The year of the fall of the Windows desktop

Got your attention, didn't it?

This is the type of nonsense people try to drum up readers for an article with. Just to get folks riled up.

"The Year of..." is ridiculous in general. It's also very relative.

For some people, Linux has been desktop ready for their needs for several years now.

For others, it has quite a ways to go, mostly in terms of some specialty hardware or an app they make specific and heavy use of that hasn't been made available in the Linux world yet.

One of the most contentious aspects of these types of articles and posts is that somehow Linux is meant to be 'competitive' with other companies and Operating Systems.

In a few responses to these posts, I have said, and I maintain, that Linux, in and of itself, is a product and creation of the global Linux development community.

It is self serving. Essentially, the development community, which 'makes' Linux, is more scholastic and perhaps even narcissistic in that it only exists to take care of itself. To improve upon itself. No other company or OS really matters in this aspect.

There are some companies, who, because Linux is 'free' and OpenSource, have taken it upon themselves to create a Linux based product and have entered themselves and that product into the competitive market.

Novell, RedHat and Canonical come to mind first, though there are others.

When one looks at the concerns of the Linux development community and the concerns of these companies using Linux as a basis for their product, the interests and priorities do not always mesh. In fact, they sometimes run completely counter of each other.

Linus Torvalds, I think, said it best when he replied when asked about Linux 'beating' Microsoft Windows that it was not his interest or intention to 'beat' Windows, it will be a completely coincidental happening.

Of course, that is not an exact quote, but it gets the meaning across.

The man who started Linux, isn't interested in 'competing' with commercial Operating Systems. He just wants to make Linux be the best it can be. If it happens to end up better than some other software, that is not on purpose, just a happy coincidence.

To be reasonable about this, it isn't very likely the marketshare MS Windows currently enjoys would be able to be replicated, even by MS itself in these consumer watchdog times.

If MS were starting from ground zero, like some of these companies pushing a Linux based product are now, the contracts and tactics they employed in the pioneering 80's aren't to be found today.

This is a very litigious society, people are on the lookout for the next company they can sue out of existence for any slightest show of misconduct or legal mis-step.

Remember those 'fan-boys' we discussed in the last article? It is many of those types of folks who perpetuate these "my dog is better than your dog" articles and headings to get someone else's goat.

I approach Linux and most software from a technicians point of view. Does it meet the needs that are needing a solution? How well does it meet those needs?

What type of environment will the OS and software we are looking at or need to look at, be running in?

It is the needs and outcomes that determines the tools we should use, not public opinion or juvenile one-upsmanship.

In one situation, we may find that due to financial resources and the intended use by the user, Linux will work just fine and in that case, go right ahead and use it.

In another case, it may be that certain software must be used and it can only be used with Windows and the environment is more conducive to Windows. Then by all means, use Windows, if it is the best tool for the job.

It's fine to debate commercialism vs community and OpenSource versus proprietary. However, let's not get too carried away with the black and white hats.

Let's keep our arguments logical, reasonable and fact based. We can all become very emotional when something, an ideal or philosophy we really believe in is the subject of disagreement.

So, when will the demise of Windows on the desktop be? Based on how much I can charge people to fix it for them, I hope it's a long long time away.