Hello! What do you think about this? Will it be very popular desktop system, or will be completely got out by Microsoft? Or there'll be no Microsoft and Linux will be in war with FreeBSD. or , maybe , various distributions become very different between each other?


I think, that everything will happen so as now, Windows'll became very good and stable and linux - very user friendly and easy, but secure. And part of those OS's in market won't change.


Also I'm afraid athat after 2-3 years there'll be no linux at all. It'll be history

linux is just apache , sendmail , dns stuff and other heavy weight , similar to mainframe , stupid and stubbon but important and necessary.

I think, that FreeBSD or some commercical UNIX-like OS more suitable for server

yup , never try bsd before but under the impression that bsd is well in security , as for those commercial unix's , linux might as well "fight" with them ........ i don't know ..... just a thought ...

I think, freebsd's security is not worse. And for commercial UNIX'es - for example, linux cannot fight with QNX. And what about something like HP-UX, or Win 2003 server, or longhorn (I don't know)?

Try to remember that some of us have already been using linux as a dektop OS for 10 years already (and more). It will not dissappear in 2-3 years years, and long term users like myself don't really care what 'market share' it has now or in 5 years time. Linux is outside all of that and less likely to suffer fates like that of OS/2 and such... BSD will also be here a long time. It's very likely that there will be other FLOSS alternatives in the future. MS is in for a rough ride trying to fight disruptive technologies that it can't buy out or pay off...

well , lazy and "can't be bother" type of bosses still prefer "looks-like-important-expansive" experts than garage-freethinker-"but still have to pay" hackers who are trying very hard to impress the world ,

business still business ......... that's why i call it a "fight"(note : no swallon high-spirited fight down here , just kind of a .... ok.....why not)

Probably not. But I don't care about whether or not it's popular.

Probably not. Maybe in the US, if M$ successfully bribes the congress, president, courts and/or SCO + others. But I'm quite confident that M$ can't buy out the world at large.

I like the idea of no M$. Linux at war with FreeBSD? I don't think so. I think that the `business linuces' (RH Enterprise, SuSE, ...) will continue to be driven from a business pov, which includes concern for market share, PR, and competitive quality solutions (yuck, I hate those phrases). If they have to `fight' both other linuxen and FreeBSD, that's what they're gonna do. But there won't be a two-sided war between Linux and FreeBSD.

Of course, individual zealots will always think that they are right and everyone else are wrong, and the world will be a Much Happier Place To Live And Have A Happy Little Family In if only their way was practiced. As usual, they're wrong. Me too

<Mr. Mackey voice>Forking's bad. You shouldn't fork, mm'kay.</Mr. Mackey voice>
Today, most distros have very different goals:
* debian: free (dfsg) software. Free, free, free. With support for non-free, though.
* ututo-e: free (GPL, LGPL and FDL only(!)). Free, Free, Free. We don't need no stinking non-free stuff.
* ubuntu: free(-dom), free of charge, i18n'ed, l10n'ed. sed -e 's/debian/ubuntu/g' dfsg.txt
* RH Enterprise stuff: *ralph-from-simpsons-voice* we wanna make money.
* collectively: "shut up, RH!"
(sorry)

seriously, they all have different goals. However, I think that most development done by the developers of the individual distros are fed back upstream, and thus benefit the other distros (after a grace period, of course). This leads to the (imo quite good) situation we have today, which might have prompted your question: "it's all the same shit".

This is called standardization (s13n?)

quality is in the eye of the beholder. It'll never become good for me. If it's good for you, then good for you (pun intended).

Linux, in some incarnations, is already very user friendly and easy.
I take it that you have a point in calling linux secure, but not windows. Good point. Windows probably won't be secure. Ever.
Then again, just because we have file permission flags and other well thought out mechanisms doesn't mean that our systems are secure. It's because we *make* them secure that they are. And trust me, if Joe. J. End-Luser keeps wondering why his machine keeps getting slower and slower, only because he installed kazaa and a lot of other stuff from [whoever], there _will_ be plenty of insecure linux boxen. However, the weaknesses will probably not be as severe as on windows--Joe will only loze his preciouz mp3z and savegamez (sorry for the z's).

save for upgrades, I take it.

on what do you base that fear?

That is excellent information about distro's, What can you say about slackware?
About kaaza and so on:
But if he just bought his PC, and not knowing about root and spyware, who'll be the root there?

I fear because windows grows very fast, there are very good "solutions" and technolohies :'(. But I wish Linux not to run for MS. I wish, that there'd be a questions "What Printer for work with Windows" or "What Linux programs have analogues in Windows", but not vice versa

Linux has been around since 1991.. I don't think its going anywhere anytime soon... and to those who worry about which OS is going to dominate, stop. It's not worth your time really in my opinion. Use what you want and comfortable with. The whole purpose of Linux is not to dominate, but rather make a great stable operating system anyone can use for any practical computer reason, server or workstation.

In 2-3 years, I will still be using Linux. Whether MS is still around or not, is not my worry. ("They will have to pry my Linux from my cold, dead hands!")

I have been playing/working with computers sice the late '70s. I remember watching MS grow over the years. I remember thinking that Win95 finally brought the most common desktop up to the standards we had in the mid-'80s. Linux brings back the fun I used to have with computers; the good feelings about doing something new and exciting. Monoliths like MS stifle innovation, while the "bazaar" of Open Source encourages it.

I don't think Linux will eliminate Windoze. I also don't think that Linux will be sent packing. So, I agree with a lot of the posters here.

However, I think Linux will continue to attract more and more users and slowly develop its appeal to 3rd party software developers. In the meanwhile, other open source projects will continue to make progress against their Windoze-centric alternatives. I think that 2005 is the year that Linux, and other open source software, will become more and more a household name. There will never be a landslide in increased use, but I think the groundswell that's been predicted to start as early as 2002 or 2003 is finally going to start and get noticed.

i suspect longhorn might give linux a heavy blow in 2 / 3 years time ,

i heard that longhorn can compile drivers on the fly , there's no need to put any code inside the hardware , and there's no need for programmers anymore ! This might imply that hardware will be very much cheaper than what is now and they only work and comply with longhorn technology.
If it's all very true then in the near future linux is just another advance OS which runs on expansive antique and slow hardware.

Be it a new advance longhorn technology on hardware , filesystem or desktop , everything is very "AI".

it nice to do a research on longhorn technology and see what they'v got for linux . And maybe you , as a programmer in linux , can do something about it . Everything is not lost.

"Artifical intellegence is for those who is lack of natural"

Haha.. Microsoft also promised better security but yet they still can't get that right.. I'll opt for the virus and bug free OS over some fancy compiling drivers on the fly.. cause over half the time, especially in a server environment, how often are you installing new hardware? Our servers sit and run and do their thing for days/weeks/months/years without even rebooting..