Hardware Vendors Will Follow Money To Open Source 194
Stony Stevenson writes "Dirk Hohndel, Intel's chief technologist for open source, believes the installed base of Linux-based desktops could potentially double this year, based just on Eee PC sales. Speaking at open source conference Linux.conf.au in Melbourne, Hohndel said commercial pressure will be the incentive for traditionally Windows-centric hardware vendors to begin offering open source drivers and Linux-based systems to their customers. 'Open source has made the most inroads in the server market, where Linux-based servers represent roughly a quarter of the total market. But in other segments, such as mobile phones and desktops where open source hasn't had as much of an impact, vendors were less interested, Hohndel said. Linux penetration of the desktop environment is currently at around 0.8 percent, but Hohndel said consumer behavior is changing this.'"
Potentially? Come on. (Score:2, Insightful)
Integration is key (Score:5, Insightful)
Just the ability to sync your mobile phone with a Linux platform (which I assume it will provide) will be a huge boost for Linux on the desktop, when it comes to small and medium business.
Actually, the slashdot "does it run linux" meme is very much appropriate here. If the devices you want run Linux and are compatible with other Linux devices, it only makes sense to adopt an all-Linux home/shop/business, etc...
Re:Linux is bigger in Embedded than in servers (Score:3, Insightful)
If you call it a desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Potentially? Come on. (Score:5, Insightful)
He said something different though: "The Eee PC is expected to hit 3 and a half million in 2008. There's a single computer that's going to double this figure this year". It seems the cop-out is in the summary rather than in Hohndel's statement.
Re:Integration is key (Score:5, Insightful)
On Linux, we get a bad rap for poor hardware support. It's not really the case. We have good or, in many cases, excellent hardware support for a wide swath of popular hardware. But you have to do the necessary research to know what to buy and what not to buy when it comes to buying hardware for your Linux machine. In the Windows world, you stick with the big names -- they're guaranteed to work. In the Linux world, one scanner model from a vendor might be supported by SANE and another from the same vendor might not be.
A bright, enterprising individual would do well to come up with an online and -- even better -- a brick and mortar store that specializes in selling hardware that works well on Linux. Sure, it's been tried before and failed -- but that was then and this now and Linux has gotten much better support for hardware in recent years.
Re:Potentially? Come on. (Score:5, Insightful)
As it is frequently pointed out in this site... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool! A new year! (Score:4, Insightful)
"eee" - a good intro to Linux for the masses (Score:2, Insightful)
All they'll know is they can surf and do email, and maybe listen to some music. Next they'll want to know if they can open a spreadsheet or write a document. Eventually they'll say, "Oh, this is Linux. This isn't so bad."
0.8 percent? (Score:5, Insightful)
I gave copies of Mandriva to several people last year. None of these copies of that OS is counted as a desktop OS; they are counted as Windows, since they were either added to Windows machines as dual boot or replaced Windows completely.
A lot of GNU desktops MUST be being counted as Windows. Nobody asked ME how many copies of Linux I gave away!
Someone (Clemons?) once said there are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, and statistics.
-mcgrew
(don't bother with today's journal)
Re:Horse Bones beaten with sticks (Score:3, Insightful)
The opportunity is open to move laterally into Vista territory. Vista is "better" than XP, but not better "enough" to throw away XP and spend twice as much money on a Vista compatible computer.... since Microsoft spent the entire XP era shooting PC gaming in the foot (with XBOX) the number of people that care about high performance is dwindling... combine that with Intel's "integrated" graphics that again limit gaming or other high end apps and 75% of customers really aren't buying machines much past these low end boxes.
The downside of Vista is that there is really nothing special Vista does, few apps, etc, that do something you can't do on Mac or Linux. (as we've taken gaming off the table and most people don't run "high end apps") Now is the time OEMS will want to move some hardware anyway they can. Due to the price of Vista, the sub $300 market is ripe for linux picking. The very dangerous thing will be when OEMS start selling small systems to do "just one task" very well.. eeePC is the tip of that spear... as they sell them hand over fist, more OEMS will want do do that too.
Re:The obligatory Star Trek quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool! A new year! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think your average user would be better served by other applications [koffice.org]. And for all the times I hear "but they won't have Photoshop", I have to wonder how many people actually use PS in the first place. Outside a handful of graphic designers, no one I know has it installed.
Linux yes, open source, no (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is today most computer gear is commodity chips with the software/firmware/driver making it a unique product with a value proposition for the consumer. The hardware is easy to replicate - China has built a large part of their enconomy doing just that. The software is more difficult - so much more difficult that successful companies in the hardware space may be taking advantage of Far East production of the hardware device but keeping the firmware and drivers close to the vest. Failure to do that invites theft and results in a cheap knock-off with the R&D provided for them.
What this means is a printer where the driver does most of the work is cheap to design and cheap to produce. Anyone can copy the printer. Copying the driver - unless the hardware is 100% identical - isn't going to work. But if the source were available, it could easily be adapted to slightly different hardware by a junior programmer. Instant windfall for someone.
Same goes for a next-generation gigabit network card that has firmware downloaded into it or just about any software-based device you can think of.
Patent protection is meaningless in a global environment where one party doesn't respect any patents. Look at the DVD player situation today - $29 retail DVD players are not paying the $6 DVD Forum licensing fee. There isn't enough room in there for $6 to anyone. But the US Customs folks allow these in all day long even though they are violating US patents. To block them would uselessly create trade problems and would prevent US consumers from getting cheap DVD players. This happens with every other sort of device you can imagine.
Re:As it is frequently pointed out in this site... (Score:3, Insightful)
A: Under the assumption that double of a small number is a small number we have: Y is small => 2Y is small
B: Thus for all n > 0 we have (2^(n-1)) * X is small => (2^n)X is small
C: Thus by the principle of mathematical induction we have that (2^n) * X is small for all n > 0 and X > 0.
D: However, if X > 0 , then the sequence a(n) = (2^n) * X has no upper bound and is strictly increasing. Hence it diverges towards infinity.
E: So either double of a small number is not necessarily a small number, or all positive numbers are small numbers.
Replace the word "small" with "even" if you care to blow a giant smoking hole in your logic.
Nice, but where's the build quality? (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the China Problem, once there is someone brave enough to say "no" to them(and to those who step in their place) and enforce patent controls to where we can control quality with our borders.
Re:Linux yes, open source, no (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop windows piracy if you want linux to grow. (Score:2, Insightful)
This means refusing to hand your cd's over to your friends, refusing to visit usenet or x/y torrent site and download it, etc.
If you present them with the actual cost of windows, rather than the ubiquitous perception of "free", they will be compelled to see the real value...
200 bucks for MS operating system, or free for one that works 99% as well for 99% of users.
Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me back up. The majority of educational software is now web-based. 90% of middle and high school computer usage is either web based or using a dedicated word processor. It's not the Asus specifically that has us interested, but the concept. If you've seen the Asus, it's really more like a web appliance. The average person would look at it the same way they look at the iPhone or an ATM machine... they don't know or care what the OS is underneath.
So for education, this could be huge. As competition increases and these devices get down to $199, the previously expensive idea of "one laptop per child" does not seem so expensive any more. There are three groups of people who need to be paying close attention to this: Microsoft, Apple, and Textbook makers.
Put this together with education's interest in "Web 2.0," aka "The Read/Write Web" where all your school books and files are available to you online anywhere, and you're brewing up the perfect storm. Apple should be working on a device of their own right now, if they're smart, and Microsoft.... Microsoft should be praying.
Re:Potentially? Come on. (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean they had them in stock all the time before you told Slashdot where to get one?
Re:Cool! A new year! (Score:3, Insightful)
Last time I installed Windows was last August, pretty standard hardware, a copy of XP home SP2... And a driver disk for the network card, the sound card, the TV tuner card, The motherboard drivers, the keyboard and mouse, and last but not least, the video card. All non Microsoft drivers for hardware designed primarily to run on Windows. Oh.. and I needed to make a driver disk to get windows to recognize the SATA drive I was about to install onto, and needed a second keyboard and mouse to get everything working, as Windows didn't recognize my Logitech wireless usb keyboard and mouse.
Now for Linux, I inserted the disk, and I had the network card recognized and set up automatically, and the sound card was also automatically set up and working on first boot, as was the motherboard drivers with USB2 functionality, and the SATA drive was recognised as such and treated appropriately. All on the exact same hardware which was all older than the copy of Windows I was installing. I would have had to download drivers for the video card, but thats about it. And Linux took minutes to format the entire 500gig drive, where Windows took hours.
If I am to take your statement seriously, we should hold Microsoft directly responsible for any hardware that does not work under Windows, as to paraphrase your comment, "It is up to the developers to put in the effort to make Windows run as well as possible"