A recent column on Zdnet, by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, discussed the reasons why people won't change from a retail operating system to a free one. The implication is that Linux can't even give away their software.
Full story »A recent column on Zdnet, by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, discussed the reasons why people won't change from a retail operating system to a free one. The implication is that Linux can't even give away their software.
Full story »
pogson
17 years 7 weeks 2 days 4 hours ago
Linux on the server has done very
Linux on the server has done very well and on the desktop Linux is going strong with a very high year over year growth. Web stats that most rely on are not a good sample because many of the early adopters: schools, governments, small and medium sized businesses do not encourage users to browse to the sites sampled. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems
Dell put out a OpenDocumentPresentation (.odp) that shows on slides 5 and 6 current estimates from surveys. It looks like 6% of desktops use Linux today and it is predicted that about 10% will be using Linux on the desktop by 2009. The numbers for the USA are much smaller, but Dell is still happy with selling about 30000 units already. At that level, Dell and others will soon advertise to promote, rather than just to make available Linux on the desktop. It will be awkward to distribute free software because there is no profit in it per se, but Dell, and others will have to pay attention to what the customer wants or the customers will go to Dell's competition. Dell is also working with suppliers to consider Linux compatibility issues when designing any product. This is good.
see "The Corporate Linux Desktop-Fact, Fad or Fantasy" by Cole Crawford, IT Strategist, Dell, Inc.
http://linux.dell.com/files/presentations/LinuxWorldExpo_SanFrancisco_20...
We live in interesting times.