[LUGSB] Mandriva...Fed 4 on the desktop...

[cbwright]

fitchtom said:
> What is going to be very interesting over the next couple years is the
> amount of people switching over to Linux.
> 
> The price of MS 2003 server versions, the Activation licensing and the
> price  of the new SQL 2005 are going to force a lot of companies
> to take another look at Linux for both server and desktop.  The
> financial  case is getting stronger every day.

Hate to be the devil's advocate, but you'd need a few prerequisites to
make people comfortable with switching to Linux. The main issue is
inertia. Novell excluded, most corporations don't suddenly decide that
they should switch to Linux. There has to be a specific issue in which
the costs of each system are compared, and staying with current hardware
and software will be an option until the software becomes dated. That
doesn't happen often. When it does, there'll be retraining costs to
consider.

Other than that, I'd say if Debian (for instance) merely keeps up on the
more interesting features of other distros and ports them to its main
branch--and maintains a set of defaults to make setup simple--then Linux
won't be thought of as a mosh pit with a compiler anymore. (On the other
hand, it would probably kill certain projects and force others
together--if the central distro chooses GNOME, what happens to KDE,
Fluxbox, and Enlightenment?) Once Linux is (at least on the outside)
somewhat centralized, it'll gain fair acceptance, methinks. Though
that's already started.

-Chris Wright