Ex-Microsoftie: Linux will destroy Windows

[Penel]

Ex-Microsoftie: Linux will destroy Windows - Computerworld Blogs

I curious to see how a Windows Linux distribution would fare out.

[BrownieCat]

Originally Posted by Penel

Ex-Microsoftie: Linux will destroy Windows - Computerworld Blogs

I curious to see how a Windows Linux distribution would fare out.

That article reminded me of another thread on these forums in which some said that Microsoft could start its own distro project.
Won't be a good distro, I can reckon. Maybe they'll discard all standard Linux GUIs (GNOME, KDE, Xfce) and create their own Linux-compatible version of Aero for their distro.
And many Linux users hate all things Microsoft, so they wouldn't use Microsoft's Linux for anything.

[john_hudson]

This is quite an old story and MS has moved on since then. The question really is: does MS have a future after Windows? IBM is still with us because it has reinvented itself each time its previous way of working was no longer viable.

At the moment there is no sign that MS has the capacity to do this and its best hope is to remain a niche market player in a specific area. But things can change.

[growbag]

Well if MS did create their own Linux distribution, I'm sure it would bring valuable and much needed artistic talent, and the distro would be focused more on the end user than all our current offerings.

When you really stand back and have a good hard look at the distros we have now, there is (in my opinion) far too much emphasis on telling the end user to comply with the way it's done traditionally, rather than listening to the end user and making Linux work for them.

I'm not an MS bed-partner, or an opensource terrorist, but I do believe the white-sock & sandal brigade need to be brought into line if Linux is ever going to be accepted by the masses.

As the Dacia commercial says - "It's about what people need".

[saahne]

I think Preston Gralla's columns are horrible. There's a more interesting take on the rise of Linux and OpenSource here: Jason Brooks: eWEEK at 25: Open Source Has Proven a Remarkably Fertile Platform that mocks the ridiculous conclusion at the end of Gralla's piece.

Gralla:

And I also don't agree that making things free is always the proper engine for technological growth. Frequently, the profit motive drives technology breakthroughs.

Brooks:

In the 10 years that I've been a part of eWEEK Labs, I've seen Linux-based operating systems progress at an astonishing rate, moving from light-duty, edge-of-network tasks to the heart of enterprise data centers.

On the desktop, my experiences with Linux have gone from painful, in 1999, to workable, in 2002, to satisfying, in 2004. Since about 2006, when Ubuntu Linux hit its stride, I've been convinced that a tipping-point-type flip toward Linux isn't a matter of if but of when. That may sound absurd, but the velocity of innovation we’ve seen on Linux during the past 10 years couldn't paint a clearer picture.

Outside of the relatively mature server and desktop fields, the footprint of Linux and open-source software is even more dramatic. Cloud computing and Web 2.0 wouldn't exist as we know them today without Linux and open source, and every time some new appliance or gadget hits the market, there's a good chance that it's Linux that's driving the hardware.

[buckesfeld]

* john hudson wrote, On 11/06/2009 08:56 AM:
> The question
> really is: does MS have a future after Windows?

Define "after Windows". If you talk about the often predicted demise of desktop operating systems the way we know them today, it will also be the end of Linux.

Uwe

[john_hudson]

No, I'm not convinced about the demise of what we now call 'desktop' systems; I think they will evolve. We had a very interesting talk at the Bradford GNU/LUG about the way in which the desktop computer is becoming the home archive - photos, home videos, genealogies, etc.

There may come a time when people are more likely to access the Internet in other ways but they will still have their home computer as their home archive.

I see no long term future for Windows because it was built on a 1980s desktop view of the computer and because the lack of discipline in the underlying code will make it increasingly difficult to maintain.

For example, manufacturers were expected to write new drivers for their peripherals for Vista and the same has happened with Windows 7. That isn't a viable long term model for doing business.

[microchip8]

If Linux kills Windows at some point, I suspect it won't be soon at all. About the demise of the desktop, I don't think so. Even with cloud computing gaining popularity, a lot of people do not trust their data being hosted by some corporation, no matter what they promise. I suspect that the more interconnected we get and the more people want to access their private (sensitive) data, home servers will gain even more popularity so I won't be surprised that in the (near) future, a lot of home machines will be acting as small servers and this will just increase. Further, some tasks are better done on a local 'desktop" computer than somewhere else. F.ex encoding is better and easier done on local computers as currently, lots of people just don't have the bandwidth nor the (monthly) volume to upload huge files somewhere else just so they can encode them and then pull the result back to their machines

[brunomcl]

Originally Posted by john_hudson

the desktop computer is becoming the home archive - photos, home videos, genealogies, etc.

Humm, if some big hardware player starts selling an appliance with, say, mythtv-like modular software, that manages all that and more (games!), plus browsing for cloud computing (google docs, etc.), then I can see the death of the ubiquitous end-user paid-for Operating System. Other than that...

[buckesfeld]

* john hudson wrote, On 11/06/2009 10:36 PM:
>
> No, I'm not convinced about the demise of what we now call 'desktop'
> systems; I think they will evolve. We had a very interesting talk at the
> Bradford GNU/LUG about the way in which the desktop computer is becoming
> the home archive - photos, home videos, genealogies, etc.

Well, if we see more "cloud" computing, all you need is a dumb terminal. Let the cloud handle access to local storage. Most people will not think about the design if the setup lets them access their local files one way or the other.

> I see no long term future for Windows because it was built on a 1980s
> desktop view of the computer and because the lack of discipline in the
> underlying code will make it increasingly difficult to maintain.

MS definitely has the resources to start all over, don't you think? And the Linux approach isn't that different from Windows here.

> For example, manufacturers were expected to write new drivers for their
> peripherals for Vista and the same has happened with Windows 7. That
> isn't a viable long term model for doing business.

Doesn't look like writing drivers is a problem in terms of resources. Even very small companies make drivers for their hardware.

Uwe