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Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux)
DesktopLinux.com has an interview
with Mark Shuttleworth. "South Africa native and current London
resident Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical Ltd. and the Ubuntu Linux
distribution, told DesktopLinux.com Friday in an interview that widespread
adoption of Linux on the desktop -- so long-awaited by many people -- "is
just a matter of time, IMO.""
(Log in to post comments)
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 20, 2006 17:23 UTC (Mon) by RMetz (guest, #27939) [Link] You know, I'm not sure when the first time I heard someone influential say that Linux was going to dominate the desktop someday, usually someday soon. But I can say that it was a long time ago. I actually agree with the idea that this will come true someday. I, however, am thinking in the 215-25 years from now range.
Hope I'm wrong.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 20, 2006 19:54 UTC (Mon) by wilreichert (subscriber, #17680) [Link] 215 years? EEE gads!!! Hope you're wrong too. =P
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 20, 2006 21:32 UTC (Mon) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link] From my perspective, whether Linux comes to "dominate" the desktop or not is irrelevant. I can get all the work I need to do done on Linux today, without a penny of my money going to Microsoft or Apple. And more importantly, so can my computer-phobe 65+ year old in-laws, thanks to Ubuntu.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 21, 2006 15:12 UTC (Tue) by pheldens (guest, #19366) [Link] ubuntu is not floss unfortunately.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 21, 2006 15:24 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link] Not yet.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 21, 2006 3:06 UTC (Tue) by pfred1 (guest, #35195) [Link] More time than I have left to live I am sure! But yeah, it works for me now today.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" Posted Nov 21, 2006 4:48 UTC (Tue) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link] Yes, I think it's "just a matter of time", though that time could be something like 20 years. After all, it's taken 15 years for Linux to get this far, and look how strong it is. It's worth pointing out that only an open-source project could operate on that sort of timescale. If it were closed-source (cf BeOS, OS/2), it would have gone extinct within a decade.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 21, 2006 14:04 UTC (Tue) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link] ESR has pretty much lost me as an audience years ago, however, in this essayhttp://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-...
He points out a few salient points;
quote:
And
"You can't win the desktop if you don't even try. "
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 21, 2006 15:55 UTC (Tue) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link] And then his solution was to become a servant for Microsoft ???How do you then get back out? How do you keep from falling further into the belly, to the acid bath? The Red Hat solution seems much better to me.
ESR wants to give up instead of trying.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 0:38 UTC (Wed) by tetromino (subscriber, #33846) [Link] If I'm reading it right, ESR's solution is to negotiate with the software patent holders to create a non-redistributable, DRM-protecting, EULA-encrufted, commercially-prices CD full of codecs, which end users could buy and system builders could preinstall. And if we want to sell our souls to boost Linux desktop marketshare, then yes, ESR's proposal is the way to do it.
The problem is, if we go along with ESR's plan and acquiesce to binaries, DRM and non-distributable licenses for Linux desktops, then what would be the point of Linux? It would be yet another commercial mixed-source Unix-like system; we might as well switch to OSX...
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 2:06 UTC (Wed) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] "The problem is, if we go along with ESR's plan and acquiesce to binaries, DRM and non-distributable licenses for Linux desktops, then what would be the point of Linux? It would be yet another commercial mixed-source Unix-like system; we might as well switch to OSX..."
Well, I am not sure I like the proposal, but... (putting it mildly...)
He says 2008 is the key year. So, if those patent liccenses were nogotiated to last only until 2009, just to give a buffer, those who don't care could use them.
I could leave them alone. Much better than OSX... Much better than windows... Still not sure it is smart to compromise like this even for a few years...
all the best,
drew
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 21, 2006 23:42 UTC (Tue) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] "Domination", well I think we have "won" once we break the monopol of MSon the desktop, i.e. once its marketshare has dropped to, let's say 60%. The remaining 40% can be 10% OS X, 25% Linux, 5% others. Once this is reached, everybody is free to choose the OS he wants, and the software must be interoperable, otherwise you can't talk to 40% of the people, which would be a killer. Yes, I'm convinced this will happen. It won't happen this year and it won't happen next year. What is still missing ? Hotplugging support is becoming mature, ODT is supported by an increasing number of applications, multimedia is an issue, and easy-to-use administration tools are required. I think SUSE still is the best in this regard. 3D cards and WLAN are still problems. Anyway, in the long term, it is inevitable that free software will succeed. How many years this will be exactly ? Nobody can tell. But it will happen, and it will give power, creativity and freedom back to the users, which will then turn from consumers to active participants. At least that's what I see in almost every free software user I've met until now. Alex
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 3:47 UTC (Wed) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] I hope it will be true someday, but until ONE open source project gains that kind of "share" replacing a non open source application, my pessimism wins.
The thing is, I don't know of any open source application that could do it. All I have seen is open source projects that replace "legacy" commercial applications, mostly in a specific segment of the "market", not fair fights with well and alive commercial applications for the general public.
Firefox is the one more close to that objective, but Vista, with IE7, is around the corner and there are those dangerous signs from Mozilla that it will behave the same as any other commercial entity (like the brand issue and things like being more dificult to block 3rd. party cookies).
We are still in the early days of the "war".
On the other hand, things could be worse.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 10:09 UTC (Wed) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > until ONE open source project gains that kind of "share" replacing a non open source application What about BitTorrent? > All I have seen is open source projects that replace "legacy" commercial applications > there are those dangerous signs from Mozilla that it will behave the same as any other commercial entity commercial != proprietary
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 12:34 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] "What about BitTorrent?"
How about TCP/IP? That was definately 'open source'.
Linux is pretty good at infrastructure style stuff now.
Other examples are things like Apache web server came out and took away market from commercial web servers. Or Gnu utils probably put a lot of compiler/development tools companies out of business that would otherwise still be around.
Eclipse IDE has taken off in a big way, it seems. It's crushing the IDE market from what I heard and is now a rival for Visual Studio.
Then you have Linux itself as a server operating system. It's put SCO out of business and Solaris is now itself open source, more or less. Netware is pretty much dead. It's eating it's way up into propriatory Unix and may even be eating MS's lunch on the whole "lets kill Unix" thing they've been trying for a while now. Linux-related server sales is a multi-billion dollar industry now.
Beowolf clustering.. taking a cheap PC and turning it into a supercomputer, is now the dominate form of High-end computing. Something like 70% of the Top500.org run Linux. Most of the top 10 run linux.
So open source has proven itself pretty well I think as a competitive item.
Just no desktop yet.
I think that it seems a good way to get people to use Linux is to have open source applications for Windows. Show them what they could have and such.
That's nice and it works to a certain extent, but I think that adoption of open source software for the desktop is going to coincide with the rise of Linux as a desktop.
Right now the problem is mostly exposure.
Sure I listen to the radio 'Kim Kommando' show (sunday afternoon talkshow about helping people with PC issues) and they have talked about Firefox quite a bit and I hear other applications get mentioned time to time like Audacity (getting recommended over some propriatory thing) but the singificance of them being Free software or how it relates to Linux isn't mentioned.
I think that once people begin realising that these programs are just the tip of the iceburg and Linux can make their lives considurably better (as far as it relates to computing) then I can see adoption picking up.
For instance once people figure out that instead of taking their computer into the shop to have Windows repaired they can still browse and do what they want with Knoppix CDROM and it's free then that's going to be good stuff. That has a real impact for some people.
Like my parents and my little brother. I am not around to fix their computer so when it busts it can be difficult for them to get running. So Windows corrupts the partition table. Well they don't know how to fix it.. but my Little brother knows how to burn a cdrom so they used Knoppix for a few weeks.
That's some good PR if other people pick up on it. But people need to know about it first! Most people probably have no clue that you can do something like that.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 12:45 UTC (Wed) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] > What about BitTorrent?
And what proprietary/non-open source application is it replacing?
> commercial != proprietary
The problem with proprietary applications is the commercial vertent (where money talks more than users). An open source project with the same mindset has exactly the same disadvantages (until there is a fork, which can be difficult in certain areas where patents and NDA's are involved).
The truth is that if a certain proprietary application is as responsive to community requests and security issues as open source, people would not see a reason to change (at least not the the ones with a politic view of life). But the need to make profit ends this (it's not economically viable, management says), unless they charge a big deal of money for support (and then open source has a chance).
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 23:46 UTC (Wed) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > > > until ONE open source project gains that kind of "share" replacing a non open source application > > What about BitTorrent? > And what proprietary/non-open source application is it replacing? Do you mean that there is no proprietary application which competes with BitTorrent? If so, that would mean that the "share" of BitTorrent is 100%. However, there are several proprietary applications that do the same things as BitTorrent. For example, there are proprietary implementations of the BitTorrent protocol (for a list of them, see here), and there are programs using different protocols that do (some of) the same things, such as Kazaa. Also, I mentioned BitTorrent as an example of a "desktop" application (since that's what the original article is about), but on the server side, there are many examples, e.g. Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP, Sendmail, BIND, OpenSSH, etc. > The problem with proprietary applications is the commercial vertent (where money talks more than users). No it isn't. The problem with proprietary applications is that users don't have these four freedoms. There are non-commercial proprietary applications, such as Pine and lha; are you saying that there is no reason to use free applications instead of these? > An open source project with the same mindset has exactly the same disadvantages It may have some of the same disadvantages, but not the most important one. > (until there is a fork, which can be difficult in certain areas where patents and NDA's are involved). Patents are a problem for all free applications, regardless of whether or not they are "commercial" ones.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 22, 2006 10:40 UTC (Wed) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] That's a very good and important point.For us to "win" we don't need to dominate the desktop (or any other niche) we merely need to have a large enough real choice that people can no longer assume that "everyone" has a single OS/Webbrowser/Spreadsheet/Wordprocessor etc. Personally, I'd prefer a OS-market where no single player had more than half the market, businesses and governments can and do support IE-only with the justification that 80-90% uses that anyway, and atleast half of the remaining ones has it available on their machines. That justifications obviously doesn't hold if 40% of the population uses a OS for which IE ain't even available. I don't need domination. I need merely open standards for all network-protocols and file-formats, enabling true free consumer choice.
Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) Posted Nov 25, 2006 8:01 UTC (Sat) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] Desktop linux has 'won' when it's gotten enough real world, non-dual booting desktop market share to break a few percentage points.
Mac is around 3%, give or take 1 or 1/2 point, last I've checked Linux US desktop market share is closer to 0 than 1%.
So judging by how mac does, and adding in how attractive open source hacking is to young programmers, my guess is that, at least in the USA, anything over 1% of total desktop market would be enough to create a critical mass.
Then more and more killer apps start appearing first on linux desktop, etc.
Already with a negligible market share it's absolutely amazing to me just how good desktop linux is, so with just a little more, I'd guess that's it in terms of critical mass. No need for 10%, 20%, 40%, I'd be happy with 2-4% real users, not dual booters, not 'my other pc runs windows', but real, demanding, linux only users.
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