Every year magazine articles emerge declaring 200(X) as the year of Linux on the desktop. First it was 1999, when the first Linux computers were sold. Then it was 2003-2004 when Linux really started to compete in GUI terms with proprietary systems. KDE 3 was going to kick start the movement. Soon afterwards, Ubuntu was hailed as the distro that was going to bring Linux to the masses – and it did, but I’m talking a few million here, nowhere near enough to actually make a big dent in the OS market. Now Google is fighting for market share with its new Chrome OS too. Has Linux missed its chance? Is it now doomed to be the choice of geeks and geeks alone?
It wouldn’t make sense to talk about recent Linux history without the backstory.
From 2000 to 2005 Linux steadily gained pace on the desktop a few per cent a year. But with big companies and Internet servers, the story is a bit different. Linux experienced huge growth in this area and to this day free software basically powers the web. When changes in technology happen, it’s usually because of new de facto standards. That is – things that come about, then stick because people use them. That’s what happened with Apache, the open source web server which the Internet would literally collapse without. That’s what happened with a ton of open source projects. But the de facto desktop OS has always been Windows. First mover advantage and all that.
Progress on the desktop was very slow. When netbooks became popular and vendors saw a market for offering a lightweight Linux OS matched to low end hardware, Microsoft reinvented XP home as ‘the netbook OS’ and practically gave it away for free. Hardware vendors lapped it up. Same old, same old.
Other problems can be attributed to the open source movement itself. The infighting is notorious. There’s so many distros on offer that new users are bewildered. There are forks of nearly every popular open source application. There’s no coherence, just fragmentation and bickering. More recently, growing Apple market share has hurt Linux. 99% of desktop computer users have never heard of Linux. The choice for the consumer is simple – it’s Windows or Mac. So, in the words of Lenin, what is to be done?
Like the Russian revolution, the desktop revolution will only happen with the will of the people. The Bolsheviks had the will of the proletariat by promising land and property reform but Linux can’t promise quite that. It can promise freedom though – freedom from bloatware. Linux empowers the user and shuns the corporate, closed world of Microsoft and Apple. It’s the libertarian’s choice. But Linux needs to stop competing with ‘free’. I don’t use Linux because it’s free, I use it because it does the job well. Why use heavy handed persuasion tactics? Linux zealots are Microsoft zealots are Apple zealots. Yeah, we know the command line is super powerful but does Joe average computer user care about that? Should he? And is it the Linux community’s job to educate? Perhaps a little. But there comes a point where you have to let people discover things for themselves instead of coercing them into doing what you think is best for them. Learn to let go. Windows users might be ignorant, but it’s not their fault. The Linux community should instead focus on unifying, establishing a central body and addressing the infighting before it even attempts to take the desktop on again. Shuttleworth is on the right tracks – why not stop picking holes in Ubuntu and help the core ideology underneath it.
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I hope it’s not Canonical that nudges people to write nonsense of the type seen here that appears now and then in remote corners of the web. Here are some facts for you and make sure you make peace with them: Linux is free as in freedom, it’s a loose community effort that answers to no one, and the moment that stops to be the case Linux will not exist.
If Shuttleworth has an ambition giving some meaning to his life by becoming Chairman Mark and presiding over a Central Committee of some sort, perhaps he should ask Steve Jobs to give him a job and eventually become his heir. It ain’t happening in Linux, ever, as in, never ever.
Btw writing about Linux on the desktop, dead or alive, is a pitiful way to incite meaningless debates and bring home clicks and traffic. Shame on you, and shame on me for clicking on every ridiculous link I see on aggregate pages
I assure you I won’t be back.
The Russian Revolution was done via the opportunists’ manipulation of the people. They took advantage of a bad situation and made it even worse, then proceeded to kill tens of millions in the following decades. Linux can be like that, eh? Nice.
Um, pardon, but what have you been smoking? According to your argument, we should limit the number of car manufacturers so that consumers won’t be confused. And the number of TV channels, and the number of radio stations, and the number of websites…
Think before you post.
“Linux is free as in freedom, it’s a loose community effort that answers to no one, and the moment that stops to be the case Linux will not exist.”
That may be. But my point is that this kind of incoherence will leave it dead on the (corporate) desktop forever. You know the idea of a committee is that no one person has real power so ‘Chairman Mark’ is meaningless. Cheap shot.
“I assure you I won’t be back.”
Sorry to hear that, I try to keep posts interesting but I guess you can’t please everyone. See ya.
What a facile comment.
Did I say too much choice was a bad thing regarding consumer products? No. Is Linux a consumer product, like a car? No.
Say I want to listen to the radio and there’s lots of stations to choose from. I can easily scan through the stations until I find one I like. Easy. With Linux we are talking about targeting people who have no clue what an operating system is. They think Windows ‘is part of the computer’. It’s confusing. Too much choice intimidates new users. Stop comparing turning a car knob to moving from Windows after ten years. I’m saying a more unified solution is the answer. Getting hung up on ‘free as is freedom’ is half the problem. It’s like you think the only selling point is that Linux is free. Well, newsflash: people aren’t going to change OS just because it’s free, especially if a) they don’t understand it b) the whole Linux scene is fragmented. Now, back to my crack pipe.
On the user side, periphial support is hit-and-miss. Although there’s a lot of hardware support for older mainstream periphials, support for brand new periphials is “iffy” Can’t use my scanner or sync my iPhone. Need to update iOS? Fuggetaboutit.
On the developer side, the “choice” beloved by uber-geeks is the fragmentation that makes you wonder if there’s going to be a return-on-investment. Window manager? Desktop environment? Package format? Software manager? Too many variables to consider, combinations to test / support. FOSS software has package managers at major distributions to handle this. If you’re selling closed source software, you have to go it alone.
Now that your article has been posted on http://www.techrights.org you should expect to see the lunatic fringe of the Linux community attack you en mass. Choice is only free choice when you choose what they believe in which is typically tainted by narrow minded, paranoid conspiracy theories.
Shields up Scotty!
From beginning to end, the most kind thing I can say is you are wrong.
* The broad ranges of product and forks is not a bug but a feature. That there are 300+ distros means that no single corporate entity can take Linux over. In reality there are 4 key desktop distros — Ubuntu/Debian, Suse, Fedora, Slackware. The rest are mere variations of one of these 4. The same holds true in the application space. Think of what has happened to MySQL with Oracle and you will understand. If the forking stops, FOSS dies.
* Progress on the desktop is slow for several reasons. The primary one is that unlike a corporate product, there is no marketing department for Linux. Should stay that way as well. Lacking any core fiscal objective, it is impossible for a corporate type to attempt to attack it. Like nailing jelly to a tree.
* You point out that in the netbook space MS had to nearly give the OS away. That to me is win. MS was forced, in order to maintain market share, to drop its price points to near zero. That indicates MS recognized that Linux was a threat for the first time and had to react. It also points out that MS days are numbered. As a corporation, they cannot afford to give away Windows7. At least not yet. How they will react once the ARM architectures lap at their feet shall be interesting with price points that indicate OS costs less than $20 per unit.
* Android is spreading at a rate of 250k units per month and accelerating. Oh sure its not a desktop, at least not yet. Nor is there anything stopping android from entering the low end nettop market. But the fact is, it is introducing millions to Linux even if they don’t know it. Important? Well if you apply this approach to cars, its the Toyota strategy. Enter the market at the low end, penetrate, then sell up.
The reality is Linux may not ever be dominant on the desktop. Probably 25% tops under current conditions. Corps see to that. They are risk averse, buy more machines more often than non-corp users, and so prefer the ‘Nobody ever was fired buying Microsoft’ strategy.
But then one might ask? What will you do if Microsoft died tomorrow? Enron was a cash cow right up to the quarter they filed bankruptcy.
Progress for Linux on the desktop is slow because none of the major suppliers of desktop computers bothers to promote it, choosing to offer one or more Windows 7 versions. In spite of the claims by the Linux fans, there just is no real interest. The status quo is not a problem.
In the netbook space, there is not as much money available for an OS, so MS just offered a version of Windows to meet the market. If the netbook product is not as profitable for them, that is a shame for MSFT stockholders, but what money is available still goes to Microsoft. There is no reason to think that anything in that equation would change with ARM netbooks either. Whereever the money levels out, it will be Microsoft’s to take to the bank.
Microsoft has had a corporate policy to “Win against Linux at ALL COSTS” – and has been willing to spend $4 billion to advertise Windows, even though the manufacturers preinstall it. This, plus placement and content control of nearly $40 billion in PC manufacturer advertising – has gotten Microsoft favourable press coverage, and led to most negative stories getting stuffed next to the ads for weight loss programs in the back.
Microsoft has even been willing to spend as much as $8 billion in legal fees, expenses, and settlements. But Microsoft has successfully protected their Windows monopoly for nearly 20 years, from 1990 to 2010.
Microsoft’s primary goal is to make sure that PCs running Linux are not displayed next to PCs running Windows. Retailers have to agree not to damage the Microsoft brand by doing things like showing porno movies on Windows PC during business hours. But Microsoft considers putting PCs running Linux next to Windows PCs to be more damaging than the pornography.
To break Microsoft’s iron fisted grip, which forced retailers who carried apple to put the Macs in the corner of the store furthest from the entrance, Apple had to open thousands of stores in the largest shopping malls, and train sales clerks to really know Apple’s products and demonstrate them effectively.
On the other hand, Linux gets easier and easer for end-users to install, and it gets easier and easier to have BOTH Windows and Linux on the same machine, even running at the same time.
Windows advocates like to quote a web browser survey which essentially counts Linux if it’s the only operating system to be used on a specific TCP/IP address. But since Windows and Linux users share DHCP addresses and hide behind Network Address Translating (NAT) routers, it’s not that surprising that the Linux count is low.
According to public statements made by Steve Balmer, who has access to numerous sites where users are registered and identified when they log in, the Linux market is roughly the same size as the Apple device market.
The latest assault on the retailer space has been the Linux tablets. Numerous e-books, including the Kindle, the Nook, the Sony E-Book, and several others, are all running Linux. At minimum this pretty much blows away the whole myth that Linux is too hard for ordinary users to use.
There were also millions of Android based tablets sold this Christmas season. This further blows holes in the claims that Linux is too hard to use. And the Android phones are being activated at the rate of 300 million phones per DAY.
Linux and Unix devices are also hiding other places, such as DVRs, Cable boxes, Printers, WiFi hubs, and external hard drives.
One thing worth considering when considering Linux, is:
If you knew that upgrading your computer, or your companies computers to Windows 7 would result in Microsoft maintaining it’s monopoly for another 20 years, and make the problems like malware, spyware, and privacy issues – even more pronounced than they already are. If you knew that would be the consequences, would Windows 7 upgrades still be your choice?
What Linux on the Desktop needs is a big company with deep pockets that can’t be intimidated by Microsoft. Google, Oracle, and/or Walmart would be good candidates.
Corporations are also considering the “Windows on Linux” solution, running Windows XP as a Linux application – which means they don’t have to pay $millions or $billions to make “panic upgrades” to Windows 7 and Office 2010.
Many companies refuse to accept Office 2007 and Office 2010 documets (docx, xlsx, pptx) and insist on Office 2000 formats. Some companies even require that documents be distributed in PDF format.
The usefulness of alterable documents being shared via e-mail has been rapidly diminishing. These days the big trend in the industry has been Business Process Management – using web pages and databases to create documents that can be accessed and updated only by those authorized to do so, and because all the changes are made to a database, every interaction and update can be tracked and audited, even measured.
The most generic version of this would be Google Docs or Zoho. More targeted versions with customized message flows would be Lombardi or Dojo with PHP and MySQL.
Complete lack of proof and supporting evidence noted.
But don’t let those pesky facts get in the way of your vivid imagination.