Great!
Best Wishes!

I agree with some of the points made by Tobias Weisserth, who commented on 22 November 2003:

* # Which Linux application area do you believe will grow the fastest in 2004?

Office Applications and Gaming Software. Linux is ripe for the desktop. I believe that office applications have been maturing for some time. While there is still plenty of room for further improvements, I personally have found that using Web browser applications, word processor and office suite applications, plain text editors, and desktop file managers, provide nearly all of the basic functionality that I need. Many people like to play games. While I'm not big on games myself, I have seen the number of games that work on Linux systems increase dramatically. There needs to be a lot more improvement in this area, but I think that we're almost ready to move forward rapidly because a critical mass has been, for the most part, established.

# Will 2004 *finally* be the year when Linux makes significant in-roads on the desktop?

Tobias said: "What's 'significant' supposed to mean? Haven't there been significant announcements already concerning Linux and desktop use in places like Asia or Munich, Germany?"

I would suggest that there is plenty of viable Linux desktop software, so that's not the issue, either. The issue is whether or not there will be widespread deployments or not. There have already been some significant deployments, not just of Linux server software or specialized point of sale applications, but actual every day desktop deployments. The challenge will be to publicize these well, document just how effective they are and how much money they save in licensing costs, down time caused by intrusions and other annoyances, and how the initial investment costs can be effectively recovered. Once those things are clear, the path is smooth to establishing growth.

There's a chance that there could be an explosion in desktop usage, but I think that it may take more than a year for that to happen. I predict this will be a year of good, strong growth. If that actually happens, I'll consider that to be "signficant", regardless of how much market share is actually generated.

# Which distributions will show the greatest growth in 2004?

Tobias said, "In absolut numbers? SuSE. They will Novell as a base from which to dive into the North American market.

"In relative terms? Fedora. An apt capable RPM based Red Hat, compiled for modern architectures and using up to date software is a killer distribution for power users. Debian has to brace itself."

I agree with most of that. I think that the Debian project will continue to move forward. Debian has goals that are distinct from other projects, and I don't think that Debian will suffer from the success of other projects. I've actually seen quite a bit of growth in commercial Debian efforts over the past two years: Libranet, LindowsOS, Xandros, Knoppix, and Mepis, just to name a few of them. I think that Red Hat will do well by focusing separately on consumer and enterprise markets. SuSE will do well with the backing of Novell. Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Sun are bound to either align themselves closely with at least two Linux efforts or possibly even acquire a few of them, depending on how things work out.

# What major Linux IPO or Linux acquisition will occur in 2004?

Tobias said, "I would not be surprised if Hewlett Packard is going to buy Mandrake. Mandrake did have some financial problems but they have a good knowlegde base and a great desktop product." I'm less sure about that. HP and IBM are the least likely to acquire a Linux vendor; they'll probably only do so if all of the other players do it (or if Novell ends up making great amounts of money - then the others will suddenly get interested). At the moment, Sun seems to be packaging their own stuff, but it's based on Novell/SuSE stuff. IBM is working with Novell and Red Hat. Oracle works mostly with Red Hat. HP works with Mandrake, Red Hat, and Debian. Something COULD happen here, but it's unclear at this time what that may be.

# What will be the coolest new Linux application in 2004?

Games, Internet applications, and office applications are the most likely things, based on what can be seen right now, but some really good commercial financial applications would provide a solid addition to what's already available.

# Will the SCO debacle slow Linux adoption over the next year?

I think that the SCO stuff, in the long run, will actually increase awareness of Linux software. Once the air clears a bit, it may actually help increas the rate of adoption. There's little evidence that the current stuff going on has stopped anyone who's really interested in Linux, it may be slowing those who are less sure, but I think the impact has been minor and hard to even measure.

# Will Tux finally get a girlfriend?

Maybe the real truth will come out! Isn't he already married with a wife and three children?

It could be M$ that Tux makes his 'b*tch'. . . ;)

* Which Linux application area do you believe will grow the fastest in 2004?

Localized apps. Both GTK (using Pango) and QT and OpenOffice.org have quite decent support for complex and far eastern languages, and the translation projects are also speeding up, so I would not be surprised many governments, especially in Asian countries switching over to GNU/Linux based systems in 2004. Localized apps are of great importance in these areas.

* Will 2004 *finally* be the year when Linux makes significant in-roads on the desktop?

Corporate desktop - yes - ordinary home user - no.

* Which distributions will show the greatest growth in 2004?

Fedora/Debian.

* What major Linux IPO or Linux acquisition will occur in 2004?

No comments

* What will be the coolest new Linux application in 2004?

The Freedesktop.org Xserver with all its fancy extensions

* Will the SCO debacle slow Linux adoption over the next year?

To some extent - yes.

* Will Tux finally get a girlfriend?

Maybe - but it certainly won't be M$ ;-)

And part of driving OpenOffice adoption is the newly available low-cost-but-really-high-quality online end user training:

http://www.digitaldistribution.com

(shameless plug!)

:)

# Which Linux application area do you believe will grow the fastest in 2004?
Security

# Will 2004 *finally* be the year when Linux makes significant in-roads on the desktop?
Yes, with OpenOffice.org looking so nice it is inevitable. Refer to next question for more.

# Which distributions will show the greatest growth in 2004?
Have to be SuSE with Novell's money behind it. With both Ximaim and SuSE they can make a run at the Linux from desktop to server approach. With the help ($) of IBM.

# What major Linux IPO or Linux acquisition will occur in 2004?
IBM will just go ahead and buy Novell the rest of the way. Or Sun will have to do something to stay afloat. Being that many Sun shops are moving over to i386/Linux for cost savings. For the half a million it costs for a 4800 Sun you can buy a truckload of Dell, IBM, or HP servers.

# What will be the coolest new Linux application in 2004?
Not one in particular. But ones that help bridge the gap between heterogenious enviorments. In terms of proprietary applications and open source. Being that companies are far from ready to be 100% Open Source.

# Will the SCO debacle slow Linux adoption over the next year?
NO, and neither will Microsoft. Being that Microsoft will still be busy patching and making service packs. While people have a hard time even taking SCO serious anymore. SCO made a big bet on the whole thing to begin with. It was a last dying breath attempt at stopping something that has already started. Just as it was ironic Bill Gates did a spoof on the Matrix for Comdex. Being that one of the themes of the movie was 'unplugging' from the 'machine' and 'freeing your mind'. In which Microsoft as it seems would be the thing that lead to the machine world in the first place. How can you 'free you mind' when you are busy saving up $400 to get a copy of Office 2K???

# Will Tux finally get a girlfriend?
NOOOO! He is too much of a 'player' for that! After all many a geek lives vicariously through his exploits (no pun intended).

# Will BSD die due to the popularity of Linux?
No it won't 'die', it will just be 'the same but different' being that it has many years of advanced work ahead of Linux. And as I also don't see BSD and Linux people playing nicely anytime soon. With Gentoo and Linux ports system or apt-get for that matter Linux is closing the weak points where it was previously lacking. Now all we need is to finish a very fine security audit alla OpenBSD for Linux and life will be good.

# Will Linux get goverment security certifications over the next year?
Yes, with the financial help of IBM/Novell it will be done. Being that the government will not be able to pass up the cost of ownership and ROI that Linux/Open Source has to offer. Plus with the addition of Manadatory Access Controls and other required components of something such as TCSEC, TNI, and the rest of the 'Rainbow Series' etc. Along with the help of NSA Linux and other similar endeavours. . .

* Which Linux application area do you believe will grow the fastest in 2004?

Open Office will make Bill Gates cry a lot in 2004. It will take at least half of MSOffice's share...

* Will 2004 *finally* be the year when Linux makes significant in-roads on the desktop?

Yes, but not for the average user. The revolution will start inside Govs computers, like in Brazil, Germany and Asia. As soon as government staff sees waht Linux can do, they'll move to it.

* Which distributions will show the greatest growth in 2004?

SuSe, thanks to Novell's user network, or Mandrake because it is so easy for begginers and Windows users (actually, they're the same thing...)

* What will be the coolest new Linux application in 2004?

Firebird, the nicest browser I ever used. And it will get even better when it reaches 2.0!

* Will the SCO debacle slow Linux adoption over the next year?

Who? SCO? They've already lost that battle.

* Will Tux finally get a girlfriend?

Yeap. He will be seem many times with Lara Croft, but at the end, he'll announce his wedding with topo model Gosele Bundchen.

Rather than ask where Linux is going in the next year, why not ask where is open source going in the next year? Applications under the GPL that can operate on any platform, ie Mac, Windows and Linux, should prove invaluable. When it is just as easy to use an application on a Linux box as on a Widows box, then the resistance to Linux evaporates.

friend , esr never made any comments coicnering the role of education in IQ levels.. he made the comments on the role of lower IQ level in crime which again is not a racial slur..

lets take it another context the saem comment smade by esr in as Syuadia arabia woudl generate clasim of anisemtiiism and anit-islamicism.. the exact saem comment sbut different 'rose colored' glasses viewing the comments..

again angry blakc man did not point out where the racisist comment was in esr's psot becasue there was none..

esr was addressing IQ level not education and systems that effect increases iin social-ecomonical levels.. bgi differnece when disucssing what is racism!

ESR never denied that there was not racism in the underlying systems that produce IQ levels..

Do this for a nice eye opener walk up to any non USA American black, for example Mayalsian, South African, and etc and ask them what they think of the USA Black American attitudes and beliefs.. you will get a very eye opneing experience..

You are assuming several things based on skin color and culutral assumptions that simply are not true on the basis of the orginal arguement..

the org statement implied by Angry Black Man was that any statment about IQ is racist..which is very incorrect on its face value!

I am not black but totally agree with Angry Black Man comments. Unfortunately a lot of white people still do not see forest behind the trees: they see numbers (IQ, g, p, etc), differences between social groups but they forget to mention about role of education in producing those numbers. Will be IQ (sorry I have to use this meaningless term) of a child grown in a family who does not own single book lower than to of a child who reads a book every week? Why then all this mentioning of the genetics?

In defense of ESR:

where is the racial slur in the following:

For anyone who believe that racial equality is an important goal, this is absolutely horrible news. Which is why a lot of well-intentioned people refuse to look at these facts, and will attempt to shout down anyone who speaks them in public. There have been several occasions on which leading psychometricians have had their books canceled or withdrawn by publishers who found the actual scientific evidence about IQ so appalling that they refused to print it.

Unfortunately, denial of the facts doesn't make them go away. Far from being meaningless, IQ may be the single most important statistic about human beings, in the precise sense that differences in g probably drive individual and social outcomes more than any other single measurable attribute of human beings.

Mean IQ differences do not justify making assumptions about any individual. There are African black geniuses and Ashkenazic Jewish morons; humanity and ethics demand that we meet each individual human being as an individual, without prejudice. At the same time, group differences have a significance too great to ignore. In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes; can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color.

And that is actually a valuable hint about how to get beyond racism. A black man with an IQ of 85 and a white man with an IQ of 85 are about equally likely to have the character traits of poor impulse control and violent behavior associated with criminality — and both are far more likely to have them than a white or black man with an IQ of 110. If we could stop being afraid of IQ and face up to it, that would give us an objective standard that would banish racism per se. IQ matters so much more than skin color that if we started paying serious attention to the former, we might be able to stop paying attention to the latter.

..there is none..however we have several one word readers posting here claiming that there are racial slurs..

debating violent crime increases as pertaining IQ differences is nto raciaism as the trends that decrease IQ are not racist in orgin..the powers controlling he trends however tend to be somewhat racist in in direct or indirect orgins however..a very important distinction!

Another Black Man and other center on one word explanations for their non understanding for what Esr posts they read instead of asking questions..

If Eric Raymond refers to these Bell-curve-Rassenhygiene-Nazi-Pseudo-Sience, he is indeed not someone, who should get any support (better: is is in great need for support by a History-Teacher/Psychatrist...).
BUT: "ESR" is NOT the OSS or the FSF!
These Movements are not hierarchic empirers or the domain of charismatic leaders but selforganizing groups of people from all over the world, that seek freedom from Leadership by big Companies or anyone.
Please take this in Account. The whole OSS-Scene can be taken over by People from Africa, Thailand, Russia and the Netherlands and "ESR" could do *nothing* to prevent this...
i will of course support free software regardless if some of those, who are involved herein also are bonkers or not...

I just read the comments mentioned by Angry Black Man. Yes, ESR definitely is a racist. He goes on his silly bell curve nonsense,which is something like 8 years after the original hoopla. I'm just glad I'm a hell of a lot smarter than him. Neither he nor his organization will be getting my support.

# Which Linux application area do you believe will grow the fastest in 2004?
Difficult to say. However, with M$ thrusting their trusted computing nonsense - and looking to gouge the business server market further - I'd say that this is where people would be looking for cheaper alternatives, and that much more dev work would go here.

# Will 2004 *finally* be the year when Linux makes significant in-roads on the desktop?
I agree with several other commenters here - define "significant." If we're talking about usage of Linux in the home, I'd say no. Linux within business is already happening, but the lack of adoption by employees to use Linux at home would make them reluctant to adopt it in the office.

# Which distributions will show the greatest growth in 2004?
LFS! (waves LFS fanboy flag here!) I can't seriously comment here.

# What major Linux IPO or Linux acquisition will occur in 2004?
Linus Torvalds signs 5-year deal with Microsoft... (yeah RIGHT!)

# What will be the coolest new Linux application in 2004?
I really can't think of what will happen, but I can say what needs to happen if Linux is to see wider adopton. (And yes, these would be absolutely cool.)
1.) Games. There has to be MUCH more adoption by the game developers. Most of what drives Moore's Law is games for the desktop. Yes, yes, I know about WINE, but that's a stopgap, a patch. More native compiles of games for Linux is needed. The biggest breakthrough (IMHO) would be a Linux MMORPG that took advantage of an existing media outlet. Star Wars is already online with Windows, so I'd say the logical alternative would be a Star Trek MMORPG with a native Linux client. Trekkies and Linux Geeks, Unite! I'm sure there's other media outlets available, I just tossed out one possible idea. (Another would be a Matrix MMORPG...)
2.) Media downloading services akin to iTunes. To be more specific, legal downloading services.
3.) A true IDE environment, a replacement for Visual Studio. This is probably the biggest hurdle to seeing more applications being ported to Linux/X.

# Will the SCO debacle slow Linux adoption over the next year?
Despite our wishful thinking, yes. Companies and corporations are easily intimidated by the FUD SCO is putting out, despite the fact that their claims are baseless. However, tell a lie often enough, and it becomes accepted to be the truth.

# Will Tux finally get a girlfriend?
We really hope so - 12 years without would drive ANY guy crazy! (Vulcans would be dead by now.)

# Which Hollywood starlet might Tux run off with and secretly get married to?
Liv Tyler/Arwen Undomiel? I... don't see it, sorry.
Definitely NOT Minnie Mouse - she's owned by Disney, and in chains. Waitaminute, unless he were to run in and undo her shackles? (By reversing all these copyright extensions?) Aah, she's smitten by Mickey anyway.
We gotta find that stud a GPL girlfriend. Darioush Jalali: ROFLMAO!

That should about do it. :)

Angry Black Man,

I do not agree with ESR's comments on blacks. However, you do NOTHING to endear me to your plight. Here's a much better response.

Eric Raymond has been very positive in the Linux community and done a lot of good for freedom of software. It is disappointing that his attitude to fellow man in general is not equally applied. I feel his racist slurs against black people will only serve to undermine Linux and humanity in general.

Your response and how you approach things will make a significant difference to the outcome. Try it and see how you go.

Sincerely,
Not the Angry Black Man (nor black for that matter)