On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 01:31, Stephan February <[email protected]>wrote:
> Assertion: The rise of MacOSX, mobile smart phones and the increasing > importance of the browser as platform, has rendered Windows > largely irrelevant as a desktop platform. Unfortunately these trends have > taken out desktop Linux as collateral damage. > Discuss! > > I would think the opposite. "Desktop Linux" has never been so relevant and will only be more and more relevant in the future as a consequence of the "browser as platform" paradigm. IMHO "desktop Linux" has never been so relevant than today because I believe we have reached a point where major distributions like Ubuntu or Fedora work recognize and work reasonably well with most recent hardware out-of-the-box (suspend, 3G modems, webcams, battery usage). Admittedly this doesn't reflect in "market share" (this is not a free market anyways, thanks OEMs), more on that later, however if by relevance we are talking about user experience, I've seen that it works quite well now for users with basic needs centered about the web (browsing, email, social networks, playing music). In the coming months/years, with the rise of new browser-based technologies (WebSockets, WebGL, File API, Audio API, Device Access API, offline storage, and last but not least NativeClient), we'll use web applications for things that were only possible on the desktop before (eg. Google Earth, hardware-accelerated 3D games, sound trackers, ...) effectively serving users with more and more advanced and diverse needs. These applications will run equally well on any Linux desktop as they do on OSX or Windows, without requiring any additional work from application developers. This is huge, as this makes the leader platforms (Windows and OSX) lose their installed base advantage in the long run, the very advantage that makes one platform worth to develop for or not for commercial developers (big or small). This makes desktop Linux more and more relevant as the platforms will therefore be able to compete mostly on their intrinsic worth (user experience, performance, security) rather than competing on the set of applications available, effectively locking users to one platform (e.g no more "I can't use Linux because I need FOO app!"). However I do not believe the _growth_ of "desktop Linux" will come from the traditional distros we are using today, these will probably stay "niche" OS mostly used to developers and software enthusiasts (read geeks;). On the other hand I'm confident that "desktop Linux" will grow thanks to new distros that break the antiquated desktop metaphor to better match today's usages on a variety of devices, desktops/laptops included : Chrome OS, Meego, Jollicloud and new distros that will give their own specialized take on "the web as a platform". Desktop-metaphor-from-the-70s Linux is dead! Long live Web-as-a-desktop Linux! Regards,
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