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Quo vadis Linux?

Written by
Date: 2010-10-01 11:36:30 00:00


I was trying to figure out a topic to write about. I usually focus on Tutorials and tips, as not being a native English speaker, my grammar is not good enough to write opinion posts. This time I decided to write about the future of Linux, and I was focusing of topics like:

  • Need of marketing
  • Teaching children how to use computers with Linux instead of others.
  • Focus on new devices, like smart phones, tablets, etc.

In the meantime, and while trying to clarify my mind, I stepped on this post written by Susan Linton owner of the well know Tuxmachines site.

Well, that article lead me to another articles, and opinions. Those clearly showed me what the future of Linux should not be.

The Linux community, or as Mark Shuttleworth said the free software community components, should not fight or argue with each other.

In my humble opinion, we all play our roll in trying to make Free Software bigger and bigger, and available and affordable to everybody.

It is certainly true that without Gnome, The Linux Kernel, The Debian project, and others Ubuntu would have never existed, but without Ubuntu, some of all of those projects would have never been as known as they are now.

Going back, to what was the first aim of this post, the future of Linux and what is needed to achieve the goals. Let’s for a moment pretend Free Software and Linux as a big corporation.

It needs:

  • An engineering department
  • A Finance department
  • A Marketing department
  • Last but not least a Board

Of course there are more things, but let’s keep things simple.

The engineering department is doing its job pretty well, and has been that way since the beginning, GNU/Linux as an operating system, works, and works well, there are thousands of posts about that.

Finance department, mmh, I have not enough knowledge to write about this, but I think that with small and big contributions of time, effort and money, this should be working, let me know if I am wrong.

Marketing department, here is where Ubuntu helped the community the most. In fact, to some newbies, Ubuntu is a synonymous of Linux, they distribute free Ubuntu CDs , made a lot of effort in spreading the word, and its community is one of the biggest if not the biggest. Of course others also help on this task.

A Board, If we see how Red Hat, Gnome, Ubuntu, are arguing with each other, we may clearly see, that board is not really working, and because of this, and not because the quality of GNU/Linux, we are not seeing better days for it.

I am not a big fan of Ubuntu, but I do not see a reason to attack it, they are doing its job making Linux more known.

Linux is still small, maybe too small compared to other Desktops, and we all should focus on that, in making people know, use and love Linux, the code is there, and there are a lot of engineers working on it. We engineers are well known as people who normally does not understand market rules, and even If Linux is free, it should be face and play with market rules in this global world. Otherwise Linux is not going to succeed.

If Linux is going to go over that infamous 1% market share it needs a common strategy, to achieve its common goal.

What are these strategies?, well, that could be the topic of another post.