MLUG.CA: The Linux Paradigm Shift--From PC to Network

[ Thanks to Nicholas Accad for this link. ]

"Given today's organizational needs it is unlikely that, given a clean slate, a knowledgeable and unbiased systems designer would opt for offices filled with full PC's with networking added on after the fact. This arrangement produces high-cost, maintenance-intensive infrastructures with unnecessary limitations on functionality.

"The primary reason that the PC as a simple device is being supplanted by the network is that Open Source software is the main platform for the Internet; and it's rooted in the UNIX/Linux network operating systems. As Tim O'Reilly has pointed out in The Network Really is the Computer 'What started out as a software development methodology is increasingly becoming a facet of every field, as network enabled conversations become a principal carrier of new ideas.' Everything is moving towards network-aware functions. This fact is even embodied in Microsoft's .Net initiative.

"Internet capability is one thing while internal LANs are another. But the philosophy of the Internet is spilling into the LAN as well. And increasingly, Open Source and Linux is finding a place here too..."

Complete Story

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