (security) and NetBSD at least has a chance (don't know enough about it to say for sure)
Happy New Year everyone, we're getting close...
Q:Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A:All my autopsies have been performed on dead peop
Seattle is the best of cities, it's the worst of cities: it's got Skid Row, it's got Redmond...
Another report reassuring the PHB's that they didn't screw up when they ignored Linux. No need to get worked up, just another case of the blind leading the blind.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Yup, recall the "OS/2 Hysteria" of 1994-95. Consumer magazines started to print articles, lots of nerds started duel booting, flamewars-er-advocacy abound on the net, and it all came to a crashing halt when Windows 95 and NT 4.0 finally made it out the door in somewhat good shape.
Not that there is anything wrong with either Linux or OS/2, but neither of them was really designed to meet the frustrations of the mainstream computing user. However, I think Linux will ride the "crash" a little better than OS/2 did. For one, the price is still right. For two, the momentium of the computing industry now is right towards web services, which happens to be Linux's strong point. (Where OS/2's strong points were host gateways or an object desktop or something more ambigious.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
This is what my girlfriend used to say about that World Wide Web thing four years ago. She used to tell me that I was wasting my time with it because it is just going to burn out soon. I teased her constantly this christmas while she was ordering all of her presents online through her happy little ADSL connection.
I also remember Bob Metcalf ranting that the web was going to collapse under it's own weight soon too.
Blah blah blah, the sky is not falling. Go back to your coding, it's just a false alarm... Industry folks like to make these predictions all of the time. It gets them ratings/hits/awards/etc. and gives their PHB's warm fuzzies that they are actually doing something useful. What will keep Linux hot is its own merits, stability, open source, a large application base, rabid support from just about anyone who isn't making money from MSFT (because they are not blinded by the clueless bug) and a highly maleable development model. It's the same thing that turned the web from a hobby toy to a trillion(???) dollar industry. It became useful to the business people. Get a clue folks. If it makes money it's hot...
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*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
While what you write is probably true. There hasn't been any new 'whiz-bang' OS upgrades this year.
But I think the biggest reason Linux was hyped so much this year was Microsoft. Tell me, who had the *MOST* to gain by making Linux appear to be bigger threat than it is to Windows?
Oddly enough, Microsoft. I suspect that they were using these PC magazines to hype Linux, so that while the Judge was researching the case, he'd come to believe that Linux may surplant Windows next year. And thus let market pressures take action.
--
As for MacOS 9. Its definitely a stepping stone towards OS X. The reason for having it there is for developers to write and test Carbon-based applications. Then, as I understand it, those apps can run native in OS X's yellow box.
Tom
You get a zero because the slashdot engine predicts your total l0ser suckyness. Notice my Score=3, baby!
Insofar as the binaries running everywhere point, this already happens to some extent. Somehow, Linux's ELF binary format has become a defacto standard, seeing as almost every major Unix vendor has one or another binary emulation program so that they can run Linux bins. SCO, *BSD, and other Intel-based unixes already have some sort of ABI for linux binaries, and Sun is probably working on the same thing for Solaris, too.
I used to think printing on on Unix sucked. Then I figured it out. Printing on Unix *does* suck. Like a Kirby.
With the internet and linux in general, things change so fast, that I find it extremely hard to give any credit to people who write reports like this. Not that they're idiots, or that I'm flaming them, or that what they have to say isn't important, I just don't think it's going to be very accurate.
Consider that linux is much much bigger than a few hackers or even a large group of hackers. I've been using linux since the brand new 1.0 kernels, and things have changed so incredibly fast.
Really, if Linus were to write a report about where linux is going to be in 4 years, I don't think I'd believe him either.
I don't think I'm the only person who thinks that as far as technology is concerned, 4 years is practically forever. There are also so many other companies (like transmeta) that have things cooking that nobody knows about yet, I think it's foolish to make predictions about what things are going to be like 1 year from now.
That said, I'm not sure what purpose articles that try to play fortune teller serve.
Just my $0.02
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
i can just see it, everyone whos now using linux is going to delete every HD and buy WIN2000!, man win2k is so cool the mouse now has a shadow, fuck theyve won me baby!.
That's when Windows 2000 comes out!
Somebody had to say it...
G.H.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
that just a few years ago, these same type of people said that the Internet was just a fad too.
Throughout history, there have been so many people that predict the end of anything they either don't understand or just don't like.
Well, I say let them miss another boat. More shares for me.
There really seems to be no shortage of these nitwits who make a career out of random guesses regarding the fate of our industry's latest buzzwords. There is no shortage of publications that print their drivel. And, of course, no shortage of folks who take them seriously. It is the last group that is the most distressing.
Seriously, last year how many of these industry gurus were predicting that Linux would make the major advances that it has? It wasn't on their radar. No doubt, what important advances that will happen in 2000 aren't on their radar now.
Nevertheless, those of us who work at actually making it all happen, will find the new technology, learn it, implement it, and support it -- all without the help of a single industry analyst.
Jumped on Forrester's site and did a search for linux and came up with a few, do it yourself and look at the negativity towards linux (and positivity towards linux companies that commercialize... does forrester even have a clue whats going on in the linux *community*?)
pointless banter
-=chiphead
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
W2k Pro runs fine on my P 200 with 64MB of RAM as well.
Running to the john
A force is building within
Watch me shit out corn.
Win2K Pro runs great on my Pentium 266 MMX laptop with 64MB of RAM, and the server version runs great on my dual Pentium 200 non-MMX with 64MB of RAM. Considering how long it's been since practically anybody sold systems with such paltry specs, those "hellacious requirments" of yours will have zero impact on the OEM market.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
"I'm proud of you guys, you have become Microdot.org, news for Microsoft wannabe's, FUD that matters."
:) The #1 champion site of OSS is running on proprietary, closed code.
Including all the hypocrasy
&sign($AC[0]);
This is not haiku
Die? of course you will
From my LART to you!
is that there are a lot of them, all making contradictory predictions. Some of them are inevitably right, which gives people the impression that it's just a matter of recognizing and listening to the right one.
It was funny, a couple of days I was thinking exactly the same thing that was said in the report. It is not that Linux will not do well, but investors and the likes were "bored" this year. The only interesting thing was Linux. Java, passe, Windows nothing...
In 2000 the big thing will be Windows 2000. Lets be clear on one thing folks. MS is a company with 30,000 employees and worth over 500 billion. So a release of their OS will be a BIG deal.
But it does present an opportunity for Linux. During the wave of Windows 2000 the problems pointed out this year can be solved. And they can be solved in some peace and quite. Once the wave of Windows 2000 has died off then Linux can roll its own waves again.
Remember a marathon is not won by running as fast as you can. It is won by pacing yourself...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I have a friend who not-so-nostalgically refers to it as "plug-n-pray"
But BSD runs Linux binaries on Intels, and runs SunOS and Soloris on Sparcs. When is Linux going to catch up with BSD?
The report is not about those in the community. It is about those out there. Specifically, the article is talking about the linux hysteria in those big corporate people who make decisions and investment without knowing what is free software. The real linux hysteria has existed and will continue to exist as it was in the linux community. If you truly believe in the course of open source or free software, you are in, else you are out. Furthermore, it can be implied that those people who don't know where they are may know exactly by next year.
Well I believe that the market hype will die in the 2000's. Right now you got these ipos of companys going through the roof because there associated with linux and eventually thats gonna die out. But i doubt that will have any effect on the general enthusium of your average unix user. With microsoft releasing 2000 which btw is not full compatabile with all the games which sorry enough to say is a serious driving force in the industry there will be a mass defection. Sure linux runs even less but it shows potential. Speaking with a coworker of mine who would be best described as a NT god he made the comment "Im working on learning linux now. right now microsoft buys my bread but ill bet on linux in a few years". The problem is microsoft is living in fear of linux competing with NT, not with 98 persay because 98 is a different market. The problem is 2000 is NT so they just bumped the competition up to a new level which will hype linux even more as people get more fustrated with NT. You think my mother needs account based security on her home system????? No, 98 was great for the users. I think my mother will stick to 98 for those concerned but those that buy new systems and or upgrade will be faced with the "Now im using NT" delima and those that have hesitated to try linux I supect will stop hesitating. Me? Well hell, im sticking to solaris...
it occurs to me that the job of making this kind of predictions might be worse than being a lawyer! Think about it. You're paid insane amounts of money to talk bullshit. So far, same job as some lawyers. But after that, you're then paid even more wads of money to "update" your prediction, which usually means that in the end you end up getting paid for contradicting yourself and proving yourself a bad futurologist! How bad can that be?
Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
Strangely enough, I agree. Sort of.
Linux has been over-hyped somewhat in the past year. By over-hyped I mean that valuations of Linux-related stock has far exceeded revenue. Fair enough - it has, by huge margins. Most likely this overvaluation is exacerbated by the paucity of Linux stock out there; most of it remains in the hands of their directors. This is endemic to the high-tech industry, of course, but it does mean that when they do cash in (hello, ESR) stock values will plunge.
I work with a number of business analysts (I'm not one, but they make for good lunch-time conversation), and they've come to the same conclusion: Linux doesn't offer strong enough added value to induce a CIO to switch corporate desktops outright. On the server side, it may well, but the majority of OS licenses are sold on desktop computers rather than servers (good thing that Linux isn't in the licensing game, no?).
In any case. While companies may come and go, and I fully expect at least a couple of Linux pioneers to fold in the new year, it's important to remind ourselves that no company has a monopoly on Linux. If Red Hat should fold, it would be a tragedy to lose so many talented developers who would have to work elsewhere for their suppers, but it would not be the end of Linux as an operating system. So long as people contribute to it, Linux as a phenomenon remains vital.
We all may be a bit sadder for a crash in stock values, and some of us much poorer, but it's nothing unexpected and nothing to worry about.
Hysteria indeed.
--
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
Just a quick reminder: It's the linux hysteria that's going to fade (according to the report; I reserve judgement). Not the market share; not the value; not the number of users. But look for Linux IPOs to be less spectacular; look for linux announcements from companies to slow down (partially because, hey, many are already on the bandwagon!); and, look for Linux stock prices to drop. Possibly a lot. The day traders and capital gains types will eventually figure out that a company that doesn't make money (with apologies, many do not, at least yet, turn a profit) isn't a "good" investment.
Just some thoughts.
-Strauss
Trifle not with Dragons, for you are crunchy - and go well with catsup.
Think about it. Why has Linux been so successful this year? I think it probably boils down to other OSes not being successful. Microsoft's much-hyped Windows 2000 won't be out until February. Macintosh released OS9 to little fanfare knowing that their next biggie is going to be OS X. There haven't been any major operating system developments this year and when there's a vacuum, something will fill it. That something, in this case, is Linux, as for most people, it is a relatively new thing and it did come out with a major kernel release during the past year.
If Microsoft could've released Windows 2000 this year, I think the hype for Linux would've been drowned out by the hype for Windows 2000 which, face it, has a much bigger hype generating engine.
This says nothing about Linux's capabilities, only about its marketing. Linux didn't need much this year because in terms of news, it didn't have much competition. While this may benefit Linux's acceptance into the marketplace, I think the larger overall effect will be that Linux will be seen as a bright supernova that fades once again into the background when the sun that is Windows rises again in 2000 (and I'm not making quality judgments here, I'm just making statements about perceptions of visibility).