One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when IDC confirmed that Linux market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. As many of us are already aware, Linux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Ubuntu is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Ubuntu developers only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Ubuntu is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Debian leader Murdock states that there are 7000 users of Debian. How many users of Ubuntu are there? Let's see. The number of Debian versus Ubuntu posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Ubuntu users. Kubuntu posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Ubuntu posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Kubuntu. A recent article put SUSE at about 80 percent of the Linux market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 SUSE users. This is consistent with the number of SUSE Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of SUSE, abysmal sales and so on, SUSE went out of business and was taken over by Novell who sell another troubled OS. Now Ubuntu is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.
It was a joke - interesting response though, in light of those other posts claiming that Slackware lacks the fanatical userbase of other OS's.
Other comments get insightful mods for laughing at Slackware sticking with stable version numbers instead of going with cutting edge stuff; I get modded flamebait for joking that a beta release of a relatively minor Linux distro isn't exactly gripping stuff..
In other (equally interesting) news - I went to the store yesterday and - get this - I almost bought the wrong brand of dishwashing fluid! We laughed and laughed and laughed about that one, I can tell you..
Point taken. The important thing here is that there's obviously much more to success than quality alone, as my examples show.
Often it is simply the element of chance that starts the ball rolling, although in the cases of Firefox and of Linux, the heavy marketing has surely played a decisive part as well.
In all of this, Microsoft forgets the most important thing -- It's my freakin computer! If Microsoft hinders me from getting done what I (remember me? I'm the consumer) want, then I have to reconsider my OS decision -- which I did -- about 5 years ago -- and never looked back.
Exactly. But there's not many who are following you. And Microsoft is well aware of this. They have little motivation to put any real effort into security, as the vast majority of their customers will stay with them no matter what. That's why it's called 'vendor lock-in', after all..
An infuriating thing about Linux is the ambiguity of the term 'Linux'.
Linux often has an unfair advantage in comparisons with other operating systems, since Linux is actually just the kernel, so if I mention a particular feature, someone only has to name one OS based on Linux that has said feature. Likewise, if I mention a flaw, there's probably an OS based on Linux out there that this criticism doesn't apply to.
This makes 'Linux' somewhat of a slippery customer, as it is unfair to compare another OS with all the best features and none of the worst features of all the 'Linux' distros out there combined.
So, if you want me to discuss the advantages & disadvantages that a particular version of BSD (for instance) has, please tell me the particular version of Linux I am supposed to use in the comparision.
Understand for most people, the speed factor is more or less a matter of opinion. But I have found that in some areas, it felt faster at the core level. Maybe I just had too much coffee that day? Either way, I totally recommend PC-BSD for anyone wanting to take a step into the wild side.
And I, like, totally recommend that you take a few classes in English. Dude! Your loosing my respect writing like dat ROTFL!!11!
Just face it, the article was right. Jobs poked fun at Microsoft for ripping off everyone elses' ideas, then did exactly this himself. Their TV adverts poke fun at Windows security problems, then we get 26 security holes in OS X. Microsoft execs involved in shady business practices get hammered. Same thing happens with Apple? Well, we all make mistakes, eh? As always from the Slashdot crowd, we get vilification for Microsoft and apologetics for Apple.
"Don't listen to the nasty man, Steve... here, have some more of our money"
Why do people systematically consider that an extraterrestrial race would have to be superior to us in the same way that we are superior to the rest of animals?
I think people usually mean superior in the sense of more technologically advanced. This would make sense if they come to us, or we see evidence of them colonizing planetary systems external to their own (which we do not, of course).
Our nature is immuable, the only way we can give ourselves the feeling of evolving is through the evolution of our civilization
Nope. This is what genetic engineering is for. From what I said above, we can also assume that technologically superior aliens would have genetically modified themselves, since we ourselves are on the verge of this now.
All this seems very unlikely, since such aliens would only have to be a few centuries (or at most millennia) ahead of ourselves technologically to be able to colonize the whole galaxy. As there is zero evidence of this, the two most likely scenarios are
1] We are the most (technologically) advanced species in the galaxy, or 2] Any more advanced species doesn't want anything to do with us, and thus makes sure they won't be found.
but honest: Why does Ms develop IE when there is Firefox? IE is a product that is not sold. No one buys Windows because of IE.
Yeah, great idea! Maybe they could include OpenOffice & Gaim as well, plus incorporate Google ads into Windows Explorer and set Firefox's homepage to sourceforge..
Windows users are always accusing Mac users of smugness, but there's nobody more smug than a Windows user observing that one (1) particular security vulnerability has been found for Macs. This strikes me as akin to someone with AIDS being smug because some previously healthy person has caught a cold.
Actually, it looks to me like you caught twenty-six (26)
Nice argument - it doesn't matter if BSD is better than other operating systems, since relatively few people use it! I guess Windows users can feel the same way about linux, too.
I suggest that such figures can be assumed to be closer to the truth than either those of Distrowatch or (obviously) the opinions of Slashdot commenters, as to who's beating whom.
By the next election, the Diebold machines will have been upgraded to Microsoft Windows Vista, which I am reliably informed (by Microsoft) is "the most secure operating system ever".
Slashdot Mirror
It is official; Netcraft confirms: Linux is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when IDC confirmed that Linux market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. As many of us are already aware, Linux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Ubuntu is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Ubuntu developers only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Ubuntu is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Debian leader Murdock states that there are 7000 users of Debian. How many users of Ubuntu are there? Let's see. The number of Debian versus Ubuntu posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Ubuntu users. Kubuntu posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Ubuntu posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Kubuntu. A recent article put SUSE at about 80 percent of the Linux market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 SUSE users. This is consistent with the number of SUSE Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of SUSE, abysmal sales and so on, SUSE went out of business and was taken over by Novell who sell another troubled OS. Now Ubuntu is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.
Fact: Linux is dying
It was a joke - interesting response though, in light of those other posts claiming that Slackware lacks the fanatical userbase of other OS's.
Other comments get insightful mods for laughing at Slackware sticking with stable version numbers instead of going with cutting edge stuff; I get modded flamebait for joking that a beta release of a relatively minor Linux distro isn't exactly gripping stuff..
In other (equally interesting) news - I went to the store yesterday and - get this - I almost bought the wrong brand of dishwashing fluid! We laughed and laughed and laughed about that one, I can tell you..
Point taken. The important thing here is that there's obviously much more to success than quality alone, as my examples show.
Often it is simply the element of chance that starts the ball rolling, although in the cases of Firefox and of Linux, the heavy marketing has surely played a decisive part as well.
Opera vs. Firefox
Although in the first example, this battle isn't over yet.
Netcraft runs FreeBSD!
(And so does Distrowatch!)
Oh, The Irony!
An infuriating thing about Linux is the ambiguity of the term 'Linux'.
Linux often has an unfair advantage in comparisons with other operating systems, since Linux is actually just the kernel, so if I mention a particular feature, someone only has to name one OS based on Linux that has said feature. Likewise, if I mention a flaw, there's probably an OS based on Linux out there that this criticism doesn't apply to.
This makes 'Linux' somewhat of a slippery customer, as it is unfair to compare another OS with all the best features and none of the worst features of all the 'Linux' distros out there combined.
So, if you want me to discuss the advantages & disadvantages that a particular version of BSD (for instance) has, please tell me the particular version of Linux I am supposed to use in the comparision.
-Pluto's Diameter: 2306±20 km
-Ceres's Diameter: 940km
Proportion of Pluto to Ceres: 2306/940=2.453
Hmm - Earth has over twice the proportional difference with Pluto as Pluto has with Ceres. So I guess Earth wouldn't consider Pluto a planet, either.
See how we could continue with this brand of logic until we get to classify everything down to pebble-sized debris as planets?
Note also that the Moon has a diameter of 3476km, and so is 1.5 times the size of Pluto..
You guys are hilarious.
Just face it, the article was right. Jobs poked fun at Microsoft for ripping off everyone elses' ideas, then did exactly this himself. Their TV adverts poke fun at Windows security problems, then we get 26 security holes in OS X. Microsoft execs involved in shady business practices get hammered. Same thing happens with Apple? Well, we all make mistakes, eh? As always from the Slashdot crowd, we get vilification for Microsoft and apologetics for Apple.
"Don't listen to the nasty man, Steve... here, have some more of our money"
Nope. This is what genetic engineering is for. From what I said above, we can also assume that technologically superior aliens would have genetically modified themselves, since we ourselves are on the verge of this now.
All this seems very unlikely, since such aliens would only have to be a few centuries (or at most millennia) ahead of ourselves technologically to be able to colonize the whole galaxy. As there is zero evidence of this, the two most likely scenarios are
1] We are the most (technologically) advanced species in the galaxy, or
2] Any more advanced species doesn't want anything to do with us, and thus makes sure they won't be found.
colds
Cognitive dissonance kicking in yet, MacFans?
Nice argument - it doesn't matter if BSD is better than other operating systems, since relatively few people use it! I guess Windows users can feel the same way about linux, too.
(According to their toolbar) Netcraft Confirms the popularity of the following operating systems' websites thusly (overall site rank in parentheses):
SUSE (546)---Sun/Solaris (904)---FreeBSD (1284)---Red Hat (1289)---Debian (1719)---Fedora (2235)
Ubuntu (3208)---OpenBSD (3883)---OpenSUSE (5355)
I suggest that such figures can be assumed to be closer to the truth than either those of Distrowatch or (obviously) the opinions of Slashdot commenters, as to who's beating whom.
The professor was unavailable for comment.
Witnesses report that he was last seen heading across campus in the direction of the women's locker rooms..
Noun
1. Someone who is too boring to be an Accountant
By the next election, the Diebold machines will have been upgraded to Microsoft Windows Vista, which I am reliably informed (by Microsoft) is "the most secure operating system ever".
Yep. No doubt about it; it's closing down alright *wink*
It's now out of action - nothing going on in there anymore *smirk*
Things sure will be different now that Cheyenne Mountain is ceasing all operations *nudge*
Okay; I would have used The Godfather: Part II as an example of a good sequel myself, but each to their own.
Man, I feel old..