Vista helps Linux, making the penguin happy!

Granted, Windows Vista does look pretty, but to use an old analogy I've coined and remarked to others before in regards to Vista . . .

'Vista is like a prize show dog. It's really pretty to look at with its shining coat and perfect teeth and proud stance, real pretty. But underneath all of that glitz and glamor, it's so horribly inbred and broken that it doesn't know who or what it is half the time.'

Most of the Linux community would probably agree with that statement, point to the inadequacies and compatibility issues with Vista. Furthermore, Linux users would proudly boast of how the Linux desktop has had 3D effects for years, and that the Microsoft OS just trying to play catchup with their Aero Glass interface and desktop effects and widgets and so forth.

One fellow by the name of Cole Crawford might agree. He is an IT strategist at Dell who had recently delivered an address entitled "The Linux Desktop—Fact, FUD or Fantasy?" at the annual LinuxWorld Conference & Expo currently taking place in San Francisco.

He pointed to prime examples of companies that have moved back to Windows XP after the insanity of upgrading to Vista, or ditching Microsoft all togeather in favor of Linux. Crawford had even quoted Scott Granneman, an author, entrepreneur and adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis, as saying, "To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just have to work on it."

Truer words have never been spoken.

Crawford also pointed out that Microsoft has owned the desktop OS market for more than 15 years now. Apparently, according to Crawford, "and so the only way for them to go is down. But Linux can only go up, and its growth potential is enormous. "While Linux only has 1 percent of share on the desktop versus Microsoft's more than 90 percent, that is changing, and the Linux desktop is expected to gain some share over the next two years," he said.

As for software, the number of developers targeting Windows has decreased some 12 percent in the past year alone. Conversely, Linux development is up a whopping 34 percent in the same time frame. Furthermore, the recent interoperability agreements Microsoft has signed with Linux vendors such as Novell, Xandros, and Linspire has been seeing positive results thus far. It has had a larger portion of the Linux kernel maintained and developed by cooperate entities rather than the open source community at large. This leaves module and package (plug in and program) development open to the smaller open source coders who will still have full access to the kernel, but a kernel with greater support, development, and interoperability between Windows and Linux platforms. A simple case in point being that of servers. Linux distros are far more popular in the server environment than Windows Server is. But delivering data from the company Linux server to a bunch of Windows based desktop systems requires that added interoperability.

But with every positive come a negative. Because no one entity actually owns the Linux Kernel source, it makes SLAs (Service Level Agreements) a bit more challenging. Does Novell provide the service, or does Xandros? What do they charge? Do does what? Can one company augment to code that has been placed their by another? These are all issues that fall under the GPL (GNU Public License) agreement, which will probably be rewritten yet one again to reflect a more service friendly approach to open source software. Microsoft on the other hand has had 15 years worth of service contracts to build upon, and thusly, have an edge in that realm.

In terms of the cooperate desktop environment, Crawford pointed out that any cooperate desktop system running a chosen Linux distribution must come with a compliance of the given company's standards in mind, along with ample interoperability, security, and a remotely manageable kernel, along with a suite of programs to accommodate the business environment it is intended for.

"The Linux desktop can do all of that. It can be interoperable with earlier versions of the operating system, is generally interoperable with Windows, can ship with an enterprise kernel and can be remotely managed by existing management solutions," he said.

Perhaps the greatest driving force behind the Linux movement is the innovation, freedom, and the constant frustration with Windows, Crawford said. The only real thing standing in the way of greater Linux adoption is the software packaging. A standard needs to be set, according to Crawford, allowing for better interoperability between the different Linux distributions. Furthermore, having vendors develop Linux device drives for the likes of printers, audio, and networking is incredibly important. Crawford further added that "We also need to get the different distributions to work on a common release cycle,".

In terms of security, a hot button issue with every PC user, Linux is a lot more secure than Windows. It has no registry; everything is a file which needs permissions to accessed, executed, and or augmented. There are no DLL's; Dynamic Link Library's that contain executable code (or exploits) that is shared between different programs. No ActiveX; comparable to a plug in, but one that executes its own code, both bad and good depending upon who wrote it.
 
"This is the year of the interoperable Linux desktop. Standards are helping to drive adoption, while driver support will be the key to the success of desktop Linux. The opportunity to standardize and drive interoperability is paramount," Crawford added. The industry could always shift towards a Unix approach, or find some unity amongst the digital populace and adopt a Linux standard. "If you want to differentiate, do so after we have started to win. We absolutely need to unify, we really do,".