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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Future For Linux

I believe 2008 will either make of break Linux and here is why:

Tens of thousands of Linux developers around the world spend their time maintaining over one hundred versions of Linux Distributions. An extreme amount of time is wasted. Even worse, half the Linux programs don't work because they were designed for one version of Linux, like Red Hat. Since people often use other distributions these same programs don't work on their distribution. For example, we see Dr. Neilsen tearing his hair out over getting the Intel Compilers to work on Ubuntu since they were designed for Red Hat.

There are two major things which will hopefully change all this. They are:
  1. The Linux Foundation- formed just this week. It's a foundation, backed by 70 vendors including Intel, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Google, Sun, Motorola, AMD, etc... It's mission will be to oversee the progress and development of Linux. By 2008 it should be a mature organization.
  2. The Linux Standard Base- The LSB has the goal of making the base of all Linux distributions standard. Thus, people who write applications, like Intel of Firefox, can just make their applications work on the LSB format and they will then work on all conforming Linux distributions. In 2008 they will release their next big standard. It will be a great day for Linux. Packages, like the Intel Compilers, will just work across all the major Linux distributions. No more things not working with Linux.
So my prediction: 2008 we see the foundation set for Linux to have all the pieces in place to become a unified entity and thus a powerful force. Then in around 2010, when Microsoft and Apple release their next big operating systems, Linux will be mature enough in its new unified state to give people a serious open source alternative. If Linux fails to unify properly, I think it may fail for good. Software is progressing to fast to get on top of things now.

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