Linux What's that My own survey. 3408

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There's still quite a bit of good advocacy here, but the issue is, I think, a much deeper one. A few years back, it wasn't clear whether free software would survive as a small fish in a very large sea, full of all kinds of sharks. There was, I think, plenty of opportunity to put a stop to free software, at least in the commercial arena, should the incumbent proprietary software players have wanted to, however, they did not choose to. Such is the nature of disruptive technology...

As things are now, it's bright and clear to all but the most blinkered of people that free software is here to stay, and that it is totally mainstream. It's not a question of 'if' in any way, it's very much a question of "when", in particular, the "when" will free software become significant in any particular market niche.

If you look back a few years ago, there were examples of Linux servers doing a bit of file serving, maybe a web server, perhaps a firewall or router, or a print server. They also made very good 'novell' servers, too. At that time, this group was rife with postings saying things like "Linux will never make it on the desktop", "There'll never be a usuable linux gui", "There'll never be a free office suite" and so on. The argument was that free software was written by hardcore geeky types who found writing kernels really exciting, but found writing GUIs boring. The particular justification for this was never explained, but the then group of 'billwg'-like characters, including Funkenbusch, were always ready to present the latest attack on free software. There were even 'horror stories' of the people who'd put in a linux server which had gone wrong and they'd lost their job. Flatty probably posted some of those, way back then.

This probably seems ludicruous now, but at the time, it was the major content of cola. Cola hasalwaysbeen a magnet for the anti-linux propaganda, much of which is known to be commercially supported.

If we look at where we are now, Linux is dominating the data centre, it's being embedded into all kinds of interesting devices - like my TomTom for Sat Nav, my Nokia 770 internet tablet, Motorola mobiles, linksys WAP (before Cisco bought them, naturally), Tivo PVR, Sony Playstation 3, storage devices, routers, etc. etc. Linux is all over the desktop, with multiple examples of major organisations migrating to Linux. Free software is pushing hard into the Telco world, with SER from iptel, (a SIP application server), the Asterisk PBX, major NEPs like Ericsson, Alcatel, Nortel, Nokia and others building their equipment on Carrier Grade Linux, the OSDL spec. The OSDL itself is another interesting artefact of the free software world. The growth in data-centre and high-end servers is also being pushed by HP, Novell and IBM. The middleware arena, telco and data centre, is being driven by JBOSS, with the Mobicents free IMS implementation hot on its heels.

To my mind, we arewaybeyond the tipping point for free software, so the nature of Cola has changed to reflect that. Where the traditional vendor(s?) were seeing free software as something which could be laughed at and FUDed away; now, itmustbe clear that those tactics have not only been unsuccessful, they've arguable backfired significantly, as pouring scorn on things also has the effect of providing a kind of credibility. Additionally, the proprietary world has helped the growth of free software from a completely different angle - that of their increasing hunger for unsustainable revenue streams. In order to maintain the amazing growth rates of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, big software vendors have been left with only one route - to keep pushing up the price they charge out to their customers. In any normal market, there is a limit to the elasticity of demand, but in the proprietary desktop software market, it was highly inelastic, due to the monopoly of a particular provider. As linux & open-office-gnu office-koffice have cracked this monopoly in the only commercially viable way, with a quality market entrant produced at zero effective cost (not really zero, but from a vendor perspective it is), which is the only way of hitting the ludicrously high market entry barrier due to the monopoly. The consequence is that there is now some elasticity back in this market, so 'gouging' will not be sustainable long-term, particularly where there is no apparent product quality improvement as the years go by, so no particular need to upgrade anyway.

So, Cola is likely to be the target for an increasingly desperate and therefore aggressive incumbent, trying to defend an unsustainable market share and pricing model. I think we can expect to seemorecharacters like billwg rather than fewer.

My personal take on this is that we should ignore the likes of billwg, funkenbusch, flatty and co, because responding to them provides them with a platform to further expound on their fud. As this is likely to get worse anyway, it's probably more important than ever to ignore them.

-- Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk Inform all the troops that communications have completely broken down.