[ Thanks to Nobody for this link.
]
“That Linux will infiltrate and one day be the standard OS in
the data centers of the world’s top enterprises is a sure thing,
Torvalds says. From his office in Santa Clara, Calif., where he
serves on the software development team for Transmeta Corp.,
Torvalds recently discussed Linux’s enterprise trajectory and the
Linux phenomenon.”
“searchEnterpriseLinux: Many people are
disappointed in the speed of Linux’s adoption in enterprise
environments. Were they overly optimistic?
Torvalds: Hardly. Go back a few years ago, and
tell people where Linux is today, and most people would laugh in
your face. They’d not believe you for a second. I don’t see the
slowness. I used to see it, in just the reluctance of trying
something new, and the reluctance of depending on “this open source
thing” that people had a hard time getting their head around. But
that has passed – people get open source today. Now, are corporate
environments slow and careful to adopt? Sure. And are they often
unwilling to change? Check. Many corporate environments have the
“don’t fix it if it still kind-of-works” mentality, and the last
thing they want to do is to make changes to their IT department.
But is Linux still happening? Oh, yes.”
“searchEnterpriseLinux: If you had a choice
between Linux becoming more established on the desktop or on the
corporate server, which would you choose?
Torvalds: I think the desktop is king. It’s
the harder market to enter, but it’s the one that tends to encircle
and overtake the business use. Just look at how business
people laughed at PC’s and DOS 15 years ago. They aren’t laughing
now. And the desktop is actually how Linux got started
— my desktop. I wasn’t interested in servers, it
just so happens that the server environment is the one that is much
easier to enter, and as a result Linux has more of a server name
than a desktop name. Both will happen, but I think the desktop is
the more interesting one.”