What's Wrong With Linux?

Paul Murphy, writing for ZDNet, has an interesting post titled, "Umm, Yummy: Mactel eats Lintel's desktop".

In it, Paul points out, "Red Hat recently issued a press release under the title What’s Going On With Red Hat Desktop Systems? An Update whose content boiled down to “It’s a loser, so We’re bailing.”

Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is a cool two year old product from a company whose CEO recently opined that the Linux “consumer desktop will take years”.

Yes, I think that those quotes sum up a lot about the current state of Linux, a system I admire very much. In many ways, it's so OS X like that it's uncanny, but still, at the same time, so utterly different in other ways that it's very frustrating. Even though Ubuntu has done a lot to bring attention to Linux, sadly, its's about the only thing it has brought. It hasn't, for example, brought very many switchers from either the Microsoft or the OS X camps. Even though the Linux desktop market share has double from the past year, it still is only about a little over one half of one percent of the market!

Paul illustrated as much when he stated, "Ubuntu has lots of vocal support but isn’t expanding its base; there’s no new Debian in sight; and the excitement that could drive one of the other distributions into the spotlight just doesn’t seem to be there. Even the Linux based OLPC, a product whose interface could have been a threat to Windows, seems to have been successfully embraced, extended, and extinguished."

Paul asks what happened, where did all of the discontented Wintel switchers go? Mactel, that's where! As Paul points out there is no longer any real difference in Apple's hardware offerings (well, despite being a little more expensive and a lot more sexy!), so people are no longer as fearful of switching, and especially now that the Mac's has both the ability to run Windows either natively or via virtualization software. This has been great for the Mac, but for Linux, on the desktop, it has been the opposite.

So, as I would put it, "What's wrong with Linux," why hasn't it made any real gains in market share? The above is all true, of course, but there is more to it than that. Its not just a simple question of what is the Linux community doing wrong, but also of what is Apple doing right?

Paul further goes on to state, "There is a more subtle reason too: I think people who compare the Linux desktop, especially the Gnome incarnations, to Windows tend to see Linux as imitative while those who compare Windows Vista to MacOS X cannot but see Windows as imitative - and, given a choice, people will take the real thing over an imitation every time."

Yes, Apple clearly sets the standards here, but an even bigger problem for Linux is that it simply can't match what Apple can in various other areas. For example - marketing. The Linux community doesn't have the billions and billions of dollars in the bank, that they could utilize for the best marketing campaigns money can buy. Whether you hate em, or love em, those pesky, "I'm a PC; I'm a Mac" ads have brought a lot of attention to the Mac and into everybody's living rooms. Since more people know about the Mac, naturally, therefore, more people will consider switching to the Mac than Linux. After all, it was Microsoft's marketing muscle, not it's superiority over the Mac that gave it the edge and allowed it to take over the desktop.

In addition to the advertising muscle that dollars bring to bare, there is that other "media factor" going for Apple. That would, of course, be none other than the man himself, Steve Jobs. Jobs is such a legend in the industry (several industries in fact) that all he has to do is sneeze and the world comes flocking to quote him. It's hard to compete with a man who's "reality distortion field" is so powerful that it makes the media bend over backward. This all contributes to Apple's "mind share', which is even more powerful than advertising dollars! No one in the Linux camp, sadly, has such clout or influence.

Yet another factor that makes it hard for Linux is in the sales channel, or the lack there of! Macs are simply sold in more places than Linux machines, therefore they naturally get bigger sales, or momentum. Even Wallmart, which was a big Linux hope, has stopped selling them directly in it's stores. Make no doubt about it, shoppers like to have the ability of being able to come into a store and "kick the tires" as they say. The extremely few,"kick the tire," locations where people can buy a Linux equipped machine has been a big factor in not making this the year of Linux, yet once more.

Of course, the biggest reason that Mactel is eating Linux's lunch is simply because, as an operating system, OS X is a lot more mature and refined than any Linux distro. For most people, it is simply the best OS ever created, as many publications have already stated. Yes, I know that Linux is better for the power geeks, those who love to compile and tinker, but they are not the majority of desktop users.

The people behind Linux have produced a very stable and secure and remarkable system, but again, it's hard for Linux to do what Apple has done because of the lack of money, and I mean money more than not! Linux might be "free", but it still takes money to create a truly compelling OS. Linux has the talent, but until it has the money that will allow that talent to be able to devote all it's time and energy into making Linux the best it can be, it simply won't be able to compete with either Microsoft or Apple. Say what you will, but software developers have to feed their kids and pay their bills too. It is, sadly, rather hard to give all your time, talent and best efforts to Linux on a part-time, hobbyist basis and time schedule.

Despite the lack of money and other resources, however, it's absolutely amazing what has been accomplished by Linux hobbyists, but it still doesn't cut the mustard. Modern operating systems are complex beasts with their millions of lines of code, and require more than just talent, something the Linux community has in spades. One of the things that I feel that is wrong about Linux and why it has failed to captured any significant market share is because of it's lack of focus and direction. In other words, the Linux community needs, as already stated, someone like Steve Jobs, rather than what Linux has now... many, many different heads, all going off in different directions, and competing among themselves instead of Microsoft or Apple.

Another big, big downer for Linux when competing for Window switchers is software. Yes, I know that there are tons and tons of open source programs for Linux, but sadly, when it comes to the ones that people actually want to use - like, you know, the commercial variety - Linux comes out sorely lacking.

OS X, on the other hand, not only has a huge library of commercial programs, but an even bigger source of open source software, many of which go beyond anything in either the Linux or Windows camps. Case in point: Quicksilver for OS X. It's an incredible program that is also incredibly hard to describe, so I will let you explore it on your own, but suffice to say.... it's awesome, and just one example of the advantages of OS X over Linux.

So, in conclusion, let me say that I personally hope that Linux becomes and remains a viable option to both Windows and OS X. So far, I haven't seen any compelling reason to switch from either Windows or OS X to Linux. However, Linux is a great OS with an even greater potential and I want to see it take it's place along with OS X as a viable Windows alternative. We all need Linux, because just as nobody only wants a choice between two different kinds of foods, two different kinds of cars, two different kinds of telephones, or two different types of newspapers, etc., so should we not only be limited to just two different kinds of OS choices, Windows and OS X.

And that's my 2 cents 4 this, Wednesday, April 23, 2008.

Photo credit: http://www.sevensheaven.nl/

Please vote for this post: