[TriLUG] Where is Linux today?

[Tim Jowers]

   There's alot to say about marketing. I think Jobs did a great job
marketing a desktop Unix. Who's doing so for Linux? Who will? They can win
BIG!  Of course the low cost Linux laptops are a real threat. A real threat
to the established pricing and software sets of today/yesteryear.  Let's get
realistic here. People use computers to do something. Maybe write a
document. Maybe track a spreadsheet. Maybe accounting. You can do these all
with Open Source on Linux quite fine.

   The Linux-focused companies such as Emperor were funded like $12M but
unable to come up with solid technical innovations (zero time boot, unionfs
to make all apps installed rather than needing to be installed, pull down
apps locally as needed, integrated everything, integrated backups,
integrated networkwork console, etc).  Maybe the tasks were too large or
maybe they focused on the server market and the desktop/laptop market was an
afterthought.

   It's getting much much better. In '06 I did a several month study on the
Open Source landscape. Its advancing fast. Linux is but one player. The GNU
apps are others. Look at MySQL. Look at Subversion. Look at Firefox. Look at
Open Office. Its a market progression where on one end we have apps like
those that have and are dominating markets while in the middle we have apps
developing their market share (mediawiki, phpBB, and the other portal apps)
and at the very other end we have apps in a primordial soup out of which
innovation grows. Will Gtk take over the desktop app development space? Etc.
I'd love to make a market maturity line and put the universe of open source
apps along that line.

  I'd say Linux today shows far more promise for innovation than any other
OS. That is the most important salient feature of Open Source to me.

   There is also a deep point about the rate of adoption of innovation.
Innovation is happening faster than most companies or people can adapt. I
think that is the fundamental principal under your question. Jobs does a
great job of packaging up innovation. No real Desktop Linux company exists.
It inherently requires some tight integration with the hardware to make the
best product. I think some VC's will eventually get onboard because I think
the opportunity is very ripe to tightly integrate Linux with the hardware
and make a better platform than even Apple and to also tightly integrate the
open source with service provides to make a better solution than hosted apps
can ever dream of making. Today, the VC understanding of the technology
progression is a little behind those on this list, IMO/IME. But maybe they
just haven't figured out the funding model. I watched the show about Google
and it took them a few years and a copy of another company's funding model
to figure out how to fund their search engine.

    I love the point about the cell phones. The question is not which
technology will win but the reality is all will win. The future is powerful
compute devices everywhere and running all sorts of software.

   Realistically, I think we'll see new computer users and special markets
(low cost laptops:-) be the real inroads for Desktop Linux this year. It
will be a few years before the mainstream gets off of Windows. I think the
awesomeness of the Apple laptops is accelerating that move.

TimJowers



On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Cristóbal Palmer <
cristobalpalmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 8:31 PM, Maxwell Spangler
> <maxpublic08 at maxwellspangler.com> wrote:
> >
> > If those operating systems get their act together and keep growing, will
> > Linux be limited in the future to servers, embedded uses and politically
> > or technically motivated users that require free/open source software
> > above all else?
>
> Who is missing from that list and why do you need them to use Linux?
>
> I'm serious. Let's pretend for a second that five years from now 60%
> of US adults have a laptop that looks something like what a macbook
> air looks like, and that it's either theirs or has been issued to them
> solely for their use by their employer. Great, so now you've got about
> 150k people with lightweight laptops in the US. Let's very generously
> say that 20% of those run Linux: 30k lightweight linux laptops.
> Awesome! But wait... the CURRENT generation of "free" cell phones from
> the telcos take pictures and video, have bluetooth, fit in your
> pocket, and EVERY adult has something better than that.... see where
> I'm going here? What capabilities will that Linux laptop have (besides
> a full-sized keyboard) that the phone doesn't?
>
> Interesting things happen when suddenly everyone you care about has a
> capability (say, like having google maps and GPS on a device that fits
> comfortably in a pocket). What capability or what network effect is
> gained by having 30k Linux laptops that wasn't there with 3k Linux
> laptops? My guess is that the impact would be minimal. That's not to
> say I don't want to see Ubuntu and Fedora dramatically gain market
> share--I do. What I'm saying is that if we want to put energy into the
> growth of Linux, we should do so because it matches our goals.
>
> What are your goals? Do you want Linux to have a majority market share
> on desktops for its own sake, or because you think there's something
> philosophically wrong with the other OSs on the market? If the only
> problems you see (or saw) in Windows and Mac OS are technical ones,
> then you have little reason to contribute to the advancement of Linux.
> If your goals are increased freedom, empowerment of the people,
> fairness and justice....
>
> So... what are your goals? What are your reasons?
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Cristóbal M. Palmer
> "Small acts of humanity amid the chaos of inhumanity provide hope. But
> small acts are insufficient."
>  -- Paul Rusesabagina
> --
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