Linux for the masses?
Monday, August 4th, 2003LinuxWorld 2003 opens this week in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, giving Linux vendors and enthusiasts of all descriptions a chance to showcase their favorite operating system.
By all accounts, Linux is doggedly continuing its march toward respectability and, perhaps, even boredom. Like a motorcycle-riding, leathers-wearing, tattooed CPA, Linux has a whiff of youthful danger and rebelliousness about it, despite being, in its daily work, rather dull. Sure, it’s got a cute side, too, epitomized by that ubiquitous penguin. Put it to work, though, and the open-source OS is all business.
Where Linux is finding its most sympathetic audience is in the data center — the data-processing, web-page-serving brains of the modern corporation. Most companies aren’t using Linux for critical systems like inventory and payroll yet, but it does play an increasingly important role in giving those systems a friendly, Webby front end. That’s because it’s cheap, easy to modify, and it’s open source. You know exactly what you’re getting — no pigs in a poke here.
Will Linux ever find significant traction as a desktop system? I doubt it. Open source development is good for producing tools for geeks — operating systems, programming tools, and the like. But consumer-oriented, user-friendly, general-purpose computer systems? Not likely. Linux may be powerful, but as far as consumers are concerned, you can’t give it away.
In fact, it’s much more probable that Unix will find its way onto your desktop–if it does–with an Apple icon on it than a penguin.
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