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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.
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.
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...
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
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.
Many will respond
To this silly thread; waste points;
Scores will rise and fall
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Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
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.
this is first haiku
i piss off moderator
he no like haiku
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.
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There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
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.
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!
<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.
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.
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 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.
You have your haiku.
I have a gun. Now I have
both gun and haiku.
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Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
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
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"
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
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.
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.
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
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.
All that is required is to have a small compiler written for each system for a common language. Normally this wouldn't be done simply because each platform has it's language(s) of choice.
However, currently each platform does have an interpreter for a common language, Java. Because of this, it does not strike me as impossible that the concept of creating a Java compiler (java bytecode to machine code) for each machine would be that far off.
There are applications that this will not work with well. Applications that traditionally require massive speed and driver tweaking (Quake IV) will probably still be written in languages that let you do just that. However, it is possible to believe, especially with the current state of Microsoft, that word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and other home and office programs could be written in Java.
The payoff for doing so is large. Java programs can be created with less effort than similar C++ programs. Even when compiled they will not be as fast or as small as a well written C++ program, but let's face it, bloatware is common, speed is no longer an issue for these types of programs, and portability is a BIG selling point. When you can decrease your time to market and increase your target market you're making a good business decision.
I fully believe that the future is good for a powerful open source Java set of Office tools. (Spreadsheet, database, word processor)
I only fear someone else will be hired to do it, instead of me. I could use a better job.
No Zen is good zen
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.
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.
Closed-source software companies care about cross-platform binaries. It could also reduce server load for Linux distributors. Sun's Java would face stern competition.
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
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.
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!"
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.
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.
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Apple did it - remember FAT binaries for PPC and 68k processors?
** shudder **
I think I'll find a pyschotherapist and have my memories from that era replaced with ritual abuse.
In any case, packing two binaries in one file hardly seems practical across N systems, does it?
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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 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
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
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
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.
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.
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).