On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 09:44:16AM -0400, David R. Meyer wrote:
<snip>
>
> 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.
>
Lack of hardware support under Linux is part of the market inertia
created and fostered by Microsoft. I don't really think the excess of
distros is the problem. There is Linux Standard Base, and they don't
have to support every silly distro out there. They can pick the top ones
and support those. The deeper problem with that is that unlike in the
commercial world, our software release cycle is closer to six months
than to years. And every time a distro changes, you can have issues. It
makes Linux a moving target to some extent. It's the nature of the
beast.
> * 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.
>
Absolutely true. Again, market inertia. I can understand reluctance to
switch based on retraining cost, etc. I discouraged one of my clients
from switching to Linux because of this. She wanted to switch because
she was concerned about security. But I know she couldn't afford the
retraining cost (and complaints about why Thunderbird doesn't act like
Outlook). But more importantly, who would support her? Not me. And would
she want to pay for that support? This was why I ultimately suggested to
my Mom that she go onto Windows after I gave her a Linux desktop. It
wasn't that it was harder for her or anything. But no one in her area,
from her ISP to the local computer group, could support Linux, and I
couldn't do it long distance.
> * 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.
>
This isn't really an issue. Email clients will save things for as long
as you like, and mbox format is completely transparent. You'll be able
to read those emails in the year 3000. If you want to save email offline
in archives by year or something, such a thing is ridiculously easy to
implement. Every month, I have a cron job that purges old emails from
certain of my folders. If I can do that, I can certainly move them to
some archived storage instead.
> * 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.
>
True.
> * 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.
>
I'm not convinced this is true for ordinary computer usage. Word
processors, email clients, bittorrent clients, browsers. All are fully
usable on Linux. The problem comes in when the professor says he wants
all student papers in Word 7.0 (docx) format, with embedded graphs and
spreadsheets. *Now* you have a problem. Again, market inertia.
> 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.
>
Mac is a great platform because the hardware is stable (and so is the
software). The big problem with Mac is that you pay a premium for having
that "Apple" name on the box. Apple's gotten smart of late, and dropped
their prices. But the other problem is that Apple has always marketed
itself as an elitest alternative. Yes, I know they see Mac as the
"computer for the *rest* of us". But look at their latest commercials.
They portray the non-Apple users as idiots. Talk to the average Mackie,
and even though their computer is "the computer for the *rest* of us",
they still have a *very* elitest attitude. This is Jobs' doing, and has
been the thrust since the beginning of Apple. If Jobs would drop this
slant, he could probably take over a much larger portion of the PC
market. If he would take a "Avis-like" attitude (we're number two, we
try harder), he could have more than 5-10% of the market, and do so by
selling a superior quality product.
(Side comment: It's funny that I see a lot of Linux people going to
Macs. This community is based in part on the idea that we should be free
to hack our software and hardware. Yet if anyone has a stranglehold on
its hardware and software, it's Apple. They control almost the entire
stack. Ironic.)
Paul
-- Paul M. Foster ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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