Open source is finally coming into its own. With the deathblow to the supreme FUDsters SCO in the SCO vs. Novell litigation, there's little to hold back widespread acceptance of Linux and Open Source software on the desktop, in schools, or in business settings.
If you are not familiar with the history, The SCO Group filed suit against IBM, claiming (among other things) copyright infringement (later to be echoed by Microsoft claiming that Linux infringed 235 of its software patents), based entirely on their assertion of owning Unix, and that Linux contained code from it. This dealt a blow to more widespread adoption of Linux and Open Source systems in the business setting, and to IBM's bottom line. This is just a bare bones recap; the full story can be found on the tech-journalist site Groklaw. All the PHBs can breathe easier now, no longer needing to fear the threat of lawsuits when they convert to Open Source solutions for their workplace servers and business desktops.
And the offerings in that particular area are about to become quite rich indeed; Dell, Acer and Lenovo will all be offering Linux pre-installed on their systems, while Red Hat will be offering their Global Desktop, and the latest releases from Fedora, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS are creating a great deal of excitement for home users--upcoming releases from Suse and Mandriva will just up the thrill factor all the way to eleven.
Part of the excitement is due to how easy to use these systems have become, and another bit is from how really and truly awful Vista is. While my observations are anecdotal and based on what I've seen and heard (and even used myself), I think in this case that anecdotal evidence is more powerful than one would normally believe.
In this region (China/Taiwan, Asia-Pacific), vendors can't give Vista away; it's on offer for $66, with Office 2007 going for $80, while XP Pro goes for a little over $100 (if you can find it).
Think about that. The latest and greatest operating system is one-third cheaper than a system more than five years old, and even at that price, sales are lackluster at best. The number of computer users and vendors I've talked to in recent weeks telling me of their horror stories with Vista would fill a couple of diaries. Users just can't get it to work right, or it's slower than their older computer with XP, and vendors have an unprecedented demand to wipe it and replace it with XP.
I spent the better part of an hour trying (in vain)to help a hapless Vista user connect to a wireless hub. Talk about non-intuitive! Contrast that with my Linux box that recognized the hub from an easy dropdown menu, prompted me for the password, and Bob's your uncle.
And before you put this down to anti-Microsoft ranting, please understand that I used Windows as far back as Windows 95/98. Still have the disks around somewhere. While I always bought Macs, I did play around with other systems, and though I preferred the Mac platform (and what a wreck it was at the time!), I recognized how easy Windows made it for users to get stuff done, helping you get set up and get stuff done.
Microsoft seems to have forgotten what made them so big, bowing down to the media content giants to place active restrictions on the user can do while forcing them to buy new hardware that runs only a fraction faster, if at all.
There was a moment in the tech shop that I considered plunking down the $140 for Vista and Office 2007 (some troubles with my Ubuntu install); decided to save the cash for something useful and installed PCLinuxOS instead.
Kind of dreading this fall, as Suse, Fedora and Ubuntu will have shiny new releases, and picking just one will be a real toughie. Maybe a quad-boot? Too many choices. Why can't there only be one Linux? Also, could Baskin-Robbins just offer Vanilla?