Page 1 of 6 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 53

Thread: Will Linux die in 2018?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    /Earth/Asia/Vietnam
    Beans
    211
    Distro
    Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

    Will Linux die in 2018?

    I found this article from Internet today, and it sounds not so optimistic to the future of Linux, it does have some points that we need to think about, so just check this out:
    ----------------------------------------------------

    If we look at the future, Linux seems to be doomed to a slow death in a dozen years: DRM, proprietary hardware, technologic innovations and political choices are behind this forecast.

    I really appreciate Linux, and Open Source in general: a common base, open and free, foster freedom of individuals and better distribute richness. In the last few months I took interest in Linux and Open Source in a long-term perspective. What I see in the future is terrible: Linux's death. It's just a forecast, I know: it's up to you, after reading this document, to decide if it is reliable or not.

    Proprietary Hardware and DRM

    In the last few years there is a silent (for the mass) and struggling battle between big corporation on one side, and Open Source movements and activists on the other side. The battle is for a plunder of 237 billion dollars (global revenues for semiconductors manufacturers), led by the three leaders Intel, Samsung and Texas Instruments, to which you can add about a thousand billion dollars for cinema industry and few other dozens of billions of dollars for music and entertainment industry. The stake is obviously if those revenues are going to plummet or not.

    Once consumers are used to enjoy multimedia contents, in order to not lose that privilege they are willing to pay... or to use illegal methods, like some peer-to-peer habits, or cracked decoders, or else.

    Those huge revenues are then in danger: with their doblons, industries started some sort of a witch hunt, with the result that software piracy is comparable to rape (there was a famous aggressive cinema ad here in Italy few months ago). I don't agree with this judgement, but I don't want to go off-topic. To maintain those revenues, industries started lots of initiatives to cage users' hardware, and make their PC less and less independent.

    In few years, thank to the extended world network, computers will become more like terminals, without an inner "conscience", pillored to play media content using proprietary hardware, various protections, apparently-open or distinclty closed software, but... How can I enjoy open software, if the underlying hardware constrict me in well-defined (by Corporations) boundaries?

    They'll become much like actual mobile phones, where the user can't operate important modifications or personalizations. I hope Apple users will not blame me for this, but also Mac OS X is moving toward this direction (much faster than Windows, actually): a surely stable and functional system, much more strict for its users.

    Now the question is: what will be of Linux? What sense will an open source software have, when the hardware will block almost all my actions? Linux, with a nanoscopic economic power compared to the other already mentioned, will be probably relegated to a tiny set of geek users, but a very big percentage of common users will surrender to those new contraints.

    Technological innovations

    Those same technological innovations will closet Linux in obscure and specific fields: within the next ten years a new programming language will appear on the planet, maybe based on a new programming paradigm, that probably will take the throne now held by C++. This forecast derives from a simple analysis of past innovations: think about 1996, when Java and Python were still in their early stage. Today they are becoming THE main tools for programming.

    Linux itself will become obsolete, substituted by a new kernel written from scratch; in the transformation the main software companies will have a big advantage, able to afford hundreds of programmers and almost illimited funds for marketing.

    If you take a look at Google, considered one of the most innovative companies in the world, you can see that their initiatives regard essentially the translation of most-used computer functions and programs to the web: word processing, online purchases, photo editing, content publishing, spreadsheets, and many others arriving. This fact, together with the already mentioned tendency to transform PCs into terminals, convinces me that in few years we'll have some beautiful PCs to work, and many small wristle computers with mobile phone, handheld and laptop functions (like the "giwiki" in a modest novel of mine: www.nonovvio.it).

    It seems clear that in this game software will lose importance: only the ones who manage users and media will matter. In few words: Linux out. Users will need a system easy to use, with which communicate seamlessly and transparently in respect to the technology used.

    Political choices

    Soon the source code of almost everything will be released: don't you agree? Microsoft, Sun and others have no other choice: governments need open formats and softwares. Some things has been already opened and, once the transformation toward an invasive hardware will be complete, there will be no more reasons not to open the code.

    One of the strongest critic moved against those companies from the digital freedom fans will fall, and their number will fall also.

    What still surprise me, instead, is the fact that a nation allows the existence and commercialization of proprietary hardware, of which usually nobody knows the hidden functionalities. It is not a secret, for instance, that in the past phone lines were controlled by CIA and others: Skype itself could be the new echelon of the third millenium (it's a proprietary software, remember?).

    If I were the leader of a nation, I would adopt computing devices of which I know every function; also, I would also like to buy (or manufact) processors with the functions that I like, and without the ones that I consider dangerous for people's freedom, or the nation's itself.

    A simple comparison: it is like my army buys guns abroad, guns potentially supplied with a mechanism that block the gun if put under a certain wireless signal: in such a case, I would not be so bold in facing an enemy, being afraid of such mechanism.

    I don't think, however, that our political representatives give importance to those facts: for the average Joe, much a user and less a connoisseur of technology, those seem to be marginal facts, subordinate to taxes or security. Consequently, the politician is less interested in such things.

    Why 2018?

    According to numerous sources, the passage to mobile terminals in substitution to personal PCs, mobile phones and handhelds could occur in ten years, due to the inertia of existing machines and to the availability of light and long-lasting batteries, that will invade the market around 2012. The years between 2016 and 2018 will be necessary to the definitive shift to new technology... granted that there will not occur events or choices able to modify the actual tendency.

    Until now I depicted a rather pessimistic scenario: now I want to concentrate on positive turning points.

    Political change (and therefore technological change)

    Making people aware of things could bring to a general political awareness elected by them, causing politicians to be interested in the topic: this would push toward the usage (and production) of open source hardware, deprived of useless protections (DRM) or hidden favours to big corporations, hopefully paying also attention to environmental impacts of such production (see Motorola).

    Linux alone can't free itself from physical confinement: I hope that its diffusion among developing countries will prompt them to adopt an "hardware emancipation" that will eventually spread worldwide. Like the Internet is free, so the technological basis for communications must be.

    Licences and mentality change

    Another positive turning point is represented by "light licences" content: I adore, for example, musical groups that let you freely listen their music, earning only with concerts and other related stuff.

    It is a poor earning, I know, but those earnings could be integrated with music sales if there will be available a platform able to join music with commercial ads when that music is listened online. It could be good to have also a honest price policy: if a song would cost 30 cents, I would buy it rather than pirate it, and musicians would earn fair amounts of money.

    The same could be applied to other media as well, including video: a movie producer should learn to spend less and better for his movies, considering that the Cinema experience will always be more entertaining than a domestic TV, and so there would always be a reason to produce a movie.

    Everything could become less profitable, and content producers will be naturally selected. In this moment there is a feature film at the Movie Show in Venezia, Italy, produced with 500 euros. Yes, you've read it right: 500 euros.

    It must also be considered that, with the recent advances in instruments and computers, making content is much less expensive than before: this money save must be deposited in the users' wallets.

    I can understand musicians' and producers' point of view: they are enjoying a consolidated privilege, and changing it can lead to a war. Only users, and their economical choices, can trigger this revolution. We will see.

    Why do I pose so much attention to the media? Because the real Hi-tech market is dominated by media: Linux, and Open Source, can survive only if they will guarantee to users the ability to use and play and listen and watch them. Not casually, in a recent home-made survey, on 50 new Linux Ubuntu users, 33 moan problems regarding multimedia content fruition (quicktime, flash, DVD, mp3, videos).

    This suggests that Linux, and the freedom and openness principle on which it is based, could survive only if people will be able to understand the importance of open and standard protocols, devices and hardware, consequently influencing political and economic choices.

    I can be wrong, I know: this is only my thought, written after reading so much stuff on the net, but not for this reason necessarily right. I invite you to share with me your thoughts on this topic.

    Source: http://www.ArticleOnRamp.com
    Last edited by DC@DR; September 27th, 2006 at 11:36 AM.
    .:.:.[)[@[)|2.:.:.
    "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side-effect." -- Linus Torvald.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Helsinki, Finland
    Beans
    Hidden!

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    The article has some pretty wild scenarios, and it doesn't have any evidence or even plausible reasoning to support most of them...

    Just some points here:

    In few years, thank to the extended world network, computers will become more like terminals, without an inner "conscience", pillored to play media content using proprietary hardware, various protections, apparently-open or distinclty closed software, but... How can I enjoy open software, if the underlying hardware constrict me in well-defined (by Corporations) boundaries?
    The network is the computer, right? Terminal computers come up every few years (they're always just around the corner), and then they are forgotten. In the context of normal home computers, I cannot understand how that progress could happen... The strength of the Personal Computer is that it's personal.

    They'll become much like actual mobile phones, where the user can't operate important modifications or personalizations. I hope Apple users will not blame me for this, but also Mac OS X is moving toward this direction (much faster than Windows, actually): a surely stable and functional system, much more strict for its users.
    First of all, Apple software has always been as closed as possible. Maybe I'm missing something but that just sounds stupid.
    The difference between mobile phones and computers is interchangeable, "standard" parts, in both hardware and software. Building the DRM house of cards on a mobile phone platform is easy. Building it on the PC is immensely more difficult...
    Those same technological innovations will closet Linux in obscure and specific fields: within the next ten years a new programming language will appear on the planet, maybe based on a new programming paradigm, that probably will take the throne now held by C++. This forecast derives from a simple analysis of past innovations: think about 1996, when Java and Python were still in their early stage. Today they are becoming THE main tools for programming.
    Huh? How does that "closet Linux in obscure and specific fields"?

    Linux itself will become obsolete, substituted by a new kernel written from scratch; in the transformation the main software companies will have a big advantage, able to afford hundreds of programmers and almost illimited funds for marketing.
    No evidence, no reasons how this could happen, no admission of the fact that Linux already has the support of "main software companies able to afford hundreds of programmers".

    If you take a look at Google, considered one of the most innovative companies in the world, you can see that their initiatives regard essentially the translation of most-used computer functions and programs to the web: word processing, online purchases, photo editing, content publishing, spreadsheets, and many others arriving. This fact, together with the already mentioned tendency to transform PCs into terminals...
    The terminal again... Think about this objectively: Google is big, no doubt about that. But are Google word processing or Google spreadsheets big? No. My prediction is that they'll remain niche, but the point is that we just don't know yet.

    Soon the source code of almost everything will be released: don't you agree?
    In short: No, I don't. The fact that governments and other large customers may get to look at the source code of MS Windows doesn't mean Microsoft "releases the source".

    According to numerous sources, the passage to mobile terminals in substitution to personal PCs, mobile phones and handhelds could occur in ten years, ...
    Numerous unreferenced sources, it seems. Common sense (and some understanding of UI design) tells me that mobile devices are not substitutes to PCs, they are either unrelated or complementary to PCs.
    Last edited by Jussi Kukkonen; September 27th, 2006 at 11:12 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Grunnen, Nederland
    Beans
    463
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    Maybe an asteroid will destroy earth before open source gets abandoned. Linux is like a disease. When trying to stop it it'll evolve.

    NESFreak

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Sintra, Portugal
    Beans
    835

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    I don't even know what will happen to me tomorrow...

    ps: but the article is very interesting. Thanks for posting it.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Guthrie, Oklahoma
    Beans
    Hidden!
    Distro
    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    The trends align themselves to the whole John Titor thing in some ways...some bold predictions there...

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Brooklyn, NY
    Beans
    258
    Distro
    Gutsy Gibbon Testing

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    Interesting thought experiment in reality though, high mobility web based applications simply mean that the OS in unimportant. As W3C standards emerge to deal with ActiveX type things and Firefox still being used by a large number of people no one will simply care about the OS. Also if the code is going to be open for everything it would make it even easier to port things between OS's. It's not really death of Linux it's death of OS's.
    Since I get asked alot, I am originally from Ukraine but am Russian by nationality. My nick means specter in Russian.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Beans
    Hidden!

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    From a market share point of view Linux is still dead. it is no where near M$.
    (I'm not a frustrated Linux basher- hey after all I switched BECAUSE of M$)
    Yes, it is difficult to release multimedia codecs as an integral part of the OS/GUI/mediaplayer package, as it would violate current legal interpretations. I like the general patent approach: you can build it and use it do anything that does not involve earning money with it.
    From this point of view, a good click=install version of Ubuntu with all repos enabled by default and scope somewhere along the lines of automatix would be a clear winner. I know it must be separated, but guess what: I'm a user, I don't give a damn. I'm an engineer (automotive) by trade, and we would never expect the customer study ignition mapping and customization of exhaust timing to make his car run like the competition's model. I like the modularity of linux/Gnome and all little apps integrated in the distro. I also like the fact that you can customize it all day long without getting bored. but, the great but is: joe user can't get it to run without consulting the forums (even then it's not easy).
    without straying further, I can imagine linux becoming obsolete through the scenario described above, I don't think it probable though. Linux is not being combatted, linux is still a disorganized mess with a huge bunch of people yakking about which media player works in their personal config and why the other one sucks... look at the incredible amount of distros around and their respective fanboys (just see easy ubuntu and automatix one level below distros). how about uniting forces to enable more stable and functional releases: less politics, more functionality.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Beans
    1,270
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zieher View Post
    I'm an engineer (automotive) by trade, and we would never expect the customer study ignition mapping and customization of exhaust timing to make his car run like the competition's model.
    You would if the law required it.

    The Ubuntu developers don't have much choice in the matter. If software patents didn't exist, Ubuntu would have surpassed Windows in multimedia. I have all the codecs installed (even the ones I'm technically not supposed to use, due to stupid US laws), and I've never run into a non-DRM file I couldn't play.
    Are you Listening?
    Are you a Hero?
    Are you Sleeping?

  9. #9
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Helsinki, Finland
    Beans
    Hidden!

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zieher View Post
    a good click=install version of Ubuntu with all repos enabled by default and scope somewhere along the lines of automatix would be a clear winner. I know it must be separated, but guess what: I'm a user, I don't give a damn.
    Just to give another datapoint: I'm a user too, and I do give a damn. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a distro like that (there should), but personally I'd go back to Debian if Ubuntu decided that "non-free is good". By the way, did you realise that the distro we're imagining would cost something if it intended to be legal?
    without straying further, I can imagine linux becoming obsolete through the scenario described above, I don't think it probable though. Linux is not being combatted, linux is still a disorganized mess with a huge bunch of people yakking about which media player works in their personal config and why the other one sucks... look at the incredible amount of distros around and their respective fanboys (just see easy ubuntu and automatix one level below distros). how about uniting forces to enable more stable and functional releases: less politics, more functionality.
    We obviously see Linux a little differently: You are saying that linux could be 'killed' and that we should centralize/standardize more to prevent that. I think the diversity, chaos, disorganization are parts of what makes linux (and free software in general) effective and pretty much unkillable. That of course doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for standard APIs, file formats and such...

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Malta
    Beans
    4,187
    Distro
    Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

    Re: Will Linux die in 2018?

    without straying further, I can imagine linux becoming obsolete through the scenario described above, I don't think it probable though. Linux is not being combatted, linux is still a disorganized mess with a huge bunch of people yakking about which media player works in their personal config and why the other one sucks... look at the incredible amount of distros around and their respective fanboys (just see easy ubuntu and automatix one level below distros). how about uniting forces to enable more stable and functional releases: less politics, more functionality.
    If Linux were to be overtaken by another open source kernel with more power but the same philosophy, say Syllable OS, I would probably switch. I like the philosophy first and formost.

    Now, about people yakking about, don't people yak about Winamp and WMP in Windows? We can yak about vi and emacs, about gnome and kde, about Ubuntu and Fedora, about everything else, because we can. We are free. Linux is not about taking 100% market share, it is about geeks who like to use computers for the heck of it.

    Plus, when you have a non geek using Linux, he doesn't see KDE or GNOME, he just sees a GUI which he can use for producing. We geeks may be passionate, yes..but I see that as a plus.

    You want everyone to unite? Sure..try and convince the gnome and kde devs to stop doing what they love doing and work together for your own goal. If they won't like it, they won't do it.

Page 1 of 6 123 ... LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •