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nair
July 21st, 2010, 03:54 AM
I was reading a book about Steve Jobs today that was discussing the concept of the "killer app" and how it played a role in the development of Apple as well as Microsoft. "Inside Steve's Brain" is the book, and it explained that the killer app for the Apple II computer (a clutch product for the survival of Apple) was Visicalc, which brought spreadsheets and other software tools into the realm of accounting and business mainstream software. The killer app for Microsoft was MS Office which helped streamline desktop publishing, spreadsheets, and email applications on top of the Microsoft platform.

My simple question is: What has been, is, or will be the killer app for Linux?

NMFTM
July 21st, 2010, 04:08 AM
Apache

Legendary_Bibo
July 21st, 2010, 04:12 AM
Itself

phrostbyte
July 21st, 2010, 04:14 AM
GNU Emacs

rollin
July 21st, 2010, 04:31 AM
I'm going to say something along the lines of music production, like "Ubuntu Studio" due to the cost of market alternatives out there. It might require a fork like RHEL5 to take the project on fully and invest the revenue back into the software and support services though...

chris200x9
July 21st, 2010, 04:40 AM
bash

marshmallow1304
July 21st, 2010, 05:23 AM
It's hard to have an open-source killer app, as many great apps that originated in Linux are now available for MacOS, Windows, etc.

iponeverything
July 21st, 2010, 05:36 AM
I think that idea as it presented by Steve, is that the killer app is an application that is unique to a particular platform that helps to drive the adoption of that platform. In the early days it was something to overcome the "what would ever do with a computer!" and later is was "why should I choose a mac over a pc."

The question of the killer app is now irrelevant, at least when it comes to linux.

- People no longer need to be convinced about why they need one of those computer things.

- Linux will live and die, solely on its usefulness and not by adoption rates or profitability.

Linux is different things to different people - It runs on tons of other things other than computers and it use is expanding because of the open development process that has proven to be a winner for science, government, corporations and desktop users.

Each one of those areas have their own popular applications, but none of them have the one "killer app" that driving it in that area. (android might be an exception)

HappinessNow
July 21st, 2010, 12:10 PM
(android might be an exception)

Android OS

iponeverything
July 21st, 2010, 12:30 PM
Or a killer application of the OS.

Phrea
July 21st, 2010, 12:39 PM
apache

+1

bryncoles
July 21st, 2010, 01:12 PM
xkill. Oh no, wait, that's my app killer! *ducks to avoid incoming missiles*

I think the GPL is the killer app, for me. It permeates every aspect of my computer use, and is the thing which informs and adds value to my computing experience.

Keith_K
July 21st, 2010, 01:24 PM
I'd have to disagree with Mr. Jobs on his premise that it was one app that paved the way for Apple. I recall that many professional publishers liked apple because it did a better job with multimedia and graphics than microsoft did, making that their niche in the computing universe.
I've always felt that microsoft was setup to succeed. IBM's OS/2 platform could have crushed microsoft as warp 3 was vastly superior to window 3 and as well warp 4 was vastly superior to windows 95 but after being broke up less than a decade before in an antitrust suit, it was in IBM's best interest not to do so. IBM had decided to keep the "big iron" main frame stuff and let the desktop and hardware divisions go to microsoft and intel.
So I don't think that one killer app will define linux and do agree with the concept that it is much better as a server platform than microsoft but I doubt that this will help transform it into a desktop platform. I see the trend toward hand held devices as being the next area of exploitation for whoever can do that best.

m4tic
July 21st, 2010, 01:36 PM
A killer app is the app's name

Johnsie
July 21st, 2010, 02:12 PM
Live USB/CD and the ability to easily read more types of file system out of the box. For the novice Desktop user there aren't really any killer apps on Ubuntu apart from maybe the repositories.

limestone
July 21st, 2010, 03:26 PM
The Linux killer app is/was Apache. If you want to see more Linux history i recommend the documentaries:

RevolutionOS
The code

finny388
September 8th, 2010, 09:41 PM
I don't think the concept of a killer app can ever die as long there are new/different platforms that provide no obvious reason to adopt to new users. But I must agree open source virtually extinguishes this possibility in linux/ubuntu.

Perhaps Synaptic or Ubuntu Software Center.

Unique to linux and could be a killer app to new users or anyone that likes the ease of finding trusted software easily - which I think the masses would really appreciate.

Otherwise I'd have to agree with:

Itself

Ctrl-Alt-F1
September 8th, 2010, 09:44 PM
Apache
This definitely. The reason Linux has something something like 60% of the web server market.