Why Pigs Have Wings
Oct 9th, 2007 by Eats Wombats
There are only 10 days to the next release of Ubuntu Linux, version 7.10 (for 2007-Oct; Wikipedia article here).
Much as I would like to think that Linux will, in the end, be to Microsoft Windows what Microsoft was to IBM, that seems a bit of a stretch at the moment. Linux was recently reported to have increased its market share from 0.37% to 0.81%. The Ubuntu distribution, represents about 30% of all Linux installations, that’s about a 0.25% market share, about half that of the insignificant Windows Millennium Edition (source). In the last 6 months or so Windows Vista has grabbed about an 8% market share, from Windows XP, which still has a share ten times that size. On the face of it, it would appear that Microsoft needn’t lose any sleep, except perhaps over Google and the European Union. Reassuringly for Microsoft, Walt Mossberg, writing in the Wall Street Journal recently opined that Linux was not ready for everyone, meaning ordinary users.
Mossberg would have served his readers better if he’d held his review until the latest release. Six months is a long time in Linux years. There are many ways besides market share in which Microsoft Windows is ahead of Linux. Linux suffered by comparison in its ease of wireless networking and the inferior quality, especially when compared with Windows Vista, of the graphical user interface. The next version of Ubuntu will close these gaps, and in doing so will likely continue to gain market share.
If a PC generation is about 4 years, then Microsoft should be converting Windows XP users to Vista at a faster rate than it has been doing. The extent of the shortfall can be debated, only Microsoft knows the true figures, but it’s real and seems likely to grow. On one hand Vista gained from many purchases being deferred until its release, on the other it suffers delayed adoption by corporate IT managers until the first service pack is released (due in early 2008). Unlike the developers working on Linux, Microsoft doesn’t seem able to release software updates on a regular basis.
Here’s an entertaining commercial for Windows Vista which speaks to the popular affection and esteem in which Microsoft is held by its customers. What this says is that Microsoft has hostages not customers, and that given a chance people will vote with their feet. The ease of doing so is about to increase and it will continue to grow.
Lest you think I look upon the world of Linux through rose-tinted spectacles, here’s a recent post to discussion on a popular Linux site on that perennially popular topic, which Linux distribution is the best (one might as well ask which car is the best):
This is an interesting meta discussion, but I just have to post here to mention the Greatest Linux Distro out there: (fill in the blank). I just can’t believe everybody is not using (fill in the blank) and so many crappy distros like (fill in the blank), (fill in the blank) and (fill in the blank), are still ranked high in the page hit rankings here. Before I discovered (fill in the blank) I was always trying to get my (fill in the blank) to work properly and my (fill in the blank) to at least (fill in the blank) let alone (fill in the blank). Now, everything just works! I’ve even decided to contribute several dollars to the developer(s) of (fill in the blank) even though I can’t afford it with my part-time job as a (fill in the blank) at (fill in the blank), but at least it is a token of my (fill in the blank). For those of you who have not yet tried (fill in the blank), I urge you to go to www.(fill in the blank).com and download the ISO and let the magic begin. (fill in the blank) for President!
This is a hilarious parody of so many partisan messages of this ilk that have been posted on discussion fora for years. The next best Linux laugh this month was Linus Torvalds, the Finnish originator of Linux, saying that something was a likely as “hell freezing over or pigs nesting in trees.” Pigs flying I know about. Nesting in trees is new and funny. Is this a translation from Finnish I wonder? And how long before there’s a Linux version called Pignestix? I have just Googled “Finnish humour.” What a waste of time that was. But at least you now know why pigs have wings.
