New Year predictions and more on VMware LinuxWorld.com 1/5/01 Nicholas Petreley, LinuxWorld.com Well, it's predictions time again -- and boy, is it easy this year. My first prediction is that we will see the 2.4 version of the Linux kernel arrive early in 2001, and version 2.4.1 arrive by the middle of the year. Version 2.4.1 will include support for the Reiserfs journaling filesystem, as well as a host of other nice enhancements. Unfortunately, 2.4.1 will not include the ability to create a core dump of all running threads when a multithreaded application crashes, nor will it include the ability to assign each thread its own process identification. I predict that people will submit patches for those features, but Linus Torvalds will not approve them, so the next kernel will not implement them.

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I predict that this is the year Sun will license Java under the GPL as part of a multiple licensing scheme. The open source community will continue to shun Java on the grounds that it's not true open source -- community members will still resent the fact that Sun wants to approve changes to the official Java platform before they are implemented.

This will be the year Linux-based appliances gain more notoriety, although you won't see a flood of them quite yet. In future years, we'll see Linux-based microwave ovens that read the bar code on your frozen dinner and program themselves for optimum cooking. Eventually, frozen dinners will include disposable smart chips that communicate directly with the oven. And, thanks to Linux, those appliances will be cheaper than they would be if they were based on proprietary software. Of course, Free Software Foundation leader Richard Stallman will call all the consumer magazines and insist that the editors refer to the ovens as "GNU/Microwaves" because the ovens depend on GNU software.

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As predicted by Al Gore in the first presidential debate, President George W. Bush will indeed cut taxes in such a way that most of the benefits go to "the rich." Unfortunately, the recession left behind from the Clinton administration will have collapsed the technology stocks so much that by April 15 "the rich" will consist of about 37 people.

Intel will ramp up promotion of its brand new Pentium IIII this year. You'll note that the version is marked with the improper Roman numeral IIII instead of the correct IV. That's because it's cheaper to add another line to the existing stock of Pentium IIIs than it is to erase two lines and substitute a V. (Thanks to cartoonist Illiad and his User Friendly strip for the inspiration on that one.) AMD will continue to stomp all over Intel until late in the year when the real Pentium IV arrives. Then AMD will probably stomp on Intel some more, but at least Intel will have some realistic competition and a more credible product road map.

Windows 2000 will continue to lose market share to Linux this year. Microsoft is already trying to offset that reduction in planned revenue by aggressively making customers pay for any unlicensed copies of software, even if they've simply lost the original licenses. I also predict that as part of its cost-cutting measures, Microsoft will adopt Linux as its standard server and desktop platform -- a move that will create a substantial decrease in expenses due to reduced maintenance costs. Nevertheless, I predict you'll still see a continued reduction in profits at Microsoft, driving the stock price even lower than the huge dip it took last year (from about $120 per share to $41 per share at the time of this writing). Since Microsoft cannot offer instant wealth via stock options to its employees anymore, it will use other means to attract the best and brightest. To start with, Microsoft will pay them what they're worth. As for the grunts, however, I predict that Microsoft will lower their salaries or ask for more productivity ("I knew it! You've been sleeping again!"). In return, Microsoft will promise not to storm their homes looking for unlicensed copies of Windows.

I predict that this year we'll see the final version of several applications that we've been eagerly anticipating. We'll see KDE 2.1 in the first quarter. I'm guessing we'll see the final version of Mozilla sometime after midyear. GNOME 1.0 has been out for some time now, but it has never really been of 1.0 quality. But I predict it will reach that level by midyear. Unfortunately, the default GNOME environment will continue to look pig-ugly until 2002. I'll bet the Outlook-killer called Evolution will reach 1.0 by the end of the year if not sooner. I'm not so sure about the multipurpose file manager called Nautilus. Finally, I predict that the Opera 4.0 Web browser for Linux that I've been anticipating for almost two years will be finished sometime in 2001. Well, maybe.

Next week, I'll make some suggestions on what companies should do with open source this year in order to increase profits and better serve their customers.

Thanks to everyone for the flood of email regarding VMware. I asked my readers in a recent column why people would want to use VMware, a product that runs multiple virtual machines hosted by Windows or Linux. You let me know in a big way!

Almost all of you agreed with me that Win4Lin is more appropriate if you just want to run a few Windows productivity applications under Linux.

But far more of you than I thought need to use VMware. There seemed to be two uses of this software that topped the list. First, VMware makes it easy to develop a single application for multiple platforms, since you can do all of your development and testing at the same workstation. Second, you can provide technical support for that application on all the supported platforms at a single workstation, as well.

I had considered the above situations, but didn't realize how many people actually use VMware for development and support. I was quite impressed with the response and the raves.

A few readers also use VMware because it makes it easy to keep Windows running smoothly. Here's the secret. Instead of using an existing Windows partition, you use the feature of VMware that creates a virtual disk, which appears as a file on the Linux system (such as win98.dsk). Once you have Windows and your applications installed and running to your satisfaction, you create a copy of that file. Now when your four-year-old thwacks the wrong key and destroys something on the system (you would never do such a thing yourself, of course), you simply restore your system from the copy of the win98.dsk file. Sure, you can accomplish the same thing with a system backup program, but this method is probably easier -- and it's a clever use of VMware.

So while I and many of my readers maintain that Win4Lin is better for casual use of Windows on Linux, I sit corrected as to the general usefulness of VMware. It really is a killer application for those who have to deal with multiple operating systems in their daily work. Highly recommended.

Nick Petreley is the founding editor of VarLinux.org (www.varlinux.org). Reach him at nicholas@petreley.com.