The first Linux desktop and server systems were completed in the early 1990s. From the late 1990s onward Linux gained the support of corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Novell.
For the majority of life events, there are no dramatic turning points that initiate radical changes. Most things are evolutionary, especially Linux and the whole Free/Open Source software world. Coding and running computer systems are just plain old work. A single Eureka! Moment for a programmer means weeks or months or more of hard work. I suppose headlines need drama, but the reality for Linux is progress has been rapid and steady, and dramatic in non-dramatic ways: steady increases in uptake, and steady improvements in performance and features.
2006 was no exception, but there were some significant milestones in acknowledging that yes, Linux and Free Open Source Software (FOSS) do exist, and yes, they are quite suitable, and even superior, for the enterprise. Of course we’ve known that for years, but getting the world out against the tsunamis of propaganda, misinformation, and Fedora Users and Developers (FUD) hasn’t been easy.
The Biggest Event
The Novell-Microsoft deal, as distasteful as it is to a lot of observers, in the crowning seal of Linux approval. The biggest purveyor of anti-Linux and anti-FOSS propaganda, misinformation and FUD made a deal with a Linux vendor. Whatever the merits of the deal itself, this is a gigantic validation of Linux in the enterprise. Microsoft is playing in the FOSS ballpark now, and it doesn’t matter how reluctantly, or how much they try to twist the rules and change the game. You can’t buy this kind of exposure.
Accelerating Train
Another significant event was Sun converting the Java license to the GPL, adding it to their array of open source server-side applications, including Solaris. Whatever your personal opinion of Java, Sun’s java has long been the standard. It can now be legally bundled with Linux, and it should put IBM’s and Microsoft’s Java implementations out of pasture for good.
Virtualization is all the rage, especially the kind that let administrators run mixed operating systems on a single server. Finally, hardware virtualization comes to the x86 platform, thanks to Intel and AMD. This is huge – this arena has long been ruled by IBM’s expensive mainframes. Now we little people get to play. Virtualization is going to be dominated by open source operating systems like Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, and others as they get up to speed, because they are not encumbered by restrictive, complex, too-expensive licenses, and insane lock-in policies. It will be an attractive migration tool that allows users to migrate from Windows to Linux, for example, at their own place. Just like dual-booting, but with the advantage of having both operating systems to use at the same time.
In the long-timid world of Tier 1 (HP, IBM, Dell) vendors, desktop and peripheral support continue to server offerings, but anything else has been very slow in coming. But it’s happening, and there is no turning back. Hewlett-Packard has blatantly supported Linux on printers and multi-function devices for a few years. Now they are offering Red Hat workstations, and claim that all of their Personal Workstations support Linux. Just like their printers, they even post a matrix showing exactly what is supported. They’re even making noises about Linux laptops. For all of this, I can almost forgive them for being paranoid spymasters.
Dell has a long history of making lot of noise about loving the penguin, but when you get to their website, they bait-and-switch you. Links don’t work, or they go to pages that sing in praises of Windows and don’t even mention Linux. Or they give you FreeDOS. But even Dell is finally inching into the Linux desktop www.dell.com/linux market for real.
Fearless Prediction
Small mobile devices are the future of computing. Someday a mobile phone will also be a full-fledged PC that does everything a desktop computer can do today. Because personal computing will become a service, with the processing power, data storage, and system administration all handled by the service providers. Reliable voice-recognitions technologies will be the tipping point, because (obviously) trying to do complex tasks on a phone keypad is nuts. About as much fun as web-surfing or watching movies on a two-inch screen.
What about that two-inch screen, you ask? No one can write letters and parse spreadsheets and create horrid PowerPoint slide shows on a tiny telephone screen. Duh, the phones of the future will have holographic projectors. So the world will be even fuller of babbling idiots on telephones bumping blindly into everything, and normal people like you and me who enjoy peace and quiet are going to go on slapping-faces-and-breaking-phones rampages. Some will hail us liberators. Some will call us just plain nuts.
