02-02-2009, 06:00 PM
There's always news sources claiming how linux is going to be the OS of the next year. This seems to be slightly exaggerated. I believe the last 4 years they've been predicting that practically everyone is going to use it the next year.
Now, while we are leaving januari 2009 a few news articles have come into view speculating how the economic crisis would actually force large companies to use cheaper solutions and thus allowing smaller players to a bigger piece of the cake and creating a lot of progress in the mid sector on the way.
Even the US government under Obama is considering open source as a way to save a lot of tax money. Now as you may know this open source software lives on the principle that when people produce programs designed to scratch their own itch and yet others add their input to scratch yet another set of itches then the end result is going to scratch a lot of itches in other words do a lot of things a user could wish it to do.
Microsoft on the other hand is reporting some problems with the first lay offs ever and some depressing set backs with vista. This together with the expectation that this tide is not going to turn just yet would indicate that linux is going to play a bigger role in the nearby future. It sounds good, but is it true this time?
A typical linux distribution was recently estimated to cost about 12 billion dollars if you had to build it from scratch. And every penny of this is donated by people who volunteer their time and effort to make something tangible in the vacuum of cyberspace..
Is this a model that we're going to see more of? Not just in the open software movement? But is it possible to get most of the people on the planet to participate in open projects that serve the long term benefit of mankind and the small term benefit of being part of a community with a bigger purpose?
A planet full of people who stand side by side
Now, while we are leaving januari 2009 a few news articles have come into view speculating how the economic crisis would actually force large companies to use cheaper solutions and thus allowing smaller players to a bigger piece of the cake and creating a lot of progress in the mid sector on the way.
Even the US government under Obama is considering open source as a way to save a lot of tax money. Now as you may know this open source software lives on the principle that when people produce programs designed to scratch their own itch and yet others add their input to scratch yet another set of itches then the end result is going to scratch a lot of itches in other words do a lot of things a user could wish it to do.
Microsoft on the other hand is reporting some problems with the first lay offs ever and some depressing set backs with vista. This together with the expectation that this tide is not going to turn just yet would indicate that linux is going to play a bigger role in the nearby future. It sounds good, but is it true this time?
A typical linux distribution was recently estimated to cost about 12 billion dollars if you had to build it from scratch. And every penny of this is donated by people who volunteer their time and effort to make something tangible in the vacuum of cyberspace..
Is this a model that we're going to see more of? Not just in the open software movement? But is it possible to get most of the people on the planet to participate in open projects that serve the long term benefit of mankind and the small term benefit of being part of a community with a bigger purpose?
A planet full of people who stand side by side