Robert Pogson

There has been a steady growth of Linux on the desktop and server for many years. The high-profile/large migrations have always made the headlines:

• “We changed the desktop systems from Windows to Linux during the weekend, when the civil servants came back next Monday morning they found Linux running on their desktop machines”
• 500000 desktops by SUN
• Indiana schools
• Bergen

There have also been many more smaller migrations for individuals and smaller organizations. These are difficult to measure but try a search via Google for linux migration desktop and you get 4 million hits.

So many Linux boxes are shipping in the world that some even count them as Windows machines. The list of suppliers of Linux boxes grows almost daily. OEMs large and small find Linux a desirable desktop product. One of the largest, Dell, expects 1% of sales to be Linux in the US. They will branch out to the rest of the world, where adoption rates are much larger. The institutional sales of Dell alone, could be huge for desktop Linux. The rate of growth is huge.

Microsoft has been in denial for years, but the recent change in tactics has been telling. When Microsoft bothers to make deals with Linux companies, we can be sure that Linux is taking a bite. The features of these deals include:

• cash payments by Microsoft upfront
• per-seat payments to M$
• promises not to sue customers over patents
• some wishful thinking about interoperability

These last two items are part of the FUD and PR against the finding in the EU that M$ does not do enough to permit interoperability. M$’s FUD that Linux violates M$’s patents is absurd. There are no software patents in most of the world and the US Supreme Court questions the validity of them, too, although there has been no ruling by them. Software is copyrightable, but not patentable even though the USPTO does issue what it calls patents without legal basis.

M$ does not bother to embrace technology it does not believe will fly or is flying. I do not trust M$ but they do know how to make money. Delaying Linux on the desktop or taking a piece of the action are two good ways to make money for them.

Countries like Uruguay are planning to pump up IT literacy with requests for bids. OLPC will be in the running for 150000 laptops. Several other countries are getting involved in OLPC. OLPC alone is expected to deploy 5 million Linux laptops in the coming year.

The properties of GNU/Linux that make it desirable on the desktop are:

• Unix/POSIX environment,
• Relative freedom from malware (like Solaris/MacOS X),
• Low licensing cost,
• Easy maintenance with many distro’s package management/bug tracking,
• No vendor lock-in,
• Worldwide cooperative project with contributions from many walks of life,
• Modularity, openness and freedom to copy.