Hi Frank,
No...I'm not a newbie. My comment about "Holy smokes...I never thought
I'd see that posted on SLUG" was a joke...I know this has been an
ongoing discussion for a long time, and frankly, its good to see a good
banter again...it's been a while.
In the end, I believe you are right in your statement that Linux is not
ready for the desktop. I also agree with several others on here who
have pointed out that they have been using it since the time Noah sailed
the Ark. The fact is that you are both right. It depends on your
points of view. My stance...Linux IS NOT ready for the masses on the
desktop.
I worked for a very large software manufacturer who rolled out several
hundred Linux desktops before politics at the Dir. level took over and
stopped it. I've also worked for companies that tried it, but decided
to stay Windows because of the investment to convert was more expensive
than staying with Windows. We all know I could go on and on, but the
bottom line is that Linux, for the masses, is not ready for the
desktop. If it were, more start-ups and Open Source companies would be
using it. Case in point...SPLUNK. Open Source company, but EVERYONE
runs Macs. No Linux desktops there. IBM has not made the switch as
advertised (I know at least a dozen or so IBM engineers who say that
they are still on Windows because they company never made the switch).
Symantec looked at it and even said they would support Linux Desktops.
Here is a quote from John Thompson, CEO of Symantec in a 2004 interview:
"Thompson: Well today all of our gateway security appliances are built
on a Linux platform. As the year unfolds we will release a Linux client,
so our AV product will be ported to a native Linux environment. So to
the extent that users move to a Linux desktop we plan to have products
there to help support them."
(http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/06/16/HNjwtqa_1.html?WEB%20SERVICES%20SECURITY)
The desktop support John spoke of...it never happened. I worked at
Symentec until this past July. There was an internal working group that
formed between March and April of this year to look at it, and the
bottom line was that out of ALL of Symantec's customer base, less that
1/10th of 1% are using Linux on ANY desktop in their environment, thus
there was not great rush to support it. Why? Because the forking of
distros has gotten so bad that you can't predict which distro will be
THE one to make it, and they were not going to hang their hat and their
development dollars on something that has not proven to be a viable
technology on the desktop.
Me...I've switched to Mac for my desktop from Linux. My wife uses her
Mac and I became a convert a few months ago. My kids...once their
laptops die they will get Macs. They just work. There is NO software
compatibility issue as I can do everything on a Mac that I could do with
Windows, and it doesn't take hacking, tweaking and Googling the heck out
of something to get the sound card or network drivers to work properly.
There is commercial support in case something breaks (which it never
does) that I can't fix. It has a functional AND attractive GUI and
works everywhere I want to work. In the Mac groups, there is NO
bickering or back-biting, flaming or otherwise. They focus on the
technology and have a good time doing it. I have yet to see or hear
someone at a Mac meeting say "RTFM and THEN you may post your
question." I have never heard someone say "well, XXX users are fairly
sophisticated users, so they don't tolerate questions form newbies very
well." Yet, at LUG meetings, I have heard all of that and more. From
the standpoint of wanting to attract someone to Linux, those things do
not help. Others have said it, and I will repeat it...we are our own
worst enemy.
Personally speaking, I think the reasons Linux on the desktop will
probably not happen within the next three years or so is:
* Hardware support - No software or hardware manufacturer wants to take
a chance on supporting something that may or may not work when someone
messes with a setting, upgrades or anything else. We ALL know that
upgrading has its issues when it comes to hardware support. From a
commercial standpoint, that isn't a good business model. Downtime
sucks. We simply have WAY too many distros now. Perhaps there should
be a mass fusion down to three or four and efforts to improve Linux
should be limited to those few.
* Current IT investments make switching impossible - I have worked at
three companies that evaluated it, and based on cost alone, SWITCHING
was more expensive. Starting out...that is a different story.
* Regulatory - With email retention becoming heavily regulated, until
someone builds an email archiving solution (not a backup solution) that
works with something other than Notes or Exchange, it might be
possible. Why is that important to the desktop? Because archiving
products tie into the mail client directly.
* Fear of the unknown - People use what they know. Windows has been
around for a long time, so has Mac. There are not several hundred
flavors of Windows or Mac to pick from...there are a couple and most
people know them well enough to not be afraid of them.
* Quality of desktop applications - For email, web, etc. Linux is
fine. But for my kids schooling, there just isn't the ability to run
what they need, even using wine. For adults, while a technologist can
make a go of it successfully, not everyone is a techie, nor are they
interested in being a techie. They just want something to work.
Anyway, I apologize for this being so long. I really wanted Linux to be
the MS replacement on the desktop. On the server, I hope it still
wins. However on the desktop, I think Mac has beat us, and until we fix
some flaws in the technology as well as the personality of the
community, we're not going to get there. I know that is going to piss
someone off, but having been around Linux for ten years this month, I
think I have seen enough to say that is an accurate statement.
Dave
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