My good friend Maggie Biggs at
InfoWorld posed an
interesting question: what will Linux look like in five
years? I have a simple answer: it won't look like anything.
In fact, with any luck, Linux should disappear.
I confess my answer is half prediction and half wishful
thinking. I would like to see Linux disappear, especially
from the desktop. No, I haven't torn up my Linux fan club
membership card. And I do expect people to run
Linux on the desktop. In fact, I believe Linux
will eventually displace Windows on the desktop. I just
think that when that happens, most users shouldn't have to know
that they're using Linux. They shouldn't have to know
they're using an operating system at all.
Face it. A huge number of computer users don't know why
they are buying the latest and greatest versions of
Windows; they just buy it because it's the latest and
greatest. When it comes right down to what they use the
computer for, the operating system only gets in their way.
They don't want to be computer users. They want to
correspond with business associates and friends via email.
They want to browse the Web. They want to play games. They
need to write documents or operate vertical applications.
But they don't want to do all the tedious maintenance a
computer requires -- and they shouldn't have to. Computers are
computers, after all. They're supposed to automate the
tedious task, and there's no reason why they can't.
That's one of the biggest problems with Windows. After all
of Microsoft's supposed innovation, Windows still
unnecessarily exposes people to the guts of their computers.
One of the biggest improvements to Windows in recent times
was the creation of the My Documents folder, which sits on
the desktop. It created an opportunity for users
to save and find documents without having to deal with disk
drives and directories. It turned out to be a wasted
opportunity, but that's another column. In the meantime,
check out the Windows Yeah Write word processor (see the
Resources section below for a link) if you want to see document storage done right. Saving and retrieving files is almost
totally transparent to the end user. Yeah Write actually works quite well for me under Wine, but I'd give my eyeteeth to see it ported to Linux as a native Linux
application.
File this away
So why should Linux displace Windows? On the surface, it
doesn't look like Linux developers are addressing this kind
of problem at all. The two most visible desktop
interfaces, GNOME and KDE, are just as complicated as the
Windows desktop, if not more so. The two most promising
file managers are KDE Konqueror and Eazel's Nautilus for
GNOME. But as promising as they are, they are primarily
useful only for geeks.
A nongeek shouldn't have to use a file manager at all. You
should be able to open up your MP3 player and be presented
with a list of categories for the albums and music you have
available to you, whether they exist on your local drive,
the network, or the Internet. When you start up your word
processor, you should be easily able to find and edit whatever
document you like. Ideally, such a system would be coupled
with hierarchical storage management when you use it in a
corporate environment, so that you have nearly unlimited
archives upon which you can draw.
With only a very few exceptions, the traditional Linux
desktop doesn't seem to be headed in that direction at all.
But turn your attention to Tivo, a Linux-based television set-top box that I've raved about before. Tivo has an attractive user interface that takes just moments to learn. It automatically updates itself when necessary. Yet people have no idea how close they are to running a typical Linux desktop computer when they use their Tivo appliance.
Now, consider this: If the folks at Tivo had
chosen something like Windows CE for the basis of their
box, Microsoft would surely want Tivo to advertise that
fact. Each Tivo box would probably carry the Microsoft
logo and display the version of Windows CE that it uses.
Naturally, when Microsoft released a new version of Windows
CE, Tivo would have to upgrade its systems and start
selling new boxes in order to look up-to-date and
competitive with other systems that have adopted the new
version of Windows CE. And Tivo would of course have to
pay Microsoft a fee for every unit sold.
In sharp contrast, the folks at Tivo are under no
pressure to upgrade their version of Linux to the latest
kernel and put the 2.4 stamp on their boxes. These folks
can rip out of Linux whatever they don't need and add whatever
they want -- and they don't need anyone's permission to do so,
either. Linux really is the ideal appliance operating
system.
The components are coming
Now, to go back to a theme from my previous column on StarOffice, let's add to this equation the fact that the open
source KOffice productivity suite is maturing quickly, and
Sun is about to release StarOffice under the GNU General
Public License. Soon developers will have all the tools
they need to create desktop productivity appliances, to
which they can add foolproof user interfaces that hide the
complexity of the operating system. They can
mix and match whatever they want from the available window
managers, productivity applications, and the like, just as they can with the Linux OS itself. They
can rip out what they don't want and add what they do need.
And they don't need anyone's permission to do so. They
don't need to comply with any Windows user interface
conventions. They don't need to display Microsoft icons or
logos.
The bottom line is this: the time is ripe to turn out a
brilliant productivity appliance that is liberated from
Microsoft's Windows license requirements and the Microsoft
Windows and Office upgrade cycle. These appliances will
almost surely run on Linux but won't be marketed based on
the fact that they run on Linux.
All it takes is one smart company to see this opportunity
and grab it. Someone is bound to answer the call. A few
companies are already on their way.
So what will Linux look like in five years? It'll continue to run the World Wide Web. It'll continue to grow in the middle tier. It will continue to displace Windows departmental servers. And it should displace most Windows desktops with something normal people can use, but don't have to manage.
Resources
