Explore by tag: microsoft

Two weeks ago we published a research paper estimating the development cost of a community Linux distribution. It was a fantastic project for the three of us who worked on it. The findings were surprising, even to me. It would take over $10 billion for a company to develop the software represented in Fedora 9.

Even more important than the money is time. The sheer number of years it would take to build this would make it daunting for any company to undertake. As soon as the OS was done, requirements/architectures/markets would have changed and they’d have to start all over again. That is one of the unheralded perils of proprietary software development. Since you are operating under central command, you lack the flexibility of a de-centralized community who can work in parallel. Or to quote from the paper:

Just imagine a computing world where Linus Torvalds ...

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It is hard for the executive director of the Linux Foundation to feel bad for Microsoft, but they are having a bad week while Linux continues to move forward in innovative ways into new markets for computing. Let’s take a look at the difference between Microsoft and Linux this week:

Monday: Microsoft starts its week with a front page story in the Wall St. Journal titled, “Microsoft Battles Low-Cost Rival for Africa.” In the article Microsoft is documented engaging in questionable practices against a Linux competitor that is springing up across Africa not because of any corporate conspiracy, but because it is free and open.

Tuesday: Microsoft reveals “Windows 7” which is widely regarded as an attempt to right the wrong that is Vista. Headlines were brutal: Infoworld: “Windows 7: The ‘dog food’ tastes bad”, Dallas News: “Microsoft previews Windows 7, and it looks like… Vista”, Computerworld: “Is Windows ...

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For those that decry the constant prediction of the “year of the Linux desktop” I am happy to say that next year Linux may actually ship on more desktops than Windows or the Mac. That is right, I said next year. What is driving this? Two words: fast boot.

Matt Richtell of the New York Times wrote a great article on Sunday about the demand for faster start up times on computers. In the story the chronicled how HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus and a array of other PC makers are starting to develop “machines that give people access to basic functions like e-mail and a Web browser in 30 seconds or less.” Here is the interesting part: Linux is providing that access.

Ashlee Vance, also of the New York Times, did a great follow up piece on the story chronicling just how prolific this trend is becoming. He states, “Over ...

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I read this morning that Microsoft has hired a former colleague of mine, Peter Galli, to be a Senior Communications Manager on Microsoft's Platform Strategy team.

I was glad to hear Peter had landed somewhere after Ziff Davis went through its latest round of layoffs a couple of months ago. Granted, not so happy he landed at Microsoft, but it appears his role there will be similar to my role here at the Linux Foundation: community manager.

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This week week we saw news centered around two studies on desktop computing trends: one from Forrester Research and one from IDC. Both reports come from highly regarded firms and both seem to point to contradictory trends.

Bad news first. Linux fans are now being compared to Cubs fans. For you non-sports enthusiasts, the cubs haven’t won a world series since 1908. According to Ben Gray of Forrester, “as optimistic as Linux enthusiasts are and will forever remain, they’re beginning to sound like Cubs fans with the never-ending hope of ‘There’s always next year.’” The report cites survey research showing Windows Vista migrations as “ramping up” in the enterprise while Mac makes inroads and Linux continues to muddle along. The report states that “IT operations professionals need to prepare for a more decisive shift in their desktop operating system (OS) strategy.” In other words, when it comes ...

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First let me state the obvious. If Google’s new browser is successful then the desktop operating system just became a lot less important. This is great news for Linux.

That begs the question: If Google’s new browser isn’t even available on Linux, why is this great news for Linux? Because in a world where most people access their applications through a browser it makes little sense to have PC’s that are loaded with a heavy and bloated operating system. In particular in makes a LOT less sense for people to PAY for a heavy and bloated operating system. Count on seeing a Linux version of the Google browser very soon.

Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch said it best.

“When combined with Gears, which allows for offline access (see what MySpace did with Gears to understand how powerful it is), Chrome is nothing less than a full ...

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Declaring victory for the Linux desktop at the end of the day will based upon looking at market penetration of Linux based clients vs. Windows and other operating systems. I believe this is still the best measure but we may finally be able to declare this year the breakout of the Linux desktop.

When looking at operating system software adoption it is important to look at trends and not a single break through event that will signal that “we have made it.” It is kind of like economic forecasting – you look at a lot of leading indicators to decide whether we are heading towards an expansion or a recession; inflation, interest rates, productivity, employment rates, etc. It is worth applying this logic when looking at the Linux desktop. Based on just a cursory glance of news this week it is clear that all leading indicators suggest a significant expansion on ...

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Walking around Linuxworld this year it was interesting to see the number of Apple notebooks in the halls and various sessions. It wasn’t necessarily that there were more Apple notebooks than Linux machines, but it was a good number and begs the question: why do open source people seem to cut Apple some slack when it comes to their very closed proprietary platform?

The question can be answered by thinking of operating systems like prison. For decades, operating systems have been trying to lock users into their platforms. Think of it like an operating system prison. But what if operating systems really were prisons? What kind of prisons might each of them be? Let’s look at each one:

Apple. This prison has the highest security of them all. It is a singular prison with extraordinarily high walls that govern almost every aspect of what you do. They decide ...

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It has been years since we have seen a full scale operating system war. Today’s announcement by Nokia that they will be open sourcing Symbian and making it available royalty free is the opening of yet another front in the blossoming mobile OS conflagration.

Mobile computing is a complex market with intricate relationships between the mobile carriers, device manufacturers, regulators, and their various suppliers. The best way to think about this is to see its similarity to the early days of the personal computer. In fact, mobile devices are getting to look a lot more like personal computers every day as Moore’s law continues to drive down the size and price of mobile device components while increasing their power. Most of today’s low end smart phones are far more powerful than a laptop from even just a few years ago. Think about a device that is priced ...

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About a week ago Microsoft announced something they are calling SSDS. According to their web site “SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) are highly scalable, on-demand data storage and query processing web services. Businesses use storage resources as needed transforming large upfront capital and operations expenditures into much smaller on-demand costs.” In other words - cloud computing.

Even though they have bad marketing and an even worse name, this is something that the Linux ecosystem should pay attention to as Microsoft rolls this out into the market. Ray Ozzie stated it pretty accurately, “The greatest impact that services will have on business will come from the inevitable shift toward utility computing within the enterprise.” Linux has an early lead in this area with service offerings like Amazon’s Linux based S3 and IBM’s Blue Cloud which uses Xen and PowerVM virtualized Linux operating-system images.

Today Web 2.0 start ups are ...

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Today the Linux Foundation is launching a podcast series that will feature conversations with the leaders of open source. For our inaugural post, we are pleased to present part one of our conversation with Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux Operating System and fellow at the Linux Foundation.

We have broken the conversation with Linus into two parts. Part II will be available in the beginning of February. Future Open Voices installments will feature Novell President and CEO Ron Hovsepian; Martin Mickos, CEO of MySQL; and Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu Project.

If you’d rather read a transcript, you can find it here.

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