The 2004 Desktop Linux Summit

The 2nd annual Desktop Linux Summit was held at the Del Mar fairgrounds, North of San Diego, California on April 22 and 23, 2004. The event was sponsored by Lindows and several other companies. Attendance at the event was busy, but not overwhelming, the folks at Lindows said that there were over 1000 attendees, about twice the draw of the previous event. There were relatively few Linux-specific companies and organizations in the vendor booths, Lindows occupied many of the booths, and several vendor-neutral hardware companies were present.

As the conference's name implied, the focus was about the placement of Linux on the desktop, both in corporations and at home. During the event, there were several recurring ideas coming from the panel members and the audience. While many individuals and companies have been attempting to displace Microsoft from its position of dominance on the desktop, there was a growing feeling that doing so is an incredibly difficult task, especially in the US market. It is nonetheless, a task that many are still working hard at to accomplish.

A large percentage of individual and corporate computer users have been tied to the Microsoft way of doing things for a long time, and they are very resistant to change, even if it means saving a lot of money. Never underestimate user inertia, as a former co-worker of mine is fond of saying. It's hard to compete with the big guys on their own turf. Also, the perpetual inability to purchase both desktop and laptop computers with Linux pre-loaded was brought up frequently. This is a major factor that is slowing Linux adoption by the public sector.

Clay Christensen

A common theme in the event was that Linux has become a Disruptive Technology, that it may achieve world domination through a process other than replacing the Microsoft-based PC. The majority of the world's population has never had access to a computer (or a phone line, or a power grid). For people in this group who are just getting access to power and telecom resources, the choice between a secure, free (as in beer and as in freedom) operating system with tons of free applications, versus a virus-vulnerable, expensive, or pirated operating system is fairly easy to make. For third-world and emerging countries with little pre-existing technological infrastructure, Linux-based systems are a fairly appealing solution. Linux is also acting in a disruptive manner by entering in on the low end equipment such as PDAs and cell phones. Over time, these devices have begun to perform an ever-increasing share of the tasks formerly done by desktop computers.

Another observation is that Linux on the desktop has become fairly mature, reliable, and repeatable. Most of the basic components are already in place. The operating system is reliable, the basic desktop components such as browsers, mail clients, and office suites are available, and reliable. There is, on the other hand, a notable lack of financial applications for Linux, none of the major commercial software vendors have ported their applications to Linux.

Open file exchange formats were seen as both a strength and a weakness for Linux. For those dealing with Linux, the ability to use open file formats is a big plus, mainly because access to their own information will be possible for the foreseeable future. Lock-out due to changing proprietary file formats is not likely under Linux. The inability to reliably exchange files with the ever-changing proprietary formats from Microsoft was seen as a big obstacle in the adoption of Linux. That is also an obstacle to Microsoft's own customers, locking them in to a never-ending path of buying upgrades and having to convert older information forward. There is a notable shift in the browser arena, desktop browsers are rapidly losing ground to cell phone and PDA-based browsers. This is causing people who create web pages that are only viewable in Microsoft's Internet Explorer to lose viewers.

On the amusing side, one of the popular T-shirts at the conference referred to recent SCO actions with "So, Sue Me" in big letters. The gun show that was being held in the adjacent building was mentioned a few times.

Lastly, the current generation of PCs are increasingly being seen as being too fat for the desktop, both in hardware and software. Current PCs are power hungry devices that are loaded with multimedia equipment, giant hard drives, big memory, etc. Individual PCs now have hardware and software that is as complicated as the servers of just a few years ago, along with the associated systems administration requirements. There is a push toward making corporate desktop machines into simple, replaceable appliances. Of course, this may just be another swing of the pendulum in the oft-repeated cycle between centralized servers with dumb (X)terminals, and loaded desktops. The fully loaded multi-media boxes are increasingly headed for use as home entertainment centers. A number of different platforms were discussed as lightweight desktop appliances. Linux-based thin clients, diskless clients, Sun's Java desktop system, and laptops were all contenders for this space.

The Desktop Linux Summit presentations and panel sessions are covered in more detail. Take a look for coverage of the international expansion of desktop Linux, Ian Murdock's talk on Componentized Linux, Doc Searls on making Linux the Chevy Cavalier of operating systems, an analyst's view of the current state of Linux on the desktop, mainstreaming the Linux desktop, Nat Friedman on the evolution of the Linux desktop, and what Lindows is up to.

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