Linux Is Ready

In the last major economic downturn, Linux established itself as a widely-accepted enterprise operating system, benefiting a lively ecosystem of vendors such as Red Hat and Novell. The return of tough economic times puts the open source alternative again front and center, this time with focus on databases and higher-level software applications.

I believe we’ve entered another era for open-source companies of all stripes. IT decision makers need to fight the financial crisis and they need a more efficient solution for critical enterprise system and IT needs.

As IT costs grow and the economic crisis puts pressure on global IT budgets, open source becomes irresistibly attractive to developers and IT decision makers who are being asked to do more with a whole lot less. Meanwhile, proprietary vendors react by increasing license fees by 15 percent to 45 percent, they continue to lock-in their customers, and they take away independence regarding choice and flexibility across the enterprise technology infrastructure.

That’s why open-source solutions are more attractive than ever.

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Industry observers have been predicting a surge in desktop Linux adoption for years, but over time, those claims have taken on a decidedly “wait ’til next year” type of feel. But the growing popularity of netbooks, a significant number of which are shipping with Linux, could serve as a long-awaited catalyst for Linux on the desktop.

The Open Source Mozilla Firefox web browser has exceeded 20% share for a full month. Mozilla’s CEO, John Lilly, gives credit to the Mozilla community and shared his thoughts on this accomplishment: “Reaching 20 percent worldwide market share is a significant milestone for Firefox and Mozilla. It’s a huge achievement by the global Mozilla community, one that just a few years ago most would have considered impossible. The open web is more vibrant than ever, and the thousands of Mozilla contributors around the world have played a major role in making it that way.”

Keith Curtis has just written a book about the future of software. That in itself isn’t unique. More unusual is that Mr. Curtis, an 11-year veteran of Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, believes deeply that open source is the future of software. After he left Microsoft, he installed a copy of the Linux operating system on a lark. His world was turned upside down. He spent three years exploring the open source world — reading, attending conferences, looking at source code and talking to the rank-and-file members of the open source community.

There are fast computers, and then there are Linux fast computers. Every six months, the Top 500 organization announces “its ranked list of general purpose systems that are in common use for high end applications.” In other words, supercomputers. And, as has been the case for years now, the fastest of the fast are Linux computers. When considered as the primary OS or part of a mixed-OS supersystem, Linux is now present in 469 of the supercomputer sites, 93.8% of the Top 500 list.