Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 21, 2005 02:09 AM
..hmm... i see! but what about the monumental task of supporting > 300 [and rising !] distros at the same time each having its own share of problems, configs! Umm maybe instead of supporting 300, maybe they will support the top 5 or 10. Off the top of my head (Forgive me if I miss anyone's favorite ) RedHat/Fedora, Suse, Mandrake, Turbolinux, Debian, Slackware, Linspire, Xandros and Lycoris. Again off the top of my head, those 9 distros are probably cover over 90% off all installed Linux machines. I as a sysadmin support in my real job RedHat EL and Suse EL machines along with sun, ibm, & hp machines.
" Linux is just not spreading like fire. Linux users are forever flooded with Linux news, distros and advocacies and so they think that everyone is hearing about Linux news, distros, advocacies. But in reality, no one pays a damn to it!"
My response to this is who is "everyone"? Right now Linux & FLOSS is mostly the knowledge domain of CIOs, IT directors, and IT guys & gals doing the real grunt work. This is very similar if not identical to the adoption rates of PCs & IT systems in the 1980s & early 1990s. Back then businesses used those expensive PCs and IT systems, not families or consumers. Only hobby hackers & tinkerers messed with PCs.
Now we have non-IT professionals getting work done or having a good time by using all sorts of technology without the necessity of being an IT guru. Witness kids building websites, grandmothers emailing their grandson stationed overseas, fathers building spreadsheets to get a better idea of the mortagage, a new mother researches why her infant is always ill, etc. All of this was almost impossible just 8 years ago because the barrier of entry was way too high & required a mastery of IT concepts & practices. Now it is commonplace & accepted as the norm.
Linux adoption will probably flow the same way. It began with fringe thinkers & tinkerers. It slowly made its way into businesses and was largely ignored. With time it has gained attention and it has not remained stagnant but has gotten better. Every release of some distro is more feature filled, easier to use, more stable, etc. Thus lowering the barrier of entry not just for buinesses or IT gurus but for everyone.
Widescale & across the board Linux adoption is small. But it is coming. The company I work for is OS/platform agnostic. We make software for windows/unix/linux/mainframe. If we make a version of a commercial software product for Windows, we also make a version for Linux. Again, huge/big/awesome Linux adoption is small but it is growing.
Now if "everyone" is to include everyone<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;) then just wait a while. There are houses of worship, non-profits, companies, after school clubs, student organizations, and homes that are learning about FLOSS & Linux. Adoption & usage in those places is going to be small just like PCs were about 15-20 years ago. In my opinion it looks like Linux will share the very same growth cycle that helped MS, IBM & Dell to grow.
I could be very wrong. Time will tell. We will just have to wait for it.
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Re:linux - It is a slow growth. Wait for it.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 21, 2005 02:09 AMUmm maybe instead of supporting 300, maybe they will support the top 5 or 10. Off the top of my head (Forgive me if I miss anyone's favorite ) RedHat/Fedora, Suse, Mandrake, Turbolinux, Debian, Slackware, Linspire, Xandros and Lycoris. Again off the top of my head, those 9 distros are probably cover over 90% off all installed Linux machines. I as a sysadmin support in my real job RedHat EL and Suse EL machines along with sun, ibm, & hp machines.
" Linux is just not spreading like fire. Linux users are forever flooded with Linux news, distros and advocacies and so they think that everyone is hearing about Linux news, distros, advocacies. But in reality, no one pays a damn to it!"
My response to this is who is "everyone"? Right now Linux & FLOSS is mostly the knowledge domain of CIOs, IT directors, and IT guys & gals doing the real grunt work. This is very similar if not identical to the adoption rates of PCs & IT systems in the 1980s & early 1990s. Back then businesses used those expensive PCs and IT systems, not families or consumers. Only hobby hackers & tinkerers messed with PCs.
Now we have non-IT professionals getting work done or having a good time by using all sorts of technology without the necessity of being an IT guru. Witness kids building websites, grandmothers emailing their grandson stationed overseas, fathers building spreadsheets to get a better idea of the mortagage, a new mother researches why her infant is always ill, etc. All of this was almost impossible just 8 years ago because the barrier of entry was way too high & required a mastery of IT concepts & practices. Now it is commonplace & accepted as the norm.
Linux adoption will probably flow the same way. It began with fringe thinkers & tinkerers. It slowly made its way into businesses and was largely ignored. With time it has gained attention and it has not remained stagnant but has gotten better. Every release of some distro is more feature filled, easier to use, more stable, etc. Thus lowering the barrier of entry not just for buinesses or IT gurus but for everyone.
Widescale & across the board Linux adoption is small. But it is coming. The company I work for is OS/platform agnostic. We make software for windows/unix/linux/mainframe. If we make a version of a commercial software product for Windows, we also make a version for Linux. Again, huge/big/awesome Linux adoption is small but it is growing.
Now if "everyone" is to include everyone<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;) then just wait a while. There are houses of worship, non-profits, companies, after school clubs, student organizations, and homes that are learning about FLOSS & Linux. Adoption & usage in those places is going to be small just like PCs were about 15-20 years ago. In my opinion it looks like Linux will share the very same growth cycle that helped MS, IBM & Dell to grow.
I could be very wrong. Time will tell. We will just have to wait for it.
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