From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Jul 17 01:14:21 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id BAA03977 for freebsd-advocacy-outgoing; Fri, 17 Jul 1998 01:14:21 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from lanshark.lanminds.com (lanshark.lanminds.com [140.174.208.11]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA03972 for ; Fri, 17 Jul 1998 01:14:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jackv@earthling.net) Received: from lanfill.lanminds.com (coatppp2.lanminds.com [208.1.127.62]) by lanshark.lanminds.com (8.8.7/8.8.6) with SMTP id BAA03365 for ; Fri, 17 Jul 1998 01:14:08 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: "Jack Velte" From: "Jack Velte" To: Subject: Linux Aims For The Mainstream Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 01:08:17 -0700 Message-ID: <01bdb15a$0dfb7c00$01d0ae8c@lanfill.lanminds.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; type="text/plain"; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0024_01BDB11F.619CA400" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0024_01BDB11F.619CA400 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Linux Aims For The Mainstream (07/15/98; 2:47 p.m. ET) By John Borland, TechWeb SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The Linux operating system is at a turning point in its development, poised to jump from servers and the technical community to consumers' desktops, the software's creator and developers said at a Linux conference Tuesday night. Speaking at a "Future of Linux" conference sponsored by Taos Mountain, a systems-support company in Santa Clara, Calif., Linux creator Linus Torvalds led developers in calling for more applications that would move the open-source operating system to end-user desktops. "We already have the server side. All the pieces are basically there," Torvalds said. "Let's go after the end user. Let's go after the [grandmothers] and the 15 year old boy who just wants to play games and look at pretty pictures on the Internet." The conference was evidence of a maturing Linux community, which has often struck a prickly note toward the Microsoft-using computing mainstream. The free OS was developed and released onto the Net by Torvalds, who still retains final control over the system kernel's evolution. It has been enthusiastically adopted by technically savvy open source code advocates, and even touted as a Windows-killer by developers as prominent as Netscape's Marc Andreessen. But most of the applications written for the Unix-based OS have been geared toward technical users, and the system does not yet have a widely used GUI. But that technical focus is beginning to shift. Linux developers such as Red Hat software are increasingly writing office-style programs, and established developers such as Netscape and Corel are porting their products to Linux to get around Microsoft competition in the Windows market. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ---- "Advancing to a non-Microsoft desktop ... will essentially revolutionize the independent software market." -- Larry Augustin VA Research ---------------------------------------------------------------- ---- "The most exciting thing happening is the development of desktop applications [for Linux]," said Larry Augustin, president of VA Research, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that makes Linux workstations. "Advancing to a non-Microsoft desktop ... will essentially revolutionize the independent software market." Torvalds and several other leading Linux developers went so far as to extend an unlikely olive branch toward Microsoft. "I would be very happy [if] they started doing Office for Linux," Torvalds said, in a comment that clearly surprised many of the assembled faithful. "There is a lot to be said for the PR and marketing power of Microsoft. Let's hope they use that to start promoting free software." Torvalds also dismissed the effect of the Department of Justice action against Microsoft on Internet Explorer and Windows 98. "Technology is moving too fast for the DOJ to keep track," he said. "I really think that the thing to decide what will happen in the computer market in the near term is the market." But the market won't necessarily lead to Microsoft monopoly, he added. "A lot of companies feel really bad about being in the Windows market. Not because they hate Microsoft, or hate Windows, but because it's really hard to compete there." Companies, like Corel and Netscape, looking for a profitable niche are increasingly developing products for Linux and Unix systems, he said, in turn creating more demand for non-Windows operating systems. "That's one of the reasons why monopoly just doesn't work," he said. But panelists appealed to the anarchic community of Linux developers to keep their applications and different versions of the OS compatible. Otherwise, the community risked fragmentation, slowing Linux's momentum, they said. "You're in the big time now," Augustin said. "Now we've got commercial software, we have people out there that don't have the source code to everything. Let's try and make things a little easier for people, and keep this compatible." ------=_NextPart_000_0024_01BDB11F.619CA400 Content-Type: image/gif Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-ID: <001d01bdb15a$0deab320$01d0ae8c@lanfill.lanminds.COM> R0lGODdhDwAJAKIAAP///9LU16q73VtbWxRDoQAzmR4eHgAAACwAAAAADwAJAEADNwi6cP6OLQhB KULcA8boA1csQTEI3GA0FqYVxxmj4mUbxoHHa0EEAoKpA5S1MhsBwKAMHV+URwIAOw== ------=_NextPart_000_0024_01BDB11F.619CA400-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message