Someone introduce him to Linux GUIs, would ya? > ****************************************************************** > NUA INTERNET SURVEYS NUA INTERNET SURVEYS NUA INTERNET SURVEYS > Weekly free email on what's new in surveys on the Internet > By Nua Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.nua.ie/surveys/ > ******************************************************************* > November 9th 1998 Published By: Nua Limited Volume 3 No. 38 > ******************************************************************** > EDITORIAL > ******************************************************************** > > LINUX AND GOLIATH > > Welcome to another weekly edition of Nua Internet Surveys. This newsletter > provides information on surveys and reports on the Internet, and is > brought > to you by Nua - one of Europe's leading Internet consultancies and > developers. > > Linux is a Unix-based operating system (OS) which many industry analysts > believe has the potential to make a strong dent in Microsoft's 90 percent > share of the OS market. Linux users are reportedly growing by 40 percent > every year and the Linux homepage gets 100,000 page views *every day* from > people looking for information on the free operating system. > > Does an OS built on open-source software such as Linux pose a threat to > companies like Microsoft? > > Forrester Research analyst Carl Howe reckons that big companies are too > scared to use Linux. He believes this is because it doesn't support many > applications, because it's difficult to purchase and because there aren't > enough big names behind it. > > I don't agree - and neither do the people at Microsoft who penned the > following thoughts in the "halloween" memo which was leaked onto the > Internet last week. > > "The ability of the OSS process to collect and harness the collective IQ > of > thousands of individuals across the Internet is simply amazing. More > importantly, OSS evangelization scales with the size of the Internet much > faster than our own evangelization efforts appear to scale. > > "Additionally, the intrinsic parallelism and free idea exchange in > OSS has benefits that are not replicable with our current licensing model > and > therefore present a long-term developer mindshare threat." > > The fact that Sun Microsystems is shipping its new Java Development Kit, > JDK > 1.2, in a Linux version - even though it is a potential threat to Sun's > own Solaris system - is testament to the growing popularity of Linux as a > multi-platform operating system. Intel and Netscape among other venture > capital firms have recently invested in Red Hat Software, a major Linux > distributor. > > Proponents argue that Linux is an inherently stronger operating system, > with far greater survival prospects than a closed-source software OS such > as Windows. Software code written in an open community where the brain > power of many individuals is harnessed is likely to be more resilient than > software developed in the confines of one brain, no matter how genius. > > Much of the success of Linux has been attributed to the leadership skills > or, > more appropriately, the evangelizing skills of its founding father Linus > Torvalds. Linus, who developed Linux eight years ago in Helsinki, has > positioned himself as "gatekeeper" of Linux, benevolently controlling all > modifications while breathing energy into the community that builds it. > > In his excellent paper, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Eric Raymond, > obviously inspired by Linus, makes the following observation: "the cutting > edge > of open-source software will belong to people who start from individual > vision > and brilliance, then amplify it through the effective construction of > voluntary communities of interest". > > The "ego-less programming" culture of the Linux community, (evident in any > well orchestrated open-source software project), where thousands work > simultaneously on bug fixes and continual upgrading, has resulted in a > robust OS capable of true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, > demand loading, proper memory management and TCP/IP networking. > > There are precious few developer houses that can access, never mind afford > or > have the requisite genius to motivate, a commensurable calibre of talent > as > that which belongs to the Linux community. > > Linux's only drawback is in its usability, or rather its lack of it. Based > on > UNIX, it remains, for the moment, resolutely in geek territory. It's > mainly > used for launching software programs, tracking, building networks and > creating > databases. It's not very pretty and it takes a fair amount of technical > prowess to operate. At the same time, it's not rocket science, it's not > Microsoft, and it's free. > > For mainstream adoption of Linux all that is needed is a little sympathy > on > the part of the developers for technophobes like me. > > > Is mise le meas, > Sorcha Ni hEilidhe. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > ____________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done directly from our website for all our lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
