I just read an insightful article at InformationWeek, “Why Linux Will Succeed On The Desktop” by Nicholas Petreley. He makes a number of important points very clearly:
- “The Perfect Generic Client” - GNU/Linux does things on the desktop very well and because the web makes so much available, why pay for that other OS?
- “Linux’s ‘Window’ Of Opportunity” - Thanks to M$ killing off the competition and releasing Vista as if it weren’t a beta, there is a large vacuum into which GNU/Linux can expand. Which would you prefer, a buggy, DRM-laden bit of vapourware, an OS from 2001, which although widely used and fairly well debugged, has given new meaning to the term, mal-ware, or a rapidly developing OS with world-wide support and a vibrant community of developers working publicly?
- “Obstacle: More Preloaded Linux Systems Are Needed” - Most people do not install an OS. GNU/Linux can grow rapidly in usage if OEMs distribute it from the factory. This is happening now with Dell, Lenovo, Acer, HP, and a host of smaller operators like System76 and others (LXER pre-installed LInux database). Another technique for setting up GNU/Linux desktops rapidly is the LTSP which was used by the Extremadura region of Spain to put up thousands on a weekend.
- “Obstacle: KDE Must Replace GNOME As Linux’s Preferred GUI” - The GNU/Linux world largely shifted to GNOME as a result of licensing issues that have now been resolved. KDE has definite advantages on the desktop which Linus Torvalds has recommended. I have not used KDE much since Caldera eDesktop but I could put it on my terminal servers if I wanted to test it. Students mostly use a few apps so it does not make much difference that I can see. To a wider spectrum of users, this may matter and because one of the goals of KDE was to smooth the transition from that other OS this may be a strong point.
- “Open Document Formats Will Drive Adoption” - Organizations large and small appreciate the security of using an open standard for documents. M$ has promoted themselves as the standard but then keep changing the default format of their wordprocessor in order to sell new copies. The world has been fooled often enough that they do not want to be fooled again.
- “The Bottom Line” - “Of the three top competitors on the desktop, Windows, Mac OS-X, and Linux, only one of them is free as in beer. That will go along way toward making it the de-facto standard on the desktop.”
