tgdaily.com — Speaking to DistroWatch Weekly, Linus Torvalds recently rejected the Linux community's desire to consolidate Linux into one or two distributions, citing that even though Linux as an OS has failed to capture a significant OS market share foothold, the need to be free (in multiple distributions) is not just a good thing.
Feb 4, 2009 View in Crawl 4
markusxFeb 5, 2009
I never thought that was a particular good idea to have so many different flavors of Linux. It really doesn't help creating a mass following. It's just a prime example how competition can also hurt the market.
stevemaxFeb 5, 2009
Which market? The server market? The cell phone market? The PDA market? The console market? The mainframe market? The supercomputer market? The scientific workstation market?There is life beyond the desktop, and the existence of multiple distros is what allows Linux to fit in all of those, and more. There is a "best avenue" for each of those, and there are distros targetting each of them.
int19hFeb 6, 2009
If a server is shipped with Windows Server installed, it does not mean that Linux won't be installed instead. It's a flawed argument.Also, Google, Sun, IBM and Novell are hardly non-critical and low end.I have yet to see any numbers showing Windows in "a dominate overall position" either. Do you have them?
jqp123Feb 6, 2009
"If a server is shipped with Windows Server installed, it does not mean that Linux won't be installed instead. It's a flawed argument."No, it just means that you're an idiot for paying big bucks for a license you don't want/need. The people buying *server* hardware are mostly IT professionals, not idiots. "I have yet to see any numbers showing Windows in "a dominate overall position" either. Do you have them?"Do you prefer to talk revenue or units shipped?Revenue: MS 40%, Linux 14% Units: MS 60-70%, Linux 20-25%The discrepancy between units and revenue reflects the fact that both Windows and Linux tend to be used on lower cost x86 hardware. The average cost for a x86 server is $3-4K. Outside x86, the average cost is $60-70K (think "big iron").<a class="user" href="http://www.marke****ch.com/news/story/Worldwide-Server-Market-Decelerates-Third/story.aspx?guid={96EFC534-AC1A-49EC-AA75-84C92A209338}">http://www.marke****ch.com/news/story/Worldwide-Se ...</a><a class="user" href="http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18838">http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18838</a>
v1ncentFeb 6, 2009
The man hours of development recreating the wheel on a lot of the distros is a tremendous waste as well.
azathothhFeb 6, 2009
yeah choice is great. Choice of various s**tty tastes of the Linux turd.
stabbymctwistFeb 7, 2009
I mostly agree. Linux *does* need to be in different distributions, but there, at least, need to be a handful of bigger, less technical ones out there. We need a "noob distro" to a: get people into Linux systems in the first place, and b: for the not-so-techish people. Most people are lost on the idea of a package manager, and are used to installing things from disks or download-hunting. A ton of people can't even properly use a search engine, they'll just type in a question or a full sentence.