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Issue 9.10 | Oct 2001
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Open War (continued)

Keepers of the Kernel 
Zero Tolerance 

Linux is at a turning point. Ten years ago, Torvalds first posted his OS on the Internet, inviting review, comments, and suggestions for improvement. Based on the principles of Unix, but written from scratch, its source code was open and available to inspect, use, and modify. A decade later, Linux is lauded as a technical success. But as a business, it's a flop.

No one expected to make money on free software. The idea was to make money offering Linux support and services. So far, not so good. No Linux company has figured out how to build a profitable business around open source software. In fact, several have already gone out of business and others are on the ropes. "Open source is a technology innovation strategy looking for a business model," says Eric Schmidt, now Google's CEO and chair.

What if the GNOME and KDE projects could take back all the programmer hours that went into consumer desktop applications and instead focus that brain power on developing kick-ass development platforms? What if all the effort that's gone into writing desktop drivers that peripheral outfits don't care to support were redirected toward drivers for corporate environments? What if all the mental energy, the rage on the Slashdot message boards, had been concentrated on building solid business models? What if the Linux community put an end to all the desktop nonsense right now and built on its strengths in global enterprise computing - just how big could Linux get?

What if all the mental energy, the rage on Slashdot message boards had been concentrated on building solid business models in enterprise computing? Just how big could Linux get?

In his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, management guru Peter Drucker writes, "If an innovation does not aim at leadership from the very beginning, it is unlikely to be innovative enough, and therefore unlikely to be capable of establishing itself." Linux zealots might take that passage as their battle cry. But a more telling quote from the same book offers innovators this admonition: "Don't splinter, don't diversify, don't try to do too many things at once."

And no one should need Peter Drucker to tell them that playing catch-up against a dominant industry leader, in an existing product category, is a loser's game. Duplication is not innovation. If Linux had a chance on the desktop, established software vendors would be making apps that run on Linux. Instead, the open source community finds itself writing copycat versions of popular applications - the office suites, for instance.

Linux has been on the industry's radar screen since the mid-'90s, yet the vast majority of applications available for Windows and Mac don't exist for Linux. Microsoft apps - Word, Excel, PowerPoint - don't work on Linux because, of course, Bill Gates doesn't want them to. Nor does Internet Explorer, which controls 87 percent of the browser market. Linux-friendly Netscape Navigator, its market share in steady decline, holds a precarious 12 percent. That could be because Netscape was crushed by an illegal monopoly. Whatever. Those are the facts. Konquerer, an open source browser, doesn't even track market share figures.

Adobe Photoshop on Linux? Nope. QuickBooks? No. Eudora email? Uh-uh. Sega games? Nyet. And on and on. But Oracle, Sybase, SAP, Novell, IBM, and more see a market in enterprise Linux: They are busy porting their applications for server-based Linux.

The Linux desktop offers very little that could be considered plug-and-play. Linux drivers, the software that connects a computer with peripherals like printers and CD burners, are in short supply. Want to use a digital camera? Don't bother with Kodak if you're running Linux. Iomega is a bit friendlier, offering drivers for 14 of 51 products listed on its drivers Web page - but that compares to 42 Mac drivers and 45 for Windows. UMAX scanners? Not from UMAX, though some third-party drivers are out there, if you have the time and the will to find them. Creative's Soundblaster? A few are available, but you'll have to hunt down the company's software developer Web page.

Nontechnical users continue to have a hard time installing Linux. Every time a review appears in the press describing how damn hard it is to install Linux, and what few useful apps there are, it hurts Linux's reputation among top executives who might be considering the OS for enterprise.

Microsoft and Apple ads are everywhere, but no one is funding major marketing campaigns for desktop Linux. No one with any clout is carrying the torch for desktop Linux. Who is Linux's Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Not Linus Torvalds. He supports desktop Linux, but does little proselytizing.

The movement's ideological focus is perhaps best expressed by Eric Raymond. A longtime Unix coder who embraced Linux early on, he wrote the seminal essay about open source development, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," that spawned an influential book published in 1999. Raymond is the open source movement's self-styled Minister of Information. He speaks for a large population of Linux adherents who insist that the community bears not just a competitive imperative, but a moral obligation to bring Microsoft down. Says Raymond: "It's important that the money and power and market mass not be in the hands of outfits like Microsoft, who would destroy us."

That mission, he believes, requires open sourcers to stage a frontal assault on the desktop. "We've spent a lot of time making Linux techie-friendly - powerful, configurable," he says, "but not enough time making it easy for Aunt Tillie to use." Why should Linux try to lure Aunt Tillie? "Because," Raymond says, "dat's where da money is."

Matthew Butterick, a former member of Red Hat management who ran Web operations from the company's 35-member San Francisco office, disagrees. He believes the Linux movement is misplacing its talents with the desktop obsession. Linux might be cheaper than alternative operating systems, he says, but that doesn't take into account the switching costs or steep learning curve for most desktop users. "The anti-Microsoft rhetoric is an easy target that distracts a lot of the rank and file from noticing who the real enemy is - Unix vendors like Sun," says Butterick. "A lot of effort thus gets put into Microsoft-wannabe applications like the GUI, the office suite, the email client, et cetera. Some of the key features that would enable Linux to compete against corporate Unix are not getting done."

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