Open source software is our era’s version of the French scientific salon. In the 18th and 19th centuries, young men (mostly men) would gather at the feet of elder scientists to learn the truth of the day. In Revolutionary France it was philosophy and natural science they studied and in the open source forums of the past decades it was discussions of the finer points of kernels, interrupts, and elegant coding. Purveyors of open source software have gone on to create an international network of crack programmers who all bear the same battle scars and have reveled in the same successes.
But they always want more. They want the desktop. Not content to run the plumbing of the Internet and to control the firmware on almost every scientific device in the world, open source proponents believe it is their birthright to supplant Windows on the desktop or, barring that, at least gain mind share in the average home computer.
They never will. Ubuntu is lovely. KDE is great. Debian is the bomb. Even OS X is pretty hot stuff. But none of them will ever take the desktop. That’s because the desktop is dying and they have already taken the second – soon-to-be central screen – the cellphone and that’s more than enough. Open source is now mobile.
Unfortunately, open source purists won’t like how their handiwork will be storming the world. First, there’s Android. It will be the dominant smartphone OS by the middle of next decade. It is stable, attractively priced (free), and easy to pour into any mobile mold. Android of late has been splintering and it will be interesting to see how the different UI overlays and even different compiled libraries will evolve over time but once China builds out their Ophone platform, essentially a Chinese branch of Android, expect a huge change in the smart- and feature-phone market. But it’s still corporate, right?
Add Chrome OS to this picture and you essentially have the gamut of form factors covered. But Chrome doesn’t belong on desktops and, thanks to netbooks, it would have to stay there. A free OS from Google is much more enticing to a certain audience, once they’ve been convinced of the device’s quality, than a Microsoft Taxed copy of Windows. So even if its corporate software, it doesn’t matter. It’s still open source.
Open source advocates, like old Nirvana fans, especially won’t like the selling out of free software concepts when it comes to the marketing in app and media stores. Everyone a around “open source” concepts including Palm saying they’re opening up their Apps Store in odd ways and Symbian is paying lip service to open while taking its own sweet time. Android will eclipse and potentially destroy these efforts, and, like die-hard fans seeing Kurt and Krist on MTV, this causes some open source advocates to tremble with rage, point one quivering finger, and mouth “Sell out.” Most of this is marketing bluster but, in fact, it is the only way these folks see of gaining traction. Who runs these companies? Old Linux hackers. They know the best way to get people to buy drinks is to offer free wings.
But fear not. All those decades of kernel hacking are not for nought. Open source has taught entire generations that anything is possible with a little code. These new developers understand the innate elegance of UIs, the value of user experience tweaks, and the tinkerers drive to constantly improve. They will beat Microsoft, at least on the mobile front, and by the time anyone notices they’ll own the majority of the small screens in the world.
They’ll never rule the desktop, but they can rule the real estate around the desktop, a greater prize indeed.
Desktop never dies..It’s still around what you call the desktop on Windows Mobile(Screen or Desktop)
It’s desktop!
Android on netbooks: http://www.insydemarket.com/dispPageBox/DevHp.aspx?ddsPageID=ENMBR&
Why put such a controversial and opionated title when you clearly have no clue what you’re talking about?
You say “open source” but never actually define how you understand, but from the text it seems like you’re talking about something that is free and that is called an operating system.
Well, open source need not be free, it need not be an OS even. It is already ruling the desktop for a long time in certain niches. Firefox, OpenOffice, various development IDEs, utility programs.
I agree, we shall hardly see an OSS OS beating Windows, OSX, mainly because it’s so easy to pirate first and you get second with hardware and they already have anything an average user would want, so why bother.
Elegant writing. Accurate portrayal of the situation.
How exactly is the desktop dying? And how is linux so dominent in the mobile device market, or should I say open source? The iPhone is closed source, nothing except nokia phones spring to mind powered by symbian, and android just isn’t that popular. Also how exactly will android become the most dominent mobile os? To be honest this article seems like opinionated fluff.
Smartphones will never replace the desktop. I’m not even sure what you are smoking to think that. Smartphones are an ‘addition’ to our computing world, not a replacement.
This aint gonna DIE…never…but surely each has its own positives and negatives. But your explanation and justification is totally impressive and agreeable
Poor article. I agree to some extent; but its too unidirectional.
I like a article by stefan on the same lines.
http://technology.globalthoughtz.com/index.php/why-linux-is-important-but-will-never-be-mainstream/
Bhupendra
It’s all part of the plan.
Linus: “I’d like to say that I knew this would happen, that it’s all part of the plan for world domination.”
I’m still of the school that my phone should be my phone, and nothing else, therefore, I won’t have to worry about which mobile OS is crashing a smartphone this week.
Thanks for saying that!
But you’ll still have to worry about what OS is crashing a desktop this week. Or maybe not, because Windows is still pretty much ubiquitous.
Maybe they shouldn’t even call them phones anymore. I think the term MID would actually work better for today’s smartphones.
I find a great app!
Check it! Link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=327705750&mt=8
Desktop will never die Period. It will transform but it will remain a desktop.
Port steam, wow, etc to Linux (don’t tell me about wine) and then we will have some serious competition.
Games & Piracy are making the rules.
Totally agree.
Desktops will never die they may merge with Tv’s, DVR’s etc but the functionality will always be there period.
What may happen is that there will be cloud services which sync all data from all devices (desktop, notebook, phone, dvr, tv) so that each has the same content.
Notebooks are the new desktops and some there will be nothing that makes a way for you to tell which is which as Desktops and Notebooks are getting small thinner and will come a day when a desktop is nothing but a notebook that is two/three pieces instead of one piece.
As a developer I cant wait for emacs on the iPhone, what a pleasure it will be to finally be confined to 40 or even 30 cpl for readability.
Starts with a very catchy title but goes on to talk about something that doesn’t really make sense at all.
Title says open-source will never rule desktop and goes on to talk something about Android and Chrome OS some other stuff.
Agree with the title that open-source will not rule desktop any time soon, but that is something everybody understands..
Well, i don’t understand why people aren’t making this question: When the propietary of a phone would choose what OS to put in?!!! until this success… the discussion about OSs for smartphones is only a question of the manufacturers of this industry :S
Please… if today is very very difficult to simply configure most phones for operating with ANOTHER telecommunication company which is not the contracted with the phone!!! hahaha… and you are discussing about Operative Systems for them! ha ! Whta’s matter the user opinions! it’s simply a “industrial” and “costs” decision! :(((
Cheers,
SERGI
It sure seems like John Bigs made some friends at Google to suggest that Android will be the next dominant mobile OS.
I’m still left puzzled as to what the main point of the post is.
Here’s what I extrapolated from the text:
“Open source will never be able to get the majority of the desktop market share because the mobile operating system Android will take over the world”
Who said Chrome OS is going to be free?
Google.
Yep, as long as you think your privacy is worth nothing.
(And don’t even get me started about the unconstitutional AT&T US gov large-scale spying example, protected by Bush and Obama.
Google is far more important than AT&T.)
Didn’t Google say they were open-sourcing it? In which case anyone will be free to go in and remove anything they don’t like. Take a look at SRWare Iron.
When was the last time they updated SRWare Iron? Google has published three versions of Chrome since that debuted. I’m really wishing we could run Chromium on Windows instead.
Desktop will never die, to be taken over by mobile, because smart folk (which 99% of computer folk are) will be freedom-loving enough not to feel shackled to one and only one type of machinery. Period.
There will be desktops and laptops and mobiles and (someday perhaps) rollups into the hip-pockets and…
That’s a ridiculously confusing little post that says a whale of things without justifying anything.
If you’re talking about mine, blub! Desktops won’t die. One type of OS. Mobile: another. “Roll-up”? Another. Just as the story suggested. Room for open source OSs and apps all over. Democracy of code. Small words and sentences enough? Cool.
Windows/Office is forever because enterprises can count on MS to run applications and support document files over time. Everything I ran and created in the early 90s on Windows/Office is still good. What else is out there, that you would stake your business on, to do the same in 2030? Academic work I did on a Mac in the late 80s was utterly inaccessible on Mac machines ten years later, and I don’t trust Apple not to dump existing users at any given iteration of its products. Starting a business today, it would be very risky to depend on Google or anybody else to continue to provide a continuous platform out for the next twenty years: only MS has a proven track record in that respect.
People like you really make me laugh…
You state, “I don’t trust Apple not to dump existing users at any given iteration of its products.” Yet you will freely buy into a system, auto updates & auto upgrades where Microsoft could turn you off and you would be screwed. (Change your CPU and/or motherboard on your PC an see what happens, hope you enjoy purchasing a new copy of the Windows operating system…)
It does not matter how unlikely it might be to get turned off or to have a virus/cracker code go out in an update. Unlikely yes, possibility YES.
That is a HUGE business risk anyway you slice it.
What about the newer office application, can you say Word, not allowing you to read the old data formated (.doc) document. I lived that and learned a lesson that I will never forget, what a pain. And why, for vendor lock-in ONLY. I never got any viruses, one of their excuses for changing the format, because I scanned a document before opening it. Simple safe browsing habits,.no problems here. Yet they changed the data format for me and I had no choice at all. And if you do not convert your documents, you risk a future date where those documents might not be readable by their yet newer version of their software. Unlikely maybe, but still a realistic risk.
I would suggest that the only way to be 100% safe is to NOT allow auto update, auto upgrade; allow nothing to get installed on your desktop without your blessing. And to get your blessing for any production PCs, you should be testing each new update/upgrade on a test machine first. Time consuming, sure, but the only way to be 100% safe. Yet so many lemmings just allow their desktop to be auto updated every week. What a joke. Rolling out updates to all machines, every week is insane, how quickly most buy in to this crap. You even convince yourself that this is better. How about making an operating system and applications that are more secure so frequent updates are NOT REQUIRED, seems simple to me and many others.
You do not control your desktop, another company does. That fact alone should not let you sleep well at night if you are responsible for the support of your company’s IT infrastructure. How is that good for any business. And for cash flow purposes it is not considered “smart” to have more than 40% of your business with any one customer. Yet you and many other businesses are led like cows to the slaughter by their MS nose rings…100% of their IT infrastructure is vendor locked in to another company’s whim. And that whim happens every friggin week. Oh yea, thats smart, not. We need money, force them to upgrade, yea money. Who cares what you want.
It is not about FREE. It is about bang for your buck. Its about innovation. If a company wants you to spend your money, your IT budget on new anything; what are you getting. Is it really improved. For most businesses the basic needs of spreadsheets and word processors were met with Windows 95/98.
The improvements should be compelling enough to warrant your hard earned money, your shrinking IT budget, your time to perform adequate testing before randomly installing anything. Yet you and many others enjoy being led down the primrose path of vendor lock-in where you no longer own even the operating system, nor the data files on your own desktops. Who cares if that primrose path eventually leads you down a blind alley with no way out. (I.e.Vista requiring new hardware purchases to run it. If they do that to you once, and you let them, you can guarantee that they will do it again, and again, and again. Can you say Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), I knew you could.
We should all keep it simple and not be stupid. Its about control, since mid way through Windows 2000, where IT could not longer 100% control what got put on their desktops that Microsoft failed IT and IT failed their company. More intelligent choices have been and are available. You have only the illusion of control, nothing more.
However unlikely, it is not a matter of if, only a matter of when. What intelligent CEO accepts a higher TCO then required? Or a higher business risk? What share holder accepts those same things in the companies they invest in? If the company is not using their IT budget in an intelligent manner, how might that impact the return on your investment.
To keep your company and yourself safe, insist on ONLY open data formats, if the proprietary software will not allow using open formats or renders them incorrectly…duh moment here, its the fault of the proprietary vendor crap software. Not the open source data format. Here again many in IT support fail their user base and their companies. Instead of blaming the source of the problem, the vendor lock-in proprietary software and moving away from it which would be an intelligent decision. They send a very clear message to the proprietary company, you screwed us before, you screwed us again and guess what we will let you screw us tomorrow. That is insane.
If you insist only on open data formats, open video codecs (flash fail here), open sound formats, you will always have options for accessing, using and manipulating your data today, tomorrow and years from now. You must have options for all parts of your IT infrastructure, else you are one step away from headaches, hassles and problems.
In fact you should not be required to install proprietary software, Java, to install open source anything. Java is NOT 100% open source, check again.
If you do not have at least three choices, you do not have any choice. You just think you do.
Only Linux is forever because enterprises can count on open source to run applications and support document files over time. You can look at how few times the licensing has changed for Linux versus Windows operating system to see the truth of the matter. Those changes to the license, the terms of service are not being made to protect you. Wake up and read, than make intelligent choices to protect yourself.
I already know that this is not true for Microsoft or Macintosh because I have lived it, personally first hand. Mess with me once, shame on you. Mess with me twice, shame on me. A third time is NOT going to happen for me, but obviously it will for you. And a fourth… And a fifth… and a Sixth… Again and again and again. Isn’t that the definition of insane, doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different outcome. Yep, thats crazy. The facts, actions and historical facts speak for themselves.
The Mac OS is great, even Windows is good; however both are proprietary and default to closed data formats. Nothing you say will ever change that simple honest fact.
The fact that the proprietary companies purposefully prevent open data formats from loading and saving correctly is very well documented as fact as well.
So they force you to upgrade, even when you do not want to, nor need to. Sorry that is not an intelligent use of a company’s resources. Increasing the total cost of ownership; artificially increasing the company’s IT budget, not because it is necessary or required, but only because the other company needs the cash flow. What is smart about that?
As for handsets, if you purchase the right hardware, you have a choice between Maemo (Linux based) and Android (Linux based) today. It is only a matter of time until other embedded Linux es are ported for these devices. Is a device “smart” if it is limited, hampered or tethered in any way? I think not.
At least you gave me a good laugh for the day. Thanks.
And the stats for OS, browsers, etc… are finally bearing out the truth of the matter as we see the proprietary vendor’s market share steadily and slowly decreasing. Smart money follows winners, especially in current economic times. Even more compelling when you look at statistics worldwide and not just US concentric. That too is smart.
You should be shot for writing a comment of such length.
I read your last paragraph, and I think it’s in line with my thinking:
Usable software is being commoditized and companies are being forced to compete on service.
“Only Linux is forever” and [insert next cliche here]…
Is Android going to be the dominant phone OS the next decade? Like Linux was supposed to in the 90’s? Or was it supposed to be this decade?
The problem with open source for an OS is that it lacks coherence when it grows. Smooth interoperability with slick and uniform UI behavior is what makes OSX popular. Even Windows to some extent. Linux will never get there. I doubt Android will either.
Nothing undermines techcrunch’s credibility more than a novice spouting uneqivocal idiocy. Wrong on so many levels with one or two obvious and correct points. I’d expect this as a beauty pageant response.
It seems like John Briggs has no idea about what he is talking about. It looks like a toddler’s essay where he has tried to put in every word he knew.
>Ubuntu is lovely. KDE is great. Debian is the bomb. >Even OS X is pretty hot stuff.
> Open source is now mobile.
You don’t understand what is desktop environment and OS. What is the difference between Open Source and free? What are you talking man?
Are you drunk on job?
So mobile is the future of open source, yet you fail to even mention Maemo?
That’s some good reporting there, Lou…
fail post.
desktops will never die. or u wanna play nextgen games on your mobile? code sites and programms thru web? lol.
until the Open Source desktop alternatives offer the usability of Winodws (7, not Vista) or OSX and the range of high quality native applications (while i’m not a huge fan of Photoshop it’s easier to use than GIMP. likewise for video editing, media players and even email clients – Outlook beats anything Open Source I’ve yet to use)
and then it comes down to the economy… how many Open Source developers are actually making a living producing open source applications vs the ones who have a day job working in the very environment they claim to be undermining
The current Linux distros, Ubuntu, Fedora being two great examples, already offer a high quality alternative desktop to Vista and Windows 7 (which is still Vista, just enhanced). And they have for well over two years now.
If GIMP is harder for you than Photoshop, its only because you have spent more time with Photoshop than GIMP. I find PaintShop Pro easier to use than Photoshop, but that is only because I have used it more, not because it is so much better than either.
As I use GIMP more and more, I am more impressed. This has been the case with every open source alternative software application to the application used in a Windows OS environment. If the new Windows version of the software tries to do something in a proprietary way that will result in breaking the open source alternative; I blame the Windows software ONLY and stop using it.
In fact I stopped using PaintShop Pro only because the company attempted to “force” me to upgrade my Windows Operating System before installing. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I just borrowed a friends laptop with the current Windows OS on it and installed the software to the USB device. Once installed the software runs great on Windows 2000, XP and Linux via WINE. Big mistake as that will be the last version of the software that I purchase.
Same is true for parts of an application that require Java to use. Sorry, I do NOT want to use Java. Therefore if your installation requires Java to do it, I will find an alternative and move away from your software. Have already done it, will continue to do it.
Innovate your product, make it so incredibly better that I want it and I will buy it. But attempt to force me to upgrade or update and I will stop using you and your software. Its about control. Control over my IT environment and control over my business.
If I buy it, I own it and will do with it what I want.
Change the licensing to prevent that, no problem, I will not buy it! Game over for you with getting my hard earned money.
It’s hard to predict on evolution of things man.
Here, it’s clear that many commentators are pointing out their disagreement with your statement ! Desktop will never die and interestingly you are opposing(predicting) on open source now because of what is happening now. Many people, including corporate and government, are adopting open source and linux in general .
Open source will even generate many business options/models and, please read, this is how experts predict on things:
“As FLOSS has become mainstream and is seen as a commercially viable procurement option and/or business model, those outside of this realm who wish to flatten hierarchical social structures will continue to look to models generated in the FLOSS world as templates for reorganizing traditional/institutional power structures and modes of interaction. We already are the change we wish to see in the world, and those outside our sphere will increasingly look to us as a “map” to realizing their goals for free and open education, society, culture, and so on…” – Mark Surman
Microsoft isn’t standing still, what ever the future holds, they will be a strong part of it.
I found this really interesting to read. I’ve written numerous essays relating to the world of open source and done a fair amount of research on the topic. It’s very true that Open Source projects often aren’t understood by non-”geek” types; but I question whether that is really the larger demographic of computer users now days.
Comparison wise, are there more home PC’s, or more servers in data centers around the globe? Studies are showing that Open Source servers are now ruling over closed-source systems today. Many more data centers are now either half open source or even stronger in their open source offerings. this isn’t desktop publishing of course, which is the point of your article I believe, but it does bring up some interesting questions.
I agree with other posters here who have said that a greater distinction should have been made in this piece between open source software, free software, and perhaps even “tivo-ized” free software. While Android is nominally free software, a victory for Android in the handset world is at best a pyrrhic victory for the free software community. The fact is that Google still has the last word with respect to what gets merged into trunk for the official Android builds and if you want to install anything other than the official build on your handset, you have to root the thing. While all of this technically doesn’t make android “non-free” (anyone person/group can fork Android and owners of rooted handsets can flash them with any build they please), I would say that it does make it less free in spirit.
Does the author really believe OS X is open source or is he just jerking people around? Like Apple does. :)
Given the extreme looseness of this article, we may as well say that open source is well on its way to ruling the desktop — Firefox has reached approximately 25% share worldwide and 50% in Europe, even if most of that is running on Microsoft Windows.
Actually this is significant — at some point due to the seeming inexorable decline of IE and rise in Firefox along with migration of apps to the web, there’s no reason to continue paying the Microsoft tax, and the desktop really will be dominated by open source (or free software, as some would insist). It’ll just have happened 20 years after some (including me) had hoped, starting in the mid 1990s.
Haha, you beat me to it. I can’t believe the author believes OS X to be open source. I thought these TC guys were supposed to be on top of things! =]
The article was not coherent at all…
Agree. Open source software sometimes make normal non-tech users crazy!
This is one of the worst-written posts I have ever read, including the trash you see on a random MySpace blog. Is there a way to killfile an author on a blog’s RSS feed? (I’m going to try that on Yahoo Pipes right after posting this).
I must say I agree with Starfleet and Karolis on this… about the only thing you have gotten accurate is the fact that open source software is dominant in embedded systems… when it comes to “desktop computers” and smartphone operating systems, “closed source” corporate software belonging to Microsoft, RIM and Apple are very dominant… Android did not make the impact people were anticipating, though it still has potential.
To make get any open source software to the masses it has to be
1 completely user friendly (look and feel)
2 offer easy tech support (no go on a forum and hope someone helps you)
3 does everything that can be found on non open source products support all same formats, same features etc.
(that matter to average consumers not nerds)
4 able to find in majorly known physical and online stores
5 doesn’t make the user seem like a jackass or make their brain hurt by being overly simple to the point where its dumbed down or is over there head and is like rocket science to them.
6 support for major consumers products
(mp3 players, phones, camera’s, printers, and every other device that can or has ever been connected to a computer)
Look yaml.org you can’t tell it’s code or human language. So article here never meant anything since you’re going to mix up what’s code and what’s speech.
This is the most confused article on this site ever and they even deleted my comment!
This is the worst POS I’ve ever read from TC – even worse than Siegler’s crap. You don’t provide a single fact to back up any of your claims, or even anything resembling reasonable thought process that lead you to them.
Debian & Ubuntu are Linux distributions, while KDE is a desktop environment (generally bundled with distros). OS X isn’t open source – just Darwin, the OS it’s built on.
“[Android] will be the dominant smartphone OS by the middle of next decade”… besides the Gartner report (which states 2012), please provide any support to verify your assertion.
“But Chrome doesn’t belong on desktops…”
Says who? Do you have any idea what the purpose of Chrome OS is? Rather than spending costly man hours coercing an app using GTK+ or some other ill-fated library to work on multiple platforms, I’d rather just spit out HTML and avoid all that overhead. Boom – local desktop apps that use HTML & Chrome for the GUI.
How does TC allow this bile to make it past the editorial process, assuming there even is one? What happened to fact checking. At least have the courtesy to make this crap op-ed.
Free Software will Prevail. Free as in speech not as in Beer.
I only wrote Free Software in my life. I got paid for doing so.
I’ll never make Closed Software. As that is evil.
Linux / BSD will rule the Desktop, Laptop, Netbook, Gaming Stasions and Phone. Wait and see.
Very interesting posting and commentary. Purists will always be purists, and will switch their efforts to whatever the next-best-not-yet-popular thing is. Or will stick to old-school hardware/software. Anything that is seen as either cutting edge, or throwback, because what the purist often wants most is simply to be non-conformist.
Yeah, right, desktop is OVER. Great.
A while ago, people ran around screaming that mainframes were over. Mainframe would be dead, they said, as dead as vacuum tubes. Guess what, they are alive, and expanding.
Desktop is over? Laughable. First, the mobile devices cannot replace the conform of working with a full size keyboard and a decent screen. Second, it is almost ubiquitous, and getting rid of this number of desktops along would take decades. Third, desktops may just take over mobile market. Soon, we may see Atom (x86) on mobile phone, and bang, mobile phones are desktop. Who rules x86 market, again?
My comment is like this: please stop dreaming, and face it. Announcing the end of desktop is like saying, “guys, we cannot win here, let’s give up and snuff around places where we see we can win.” That attitude can only invite more losses.
Another note: true, Firefox and other FOSS software have been kind of popular on proprietary system. However, how “free” are they? All in all, you still cannot know what the heck is going on with your data. What if Microsoft or Apple have code that logs everything ever write to disk, and periodically send this log to the parent companies? In my opinion, a FOSS Operating System with some proprietary software is safer, more free than the reverse, since at least we can poke at the system layer to see what is going on with our data. The reverse is not true.