“Q: Where would you like to see Linux go today?
…What could be done to most enhance the OS itself and why would
that element be important (user interface, killer app, or whatever)
and … in terms of commercial success. Is total world domination
(in the commercial space) important?”
“A: The big step is the desktop. There are
vendors with clear interests in this sort of area – Helixcode and
Eazel for example who are doing real money work on the GNOME
desktop. The other big area to deal with is high availability
clustering. Wensong Zhang did the first free Linux clustering for
web server failover and the like but that is only the baby steps.
To do full clustering and to be able to position Linux to replace
things like VMS as a highly available (and here we are talking
minutes of downtime a year) clustering solution is no small job. I
personally think the desktop or at least the thin client end of the
desktop is the most important. Linux has good security features
which makes it ideal for things like call centre environments,
although perhaps less so for their staff. Building a thin client
Linux environment with hotdesking, sensible shared file store and
good network efficiency is a golden opportunity.”
“Total domination is bad. The Microsoft dominance already
badly misled people about how to choose systems. Instead of ‘what
tool do I use for the job’ it’s ‘well it was shipped with the box’.
Linux is a tool, Windows is a tool and so are numerous other
systems. It’s really important people go back to looking for the
right tool for the job. That will never always be Linux. No single
tool can do everything well.“