Open Source Software and Linux
The inspiration to write this article.
In the last few days I've read a few dozen publications about Open Source and I have some doubts whether this information is independent or these are recommendations for certain products or services or private opinions. Below is my analysis of the topic and some thoughts on the fragment of the IT world called desktop system. In the Open Source world it doesn't matter if you use a system with desktop or server functionality on a desktop computer - these are just additional packages grouped into functionality and you install what you need. So bringing up the topic of operating systems with server functionality is not a mistake. (In the Microsoft Windows world, there is a strict division between a desktop system, a server system, and licenses assigned to both and access licenses between them at the same time. There is no way to swap a desktop for a server! or vice versa).
Let's start from the beginning. The 2 articles that were the original inspiration.
Let's analyze the topic one by one. The first question that arises is the following.
Is it good that there is a choice and everyone will choose what allows him to accomplish his tasks or is it bad that there is a choice and there should be a limited number of distributions?
Is the reader able to draw his own conclusions or should he be told what the conclusions are?
I understand that journalists and commentators of the IT world are paid to write texts, but is this writing to be limited to the presentation of facts or should the reader be directed in some direction?
Analysis of the topic
I have been following the topic for almost 20 years from SME level and this discussion is endless. Still the same arguments and still the same topics. And still the same dilemma that Linux won only less than 3% of desktop systems and should have a larger market share. And once again the same argumentation that it's as much or only 3%. This is a data that comes from some trends or analysis. Whether it is reliable, I can not answer, it would be necessary to conduct a thorough research on a global level not only using the so-called chains of characters identifying the system or the browser but also analyze whether a given system is the so-called "first system" or a virtual system. This information is missing. Let me give you an example of my case and I use 4 computers: on two laptops I use Fedora Linux 36, on the third I use Red Hat Linux 8.4 and on the desktop I use Fedora 36. On one of the laptops I also have a Windows partition which I use only for BIOS upgrade (probably it will be counted as a Windows system) but at the same time I use Boxes virtualization under Fedora and there I have: more than 16 different operating systems exclusively as Open Source. In total I use about 20 operating systems. In the survey I should probably be counted as one who formally uses only 4 Open Source systems - but I'll probably be as a Windows user - even though Windows has been removed from them! And that's why it's worth asking the question - how are such statistics counted?
Who is really using Open Source?
Going deeper into the topic we see that among professional developers roughly 45-47% use Linux as their main operating system and a similar amount use Windows as their desktop system. Different sources give different values but they are still within plus or minus 10%. Hence the question is this 3% Linux on desktops is it little or is it a lot. https://findly.in/how-many-linux-users-are-there/ (As a digression, slightly off topic one can also ask if this works similarly for the luxury car segment).
And the topic is usually brought down to the level of a single independent computer user not working in a corporation. Or rather, it should be analyzed collectively, meaning both private users and corporate users. Here I actually have a problem because the typical 10kg desktops do not exist anymore - there are tablet hybrids, laptops with docking stations, monitors integrated with mini PCs. Let's assume a simplification that the basic computer that is on the desk.
So what is the current state and what might it be in the next few years? Decisions made today have consequences in the future, so analysis is the key to understanding the topic. In case of such analysis, many parameters should be estimated before making a decision on the possible implementation of open source systems on desktop computers.
First of all, the TCO and the cycle in which such an operating system is supported and for how long. Are these the so called long term support versions or the ones with a short support cycle - so called rolling versions. The former are usually supported for 5 years, the latter for 2 years at most.
For a single professional user computer, this topic doesn't matter as much - the user will migrate and secure the data on their own. But in the case of distributed or enterprise systems, such a support cycle is of colossal importance for the maintenance of IT systems. In this publication, I omit the issue of security - it is a completely different and broad topic requiring deep specialization. (Maybe in the next article a little more about it).
And at this point we come to a conclusion that we must have tools that will be helpful in case of managing whole networks of computers equipped with open source software. Do desktop computers have it? Usually not.
It's not standard on the operating system distribution. But it comes with systems that are dedicated to businesses. They have tools to support operating systems - e.g. Patch management, Central System Management, Remote Console.
In the case of open source, it is the lack of awareness of such functionality that causes IT decision makers to be unaware of the fact that in this way they can significantly reduce budget costs.
And that's why I blame journalists here that they focus on irrelevant functions or give numbers - when the most important from the point of view of usability are completely different features of the system.
Requirements Analysis.
I can almost blindly write - that requirements analysis for desktop system is almost never done. Companies just buy computers with what is preinstalled on them. And this is the drama and at the same time the answer to why a certain system is 75% of all desktop systems.
There is a certain analogy in it, because Microsoft's method was adopted by other manufacturers. So other vendors are winning by using the same method. On the topic of desktops, this method was adopted in phones (Android) and in lightweight mobile computers like Chromebooks. In both cases Microsoft lost - it doesn't count in these sectors. It still counts in desktops and in traditional laptop systems because ... this system is preinstalled there. We can talk about pressure from both processor manufacturers and software manufacturers on computer manufacturers. It is surprising that the consumer protection authorities do not see that the market is rigged? The European Commission does not see the problem either?
After all, this is a clear monopolization of the market. The definition of a monopoly should be quoted here. https://sjp.pwn.pl/szukaj/monopol.html
Unfortunately, we are dealing with a false notion of choice here. What freedom of choice is this if you can't choose which system you want pre-installed. Some people still remember when manufacturers used to be customer-driven and the customer could choose the system he wanted to pre-install.
This was done by distributing a special installation package in which you answered the basic questions like system name, dns, how to split the disk and then proceeded to select the operating system from the list. At that time the selection concerned key operating systems tested with a given hardware. I am writing about the business sector.
Economic Impacts
Let's look at the economic impact on the end customer. A customer who buys a computer with a preinstalled system becomes a hostage of solutions, but not of solutions that are independent and standardized according to the standards, but a hostage of strictly industry solutions forced by a monopolist and not published in the form of available code. Let's remember that it took several years before the standards for writing in the office work package were released. What is the problem - the user is forced to pay a tribute but in an indirect way - not the customer pays but the hardware manufacturer collects the fees on behalf of the customer and transfers them to the operating system manufacturer as the right to install the system license on a given hardware.
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In that case, who is the customer.
The customer is the unwitting financier and provider of capital for further monopolization.
The customer is guilty of the current situation because he accepts the current state. It can be said that we have reached a level where people in IT are the problem and openly support the monopolization of the market. The reason for this is that they get direct (amounts from sales) or indirect (free licenses, participation in tests, conferences) benefits from it and satisfy their own egos. In the year 2022 this is especially visible and shows that many system administrators are already absolute dinosaurs and don't see that the market has changed and they are stuck in the same place as 10-15 years ago.
A short explanation for those who do not follow the topic of IT architecture.
IT has a 3-tier architecture model. In a local network it is a classic division:
Today, in 2022, the 3-layer model is still valid (that's what the model is about!) only that it is slightly modified and takes into account new technical solutions. In the Internet, it takes the following form:
Protocols and open standards
What has changed? What really influenced the changes? The market forced the abandonment of secret communication protocols in favor of open-code protocols and transport descriptions: i.e. XML, JSON, REST, SOAP. The biggest success of these protocols is that they are INDEPENDENT of the operating system - which means that in principle a browser with support for HTML standard is enough to use everything available on the Internet or a local network.
How it should be interpreted - unfortunately it shows that computer dinosaurs have additionally become "useful idiots". Why I used this phrase is for 2 reasons:
(a) they have closed the way of development in IT by blindly believing that the product is market competitive. That is, they simply became blind suppliers of customers while not seeing that they are not building their own brand and their own company but someone else's company. Here you can cite examples such as: you do not build a house on someone else's land or you do not put all your eggs in one basket. Apart from the fact that they have become followers of the cult of technology of the company that monopolized the market, they themselves do not understand that they have been used as mindless imitators. How many times can a customer be migrated to the cloud? Only once.
b) and the second reason is that the same company has just announced that in the future there will be no desktops physically in companies, only desktops in the cloud - because the market is changing and they have to find a new way to bind customers together. At this point, IT administrators will once again be used as a cheap workforce that will once again make changes for a large monopolist. It is worth asking yourself a question - where is the data hosted and what is the topic of privacy protection or protection of strategic company data. I do not even ask about IT Strategy which today means Strategy of the Company.
Monopolization
This is exactly what the game is about - a monopoly not on the desktop operating system, but this time on the monopolization of data from and to the customer - with omission of privacy and analysis of massive amounts of data to gain competitive advantage.
I've already mentioned a dozen times that we are dealing with indoctrination from an early age. Everywhere in schools or educational institutions we put an operating system that forces us in the following years to use it again and again. This is how the dependence on the company is built. And the mindless users in the so-called Western countries don't even bother to change it.
Let's look at it from the point of view of educational opportunities, here I will mention examples from so-called developing countries.
We can see that what determines the IT world today is a solid knowledge of science or logic. If you understand what programming is about you can even write a program on a piece of paper - of course this is not the happiest practical way of teaching but in mathematics or cryptography it works. If you know the rules, rewriting the code is the final part of programming. Well yes but you have to have something to put the code on. What barriers does a young person from developing countries have at the very beginning? At the very beginning he has to spend 100 or 150 euro for an operating system even though he hasn't earned even 1 euro yet. This is the nonsensical nature of the situation - wrapped in a vision of beautiful slides in IT, he becomes a source of income for an unethical IT company.
What if he had spent those 100-150 euros on his education instead of the operating system? His chances on the market increase many times over. I'm not mentioning the fact of free educational materials, but for 100-150 Euro you can really build a solid resume with certificates. All you need is any computer, Linux operating system and access to the Internet. Practically the only barrier is to have ANY hardware like desktop or laptop. A map of open source operating systems usage shows that these systems are most popular in developing countries - paradoxically, it is the barrier of purchasing an operating system that becomes the main driver of IT development in these countries: hundreds of programmers or IT specialists provide remote services at acceptable prices. They deliver results based on open code - they do not waste time maintaining and supporting commercial operating systems.
Let's look at it from the perspective of Western countries. First they implement a popular operating system, then they waste hundreds of hours on configuration, on fighting upgrades and patches, they waste hundreds of euros on hiring specialists, security audits and so on and so forth until the next version. Hundreds of people are involved in this IT nonsense and all the power of IT is simply burned to maintain what someone has chosen. Please note that the decision makers on the operating system do not have to be IT specialists working with this system. It can be compared that today's operating systems are like a giant snowball that at some point must either melt or crash. There is no economic sense in supporting a product which is of lower and lower quality, with defective architecture and no access to the source code. This is basically the definition of insanity - doing the same thing and expecting different results. The manufacturer itself is moving away from its own products to open standards. The manufacturer changes its previously proposed standards to open standards and as a contrast the Open Source world does not change anything because these open standards have been used for years.
Summary
Let's look at it from a practical point of view. People are really like masochists - they do the same thing day after day, waste their time and private life, don't want to admit that these are the consequences of the wrong decisions they made and continue using Windows. And so on for several years. They are stuck in this nonsense for several years - because they don't have the courage either to learn something new or to say - enough - I have other priorities in life and not to solve other people's problems. This is the moment for which you simply have to mature.
To find again the enthusiasm for what you always wanted to do, for what you never had time because you were doing something else. I notice that many people see this topic similarly to me - it does not matter whether they have been in IT for 5 years or 35 years. I don't want to call it a crisis but rather a redefinition of goals. To achieve goals you just need to slightly change your perspective and approach to issues. And what do we have? This is for the reader to answer.
And going back to the question at the beginning: 3% of desktop users is 3%. But the dynamics are changing and more and more people are considering a full transition to Open Source.?The most important thing is that 2022 is already a breakthrough year and it will only get better. Over time, standards will emerge in the form of 3-5 alternatives. And that's the point. Everyone chooses what allows them to achieve their goals. But still, journalists should have the role of a thorough analyzer of topics.
That's all for now.
Post scriptum
And the article presents my view of the issue. It is not the employer's point of view. The company names used are examples to illustrate the topic and not to write abstractly. I am not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned above and I do not receive compensation for promotion. I just use Linux Fedora 37 and share some point of view. I accept constructive criticism and I will be happy to answer additional questions. However I warn you that I do not react and answer quickly.
Translated from Polish to English via https://www.deepl.com/. It is really amazing how accurate translation is.
#opensource #linux