Linux - Immature but happening anyway

1999-04-14

The open software movement has long been seen as a David, able to topple the Goliaths of greedy corporations and sluggish standards bodies. In reality, better parallels might be derived from the natural world, where myriads of chaotic organisms work together, over time reducing old orders to rubble and creating their own. It happened with TCP/IP, which was considered the de facto standard by the masses long before it was grudgingly adopted by the big people. It shall happen, indeed it is happening, with Linux.

Despite its ready adoption by the technical community, it has to be said that Linux is probably not ready for mass-market rollout. As a Unix derivative, Linux is too complex to be given to “just anybody.” Efforts are underway to change this – Caldera Systems, for example, are launching an easy-to-use Linux but even they admit it isn’t ready to be pitched against Windows. Linux also lacks the applications support of Windows, a fact acknowledged by Red Hat, another Linux distributor.

Yes, Linux is immature. However this does not seem to be preventing a desire for its adoption across the industry. In a recent poll of 3Com customers, 50 percent of respondents requested support for Linux, a fact which has caused 3Com to rewrite its Linux strategy. Other companies are experiencing the same upsurge and are responding accordingly. It is unlikely that the Linux bandwagon is a fad: rather, the global technical community is responding to the potential of a robust, flexible, free operating system. Experience shows that, once this level of consumer interest exists, it is unlikely to go away despite the best efforts of the giants to subvert or ignore it.

(First published 14 April 1999)