Linux Continues to Define the Future of Computing While Microsoft Follows
October 30, 2008
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It is hard for the executive director of the Linux Foundation to feel bad for Microsoft, but they are having a bad week while Linux continues to move forward in innovative ways into new markets for computing. Let’s take a look at the difference between Microsoft and Linux this week:
Monday: Microsoft starts its week with a front page story in the Wall St. Journal titled, “Microsoft Battles Low-Cost Rival for Africa.” In the article Microsoft is documented engaging in questionable practices against a Linux competitor that is springing up across Africa not because of any corporate conspiracy, but because it is free and open.
Tuesday: Microsoft reveals “Windows 7” which is widely regarded as an attempt to right the wrong that is Vista. Headlines were brutal: Infoworld: “Windows 7: The ‘dog food’ tastes bad”, Dallas News: “Microsoft previews Windows 7, and it looks like… Vista”, Computerworld: “Is Windows 7’s new UAC just lipstick on a pig?” and “Windows 7, Office 14 to create bigger lame ducks than George W. Bush.”
Tuesday: Microsoft also announced its cloud computing platform summed up best at ZDNet: “Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform: A guide for the perplexed.” No licensing, pricing and due date information. This for something that Amazon has offered with a Linux based solution for over a year on the EC2 Cloud.
We aren’t even half way through the week yet and Microsoft is either getting battered or following technical trends already blazed by Linux. In contrast, Linux is having a great week.
Monday: The New York Times shows how Linux may actually ship on more desktops next year that Windows, albeit in an unconventional way with instant on boot. “Instant-on machines represent a new opportunity for the open-source Linux operating system, which can compete with Windows.”
Wednesday: HP reveals it is rolling out a Linux based Notebook computer with Linux. Their HP Mini 1000 with MIE (Mobile Internet Experience) a Linux based OS will ship with a $379 price point. They are following moves by Dell, Asus, Lenovo, and others to ship low price Linux PC’s. It is also worth noting that Microsoft had to extend the life of Windows XP in order to even compete in this market.
Thursday: Intel and Taiwan announces they are teaming up on mobile Linux development lab. The lab will work on creating Moblin based devices in one of the most promising categories of computing.
Linux on more laptops than Windows? Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo and others shipping Linux desktops at unheard of prices? Microsoft stuck in a rut needing to follow rather than lead? And I only hit on a few things going on in Linux this week. As we reach the end of 2008, 2009 is shaping up to be a pretty good year for Linux.
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What goes around comes around. And the longer it goes the bigger it grows, and the harder it bites you where it hurts the most when it gets around.
Or to put it another way, You reap what you sow.
you forgot android:
“Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices, based on the Linux kernel, developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance.”
Minor typo (missing word or two?):
…Microsoft is documented engaged in…
Excellent article!
For several years various observers within the various open source and free software communities have been proclaiming “the year of the desktop.” It has become an almost annual tradition.
A few years ago a few people started pointing out that “the desktop” might be essentially going away. The MID, tablet, “smart phones” and PDAs in combination with “Web 2.0″ browser accessible applications, are the growing into new “desktop.”
It will be interesting to how users receive see these hybrid systems with “instant on” access to Linux but also include a more conventional experience through a normal boot process into some flavor of MS Windows.
One would expect that the instant on access would lure many people into trying this new and different system — for people who are just interested in visiting a web page, checking their webmail, or even just jotting down a quick note in “notepad.” (Notably many of my acquaintances seem to keep their “notepad” notes in messages that they e-mail to themselves … which increasingly is done via their webmail accounts).
Meanwhile Microsoft’s biggest woes stem from its own history. It has an immense code base to support … and an empire that’s predicated on certain assumptions about how people use their computer systems. That sort of infrastructure cannot be simply dismantled or reconfigured overnight.
Luckily for them, MS will still have niches for many years to come. There will years during where WINE, MS-Windows under KVM/Xen/VMware, and other solutions won’t be sufficient. However, it probably won’t be long before Microsoft will be pleading with hardware vendors to provide drivers that support their XP based “lightweight” offerings — just so that some of their key customers can still access their own software on new hardware. For Microsoft the questions will be “how do we monetize[sic] this demand?”
Unfortunately, I think it is more “Linux creates a market which MS then gobbles up.” It never occurred to MS to support the first netbooks. Once Linux was used to get the market for those started the usual MS OEM shenanigans went into full force. Still, this basically means Linux forced MS to keep XP alive for a awhile longer.
Then we hear that Linux is used to make mass computing affordable for some African nations. So of course MS comes in and basically pays them not to install Linux. Still Linux is forcing MS to pay out billions per year to keep FOSS from getting a foothold in new markets. I think that number can increase and I very much like the idea of draining the vampires for once.
Linux solves problems and empowers problem solvers.
Try reading the GPL (license) of the GNU/LINUX community then compare it to Microsoft’s EULA (license). As you read,
ask yourself this question:
Why would anyone NEED to put this condition in their license?
I have just spent some hours trying to get Ubuntu, standard software and hardware on a very common Dell machine - without really good results.
Hardware problems, Skype refusing to work, no working alternative to Skype (they didn’t ship buggy Ekiga 3.0, 2.x branch is crap)… OOo, even 3.0, looks like in the end 90’s, Nautilus is at the level of Windows Explorer 95 (oh no, Explorer had an undo feature)
I have been using Linux for more than 10 years, and it’s still the same unusable crap.
I do not see where Linux is ahead - for normal users.
Anyway, the Linux Foundation is more about servers than about desktop users, that’s maybe the explanation for your title…
All the best,
Johannes
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Add to the list “Windows Instant-on” which Microsoft says it’s working on, virtual desktops and 3D desktops. Remember, Microsoft says open source doesn’t innovate, a statement that probably goes down well with the uninitiated for whom it is meant - a sort of ” 2,4,6,8, open source doesn’t innovate” mantra to be digested and repeated.
Even the look of XP seems to have cribbed from Linux - when I was delivering a Fujitsu large SPARC systems class using Linux/StarOffice, one consultant was prompted to ask if I was running XP when it was SuSE Linux 8.2 on my laptop, all the other class members looked surprised, seemingly also thinking it was XP. Apart from the Powerpoint presentation I was delivering, my class were also able to see the real system in action using xdm to connect to the various partitions and the console all at the same time which was impossible under Windows or Solaris.
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- My experience as a new user of Ubuntu - France -
Ubuntu Ibex gives me the proof that Windows Vista is updated. Ubuntu installation is easy and it gives you all software you need for a basic user. If you like “WOW” effects, you just have to activate Compiz. You need help? You will find it on Ubuntu forum and IRC. And today, you can give help in so many projects via launchpad.net.
Behind this, Windows looks lifeless and hermetic to a “Windows community”. Today people need to find (even if it’s for a few moment) a community behind a system. They enjoy the feeling to enter in a community. It gives you an identity, a specificity. You’re not only a serial number on your desktop!
That’s why I am not surprise by your post!
Well, here I am, on xp pro corp sp3, after about 10 years use of Linux myself. Frankly, the one guy who called it useless crap is still basically right. It takes an average of 3 hrs (or 3 days) to install the typical app, if you ever get it installed, if you don’t know how, because you have to search out a forum for the answer, write commands down, or use another handy system to browse on while you work on your box, scramble irc for help, etc etc. New Linux users must virtually always have a ‘linux geek’ buddy to help guide them through the various processes required to get a system running the way they want it to.
All in all, the advantages of linux are:
1. Price. Nothing beats free, and freedom from prosecution
2. Diversity. No matter what you need to do to data, there is probably an open source way to do it
3. Security. In these ten years I have used linux, I have never , to my knowledge, contracted a virus while using it.
The cons, on the other hand are:
1. Unfamiliarity. Users who have the slightest bit of windows knowledge are lost in a typical linux layout.
2. Over-complexity- Linux still carries this strange stigma of overkill with it’s applications, a remnant from unix days, I guess. Look at VLC, for instance, and the preferences. That’s a wonderful program, make no mistake, but, how many of us understand even 1/10th of what those settings do? Or Gimp for that matter. Learning Gimp should at LEAST qualify you for some kind of associates degree.
Linux is wonderful. Don’t get me wrong. I have Ubuntu in a 6gb partition behind this xp, and occasionally dust it off. I use windows for an os though, and run virtually 100% open source ports which originated on linux- in my XP, because, let’s face it. The .exe, in spite of it’s obvious weaknesses and exploitabilities, is still…. where it’s at.
Please donate your old boxes to a church-group or some needy student in these hard times! To comply with the law, and with Microsoft’s leasing policy, you can now replace Microsoft OS with the free (download from the net) Ubuntu OS, which can be set to erase the hard drive of all traces of the “illegal to give away ” Microsoft system and your private information, before donation! Now, explain to your lucky recipient that all the manuals they will ever need are available for free on the internet! Just ask for them in Google! OpenOffice, which is installed already is plenty adequate for homework assignments and with a little exploring, everything else can work well too! Happy computing!
considering the fact that linux is a kernel, and microsoft is a company, it doesn’t really make any sense to compare them…
maybe compare linux and windows, but that’d still be wrong, because there are so many different linux distros.