2013: A Linux Christmas
zdnet.com
2013: A Linux Christmas
1–10 of 40 posts
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#2On one hand, I'm happy to see the Linux kernel being used in all sorts of consumer devices. It's a real victory for the developers and for the open source model. On the other hand, it has only been successful because it has enabled major corporations to fight the mobile platform wars. Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's leftovers.
The author isn't fooling anyone. We all know that the goal was for Linux to take the desktop. It was to be a win for freedom against the tyranny of Microsoft. That didn't happen. Instead, Apple stepped in and ate everyone's lunch, and now it seems the Linux warriors want to move the goal posts. Sure, Linux has spread far and wide, but most consumers still have no idea what Linux is, and nor would they care. Linux isn't something people want, it's something they use without being aware of it. Is that a victory or a tragedy?
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#3On one hand, I'm happy to see the Linux kernel being used in all sorts of consumer devices. It's a real victory for the developers and for the open source model. On the other hand, it has only been successful because it has enabled major corporations to fight the mobile platform wars. Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's l…
I don't see how it could possibly be a tragedy. An ordinary user should never have to care what platform she is running on.
I agree with everything else you said.
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#4On one hand, I'm happy to see the Linux kernel being used in all sorts of consumer devices. It's a real victory for the developers and for the open source model. On the other hand, it has only been successful because it has enabled major corporations to fight the mobile platform wars. Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's l…
>> Linux isn't something people want
Check out YouTube, Windows isn't something people want anymore, not like the 90's. Give it up, more and more people want a solid, stable, secure, reliable, fast computer. When they ask their techie friends how to get that, almost invariably the answer comes back - install Linux or buy a computer that comes with it pre-installed.
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#5On one hand, I'm happy to see the Linux kernel being used in all sorts of consumer devices. It's a real victory for the developers and for the open source model. On the other hand, it has only been successful because it has enabled major corporations to fight the mobile platform wars. Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's l…
How would Linux success have been accomplished without integration into the current platforms de jour? This is a specious argument, to be sure. You are saying 'Linux did not succeed on its own because it required hardware vendors to pick it up and push it out there' - well, how else would it have succeeded? Linus building a hardware company?
The intention behind the developers of the Linux kernel have always been: build it, use it, let others use it if they want to. There has never been a 'commercialized Linux effort' that didn't involve some vendor capable of making its own hardware - and this is what happened with the mobile take-up.
>We all know that the goal was for Linux to take the desktop.
Linux has been a very viable desktop for over a decade. And besides that - Chromebooks are not a desktop to you?
>Linux isn't something people want, it's something they use without being aware of it. Is that a victory or a tragedy?
Its a victory of course. Linus didn't start a fashion company - he started a kernel project. That kernel powers more devices than any other kernel out there at the moment, across a more diverse range of product types.
And I rate that total success, personally .. but then I've only been using Linux since the day it was available on funet.fi ..
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#6On one hand, I'm happy to see the Linux kernel being used in all sorts of consumer devices. It's a real victory for the developers and for the open source model. On the other hand, it has only been successful because it has enabled major corporations to fight the mobile platform wars. Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's l…
> Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's leftovers.
This has been one of Linux's merits for a very long time, something they embrace.
> Sure, Linux has spread far and wide, but most consumers still have no idea what Linux is, and nor would they care. Linux isn't something people want, it's something they use without being aware of it. Is that a victory or a tragedy?
This benefits Linux desktop users as well, for example better hardware support.
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#7On one hand, I'm happy to see the Linux kernel being used in all sorts of consumer devices. It's a real victory for the developers and for the open source model. On the other hand, it has only been successful because it has enabled major corporations to fight the mobile platform wars. Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's l…
Linux has changed the world. Yes of course I'm talking about the kernel, that's what Linux is. It's what it's always been.
Without Linux there would be no Android and Apple would by now own 95% of the smartphone market(1). Server infrastructure across the industry, including Web hosting, would cost an arm and a leg due to proprietary Unix license costs. Services like Rackspace and AWS would likely be barely viable, if at all. A generation of geeks would have grown up probably on Windows without Linux to cut their technical teeth on.
Linux success is a bit like that of SQLite. There are probably over 50 SQLite databases in the room with me right now, on the smartphones the other people here have in their pockets, but you'd never know it. It doesn't matter if anyone knows it or not, in fact the technology being invisible is the point. It's why even the fact that OSX and iOS are unix under the hood is such a triumph.
The goal might have been Linux on the Desktop for some, as a back end guy for me that's always been a distraction. Mobile is making the Desktop almost irrelevant, or at least a niche market, and Linux and Unix are right there, out in the lead. They run the client devices in people's hands, and most of the back end services those devices rely on. They own the future.
(1) I'm a happy loyal iPhone user, but I'm not stupid enough to not realize that would be a bad thing.
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#8On one hand, I'm happy to see the Linux kernel being used in all sorts of consumer devices. It's a real victory for the developers and for the open source model. On the other hand, it has only been successful because it has enabled major corporations to fight the mobile platform wars. Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's l…
Linux has changed the world. Yes of course I'm talking about the kernel, that's what Linux is. It's what it's always been. Without Linux there would be no Android and Apple would by now own 95% of the smartphone market(1). Server infrastructure across the industry, including Web hosting, would cost an arm and a leg due to proprietary Unix license costs. Services like Rackspace and AWS would likely be barely viable, i…
I like Linux as much as the next guy, but if there hadn't been Linux FreeBSD would have just taken its place. Possibly more of a split between FreeBSD and Solaris.
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#9>Even before the holiday buying season really kicked in, the NPD Group found that Chromebooks "accounted for 21 percent of all [preconfigured] notebook sales, up from negligible share in the prior year, and 8 percent of all computer and tablet sales through November. It's up from one tenth of a percent in 2012."
Only commercial channels like schools and companies, not retail sales to consumers. That too only in the US. It's a disingenuous claim, if not extremely misleading.
Also, top on Amazon doesn't really mean much for many electronics. For example, Windows Phone 7 was a bestseller in 2012. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57411238-94/lumia-900-tops-...
Re: 2013: A Linux Christmas
#10>Even before the holiday buying season really kicked in, the NPD Group found that Chromebooks "accounted for 21 percent of all [preconfigured] notebook sales, up from negligible share in the prior year, and 8 percent of all computer and tablet sales through November. It's up from one tenth of a percent in 2012." Only commercial channels like schools and companies, not retail sales to consumers. That too only in the U…
Commercial channels account for the vast majority of total sales.