Don’t expect Linux to fight a David and Goliath battle, users told

The adoption of Linux on the desktop is progressing, but there won’t be a “David and Goliath” struggle that suddenly slays the dominance of
Microsoft’s Windows, advocates said at the Enterprise Linux Forum Conference and Expo in Washington, DC yesterday.

Nat Friedman, vice president of research and development for the Ximian division of Novell, said desktop users often asked him, “When will Linux be
ready for the desktop?”

But those are the wrong questions, because for many desktop users, Linux is already ready, said Friedman, a developer of the Gnome Linux desktop.

The media has portrayed the Linux versus Microsoft desktop fight as a David versus Goliath bible, but unlike the Bible story, Linux will not fell the
software giant with one blow, Friedman said.