Taking a look back at Linux in 2011
Just like with
networking, I looked at my five most popular Linux stories of the last year,
and while they're all fine stories, I can't say that they're the most significant stories of the year. They did, however, inspire me with the ideas for my list of 2011's most important Linux stories. So, with no further adieu, here from least to most important, is my list.
5) GNOME Forks
Not that long ago,
GNOME was the most popular Linux desktop interface.
KDE was, and is, good, but most popular Linux distributions, such as
Fedora,
Mint, and
Ubuntu all used GNOME 2.x for their interface. Then
along came GNOME 3.0 and it all went wrong. To this day, I, and a lot of other people, aren't sure what GNOME's developers had in mind for their take on the desktop, we just know we didn't like it.
4) The Decline of the Linux desktop
The matter of whether Ubuntu is still the most popular Linux distribution isn't that big a deal.
Windows, as I've said before, has won the desktop war and Linux isn't going to somehow magically catch up with it. That doesn't mean that you should drop the Linux dektop. I'm going to keep using traditional Linux desktops for years to come. They're better than the alternatives, but put all the Linux desktops together and they still have only a tiny percentage of the desktop market. Let's just deal with it and move on to much more interesting Linux interface news: Linux is winning everywhere else.
3) Ubuntu changes directions
2) The rise of Android and ChromeOS/cloud computing
For more on that look at where Linux is kicking rump and taking names in a new and growing end-user market: smartphones and tablets. Yes, Apple is still the number one tablet maker, but the Android-powered tablets are catching up fast and on
smartphones, Android is already number one with a bullet. Windows? It's barely an afterthought here. The mobile future belongs to the Linux distribution we call Android.
At the same time, Google thinks those of who will still be using desktops in the future will want to use a cloud-based operating system that uses Linux as its foundation:
ChromeOS.
Google is betting that you're going to want a Chromebook for your PC needs in the future. I think they may be right. There's a reason why not only Google, Ubuntu, and openSUSE is looking into this. Apple, with iCloud, is also exploring it. I don't see the old desktop going away quickly but I can see cloud-based, end-user alternatives catching up more quickly then you might have thought even a year ago.
One thing I am sure of though, tomorrow's end-user computing experience is going to be powered by Linux one way or the other as the legacy Windows systems start to dwindle away.
1) Patent Wars
Remember when people who weren't in the know thought that
SCO, with its bogus Unix copyright claims was danger to Linux? I do, I covered the heck out of that story since, while I knew from the start
SCO didn't have a case, other people thought SCO actually was on to something. Today, however Linux, open-source software and indeed all programming development faces a far more dangerous intellectual property (IP) threat: the granting and mis-use of bad software patents.
Sooner or later I expect big business will get sick of wasting hundreds of millions of dollars suing and countersuing each other to no good purpose. That won't be the end of it though. Patent trolls, who have no real business of their own, will still collect patents and then sue the companies as soon as they actually do something useful with patented ideas. That will mean higher prices for all of us since end-users are ultimately the ones that pay the patent trolls blackmail money. What's even more troubling s that some
patent trolls are now targeting small businesses. Google and Samsung can afford to defend themselves, a small business? They can't.
This isn't just a Linux issue, it's bigger than that. If we expect real programming innovation, software patents must be discontinued. That, alas, is something we may not see this decade… if ever.
