Linux Will Never Take Over the World

In a previous article, I went over the reasons I feel Linux Is Poised To Take Over The World. In this article, however, in the interest of fairness (and because I myself am uncertain as to my actual opinion on the matter), I will go over a few reasons that Linux Will Never Take Over The World.

1. Accountability

One of the great strengths of the open source model is that no single person is in charge. If I am a fan of a certain program, and I decide I like what it is doing, but am afraid development isn't going quite how I would do it (if I were in charge), it is perfectly legal, and I am perfectly within my rights (assuming I have the skills), to take the source code of that software, make the changes I wish, and distribute the program as my own, effectively "forking" the original piece of software into two similar, but not identical, projects. A good example of this is Compiz, which is a project designed to add a bit of "bling," or "eye candy" to the Linux desktop. About a year ago, a user decided Compiz just wasn't quite good enough, and forked the project, thereby creating Beryl, which was similar, but had the features deemed "missing" in the original. After a year apart, the two camps of developers decided their goals were actually quite stable, and rejoined into one project.

So... why is this a bad thing? Because in order for Linux to gain inroads into the corporate mindset, there needs to be one overarching entity responsible for a particular software's development. A great misconception (although valid, to a certain extent, I suppose), is that Linux is produced by people hunched over their computer in a dark basement of their parents' house. Similar to how many established news organizations feel about bloggers (who are often condescendingly referred to as the Pajamas media), many established software companies look down on open source because of its intentionally decentralized organization. For a large company to take on Linux as more than a server, but as a desktop environment, Linux groups such as Red Hat, Novell and Canonical (which provides commercial support for Ubuntu), will need to provide proof to I.T. professionals that not only is Linux a viable replacement for either Mac or Windows, but that it is just as professional and just as stable.

2. Compatibility

One of the knocks against Linux is that it just can't read whatever format you most want read. For the large percentage of formats, this just isn't true. For instance, with the variety and quality of software available to Linux these days, I am able to read documents produced by the following software with little trouble:

Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft PowerPoint
Quicktime Videos
Windows Media (Audio and Video)
Real Media
MP3, MP4, AAC
Flash Movies and Games
Adobe PDF
Adobe Photoshop

In addition, I am able to access Samba shared drives/folders, as well as become a client on Microsoft Exchange networks. I am perfectly capable of chatting on whatever network you want to chat on, be it AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, Jabber, MSN and more.

In fact, as a Linux user, I am often able to read more of the formats available than a Mac user can. Actually, I can often read more formats in a shorter period of time, and with fewer pieces of software, than a Windows user can as well!

So, again... why is all this compatibility a bad thing? Because the compatibility isn't perfect. There is no Microsoft Office for Linux. There is no Adobe Photoshop for Linux. There is no iTunes (and so no iTunes Store) for Linux. There is no official Quicktime player for Linux, just as there is no Windows Media player (or codecs, for that matter). There is no Divx player or codec. Every single one of those formats has been hacked at until a suitable level of compatibility has been reached. If you send me a Microsoft Word document, I'll be able to read it in OpenOffice Writer, KWord, or Abiword, at least to a certain extent. If you have chosen basic formatting options, I should have trouble at all. In fact, I should be able to edit what you've sent me, save it, send it back, and you'll have no idea I didn't use Word. In fact, I've been doing this for quite some time, and the other party has no idea I don't have Word. However, send me something saved with the newest version of Word, using the newest format, and I could have problems, and if you're looking for me to use features available in that, then chances are we'll have issues.

There's an old adage that 80 percent of software users only use 20 percent of a software's capabilities. Unfortunately, no two users use the exact same 20 percent, so in order to be truly compatible, Linux programs would have to have 100 percent of the features of the "standard" programs from Microsoft, Adobe and Apple, and until those companies release their software for Linux, then there will be compatibility issues, and until those issues are resolved, Linux will be forever relegated to second-class citizen in the corporate computing world.

3. Inertia

At the moment, it is estimated that anywhere between 80 and 85 percent of all computers have a copy of Windows installed on them. Of the remaining 15-20 percent, Linux and Mac have roughly equal shares of somewhere between 4-6 percent, with the remainder scattered among other operating systems, such as BeOS and BSD.

For any type of change to occur that would affect those percentages to any great degree would - at this point - be shocking, to say the least. There are too many companies, too many schools, too many governments, that are already set in their ways. Sure, there is the state of Massachusetts, which is mandating that open standards be used for storing documents, and there are some European companies giving Microsoft a hard time and threatening to switch to open source options, but for every one of those, dozens, hundreds of municipalities, organizations, states and industries are fully entrenched in the Microsoft world.

And it's no wonder. "Everybody" knows how to use Windows. Sure, it has its troubles, goes the argument, but if you need help, at least you'll know who to ask. Who can tell you about Linux? Does anyone even know how to fix it if something goes wrong?

And therein lies the trouble. In an ideal world, of course, people would save all their word processing formats in OpenDocument format, which can easily be implemented by any word processor, patent free. People would convert their music CDs into Ogg Vorbis files, just as people would convert their home movies into Ogg Theora format, both patent and royalty free. In a real world, software giants like Adobe and Microsoft and Apple wouldn't be driven out of business, but would be forced to change their business models, so their profits no longer came from forcing people to stay locked into proprietary formats, but by how easy it was to use their commercial software to save in open formats.

There doesn't need to be a complete sea change, but until people get the idea that there could be one, there never will be.