[TriLUG] Where is Linux today?

[Maxwell Spangler]

On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 13:21 -0400, Ritesh Kumar wrote:
> I couldn't agree more with Tim and Maxwell. Mac OS X kinda did what we
> expected Linux/X/KDE/Gnome to achieve about 2-4 years ago.
> 
> I think that there is only so much you can do with volunteer work. I really
> don't think volunteers themselves can match the resources that Microsoft and
> Apple have at their disposal. We *need* support from _hardware
> manufacturers_ and _application developers_.

Linux has always needed corporate support in order to meet its goals.
When Linux developers have gotten access to hardware and software
documentation and corporate engineers or developers for assistance the
quality of Linux software has rapidly increased.

But the seed that grows the Linux community has been and will be the
attitudes and determination of the developers.  These are the things
that took Linux beyond being an experiment and a proof-of-concept to a
competitive operating system.  If developers keep believing they can
achieve what they imagine and no one stops them, we have no idea how far
Linux will go or how amazing it will be in the future.

When I first got involved with Linux, its mere existence was enough to
get me excited and cause me to start promoting it.  This was the early
1990s when a quality Unix environment with graphics was something you
could only get for thousands of dollars via SCO licenses or workstation
hardware.  Seeing Linux on a 386 with a lowly TSENG4000 based video card
do the same tricks that Sun and SGI workstations could do was amazing.
And it broke the rules.  This kind of 'high performance computing' was
supposed to require big companies and expert engineers not volunteers
and hackers.  If they could do this in a couple years, imagine what they
could do in the long run with all of our support?  Very exciting.

After these intense emails I've come to believe that some do share my
opinion that Mac OS X is providing the kind of environment that I always
dreamed of in the early days of Linux.  My dreams were of Unix and
amazing graphics more than the politics of Free Software, so Mac OS is
very attractive to some of us today.  But I'm encouraged by so many
Linux users refuting my worries and stating their optimism towards
Linux.  That's refreshing and calming for someone like me who has been
involved in Linux for so long and wants to continue long into the
future...