Why Linux Is Already A Success, Sep 21, 2007

Maybe the truth is that Linux is already a success, and that talk of "the year of Linux on the desktop" is also misleading. Plain and simple: I don’t believe Linux has to eclipse Microsoft on the desktop to be viable. Frankly, I don’t think it has to eclipse anything at all.

While the Net is flush with celebration and legal analysis (and am happy that SCO did not prevail), I think my take on this is a bit more sobering in the bigger picture of our great industry.

For the first time in the U.S., a company and software vendor, Monsoon Multimedia, is being taken to court for a GPL violation. Previously, alleged GPL violations have all been settled by letters from the FSF (Free Software Foundation) or other open-source organizations, pointing out the violation.

Intel yesterday launched an open-source project called LessWatts.org, which it hopes will reduce the power consumption of Linux-based servers, PCs and other devices.

The Microsoft Permissive License, one of two licenses the software maker submitted to the Open Source Initiative for approval as open-source licenses in August, is unlikely to be approved in its current form.

At least 80 percent of all commercial software products will include elements of open-source code by 2010, according to Mark Driver, vice president of research at Gartner.

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