Reply to: Linux and the public sector

[portseven]

What makes me laugh is the belief that Linux has any place in a modern IT world other than as a faceless low end server.

Your belief is misguided!

I see that the Tories are now making moves to get behind Open Source

http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do...&obj_id=135394

[Euro-commuter]

Perhaps the day of the web appliance is finally here. An embedded Linux would be a good choice for such a device.

The network is the computer. Finally.

Or as Ken Olsen of DEC said, why would anyone want a computer of their own?

[bogeyman]

Evident where?

Oh please don't get him started

[cottonfoo]

Windows has evidently got superior architecture to Linux...

Evident where?

[TheOmegaMan]

>AtW
>This message is hidden because AtW is on your ignore list.

Suddenly these forums make sense.

[portseven]

Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.

True, though cost is only one part of the whole picture (though a big part!) there are others such as, No Vendor Lock-In, Quality Code because of Peer Review

[AtW]

Windows has evidently got superior architecture to Linux...

[bogeyman]

Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.

It can still be a good choice if it's built into an appliance and the user can't fiddle about with it.

[DaveB]

Citrix Metaframe has been doing it well for a while. Run up to date windows apps on crappy out of date hardware, albeit with a stonking great server in the background.

Makes a nice way of putting MS apps onto other platforms as well.

[Churchill]

Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.

[cottonfoo]

Sun have been making thin clients for a while now, and X-window terminals (while not exactly the same) aren't too far off the mark.

What with Google making inroads into MS's territory (and others like Adobe getting in on the act), and most people having some broadband capability, I suspect these kinds of devices will find a real market over the next ten years or so.

[bogeyman]

There's gotta be a market for a browser-only pc that boots in sub-second time.

Web appliances.

They keep appearing and then dissapearing every so often. I don't think there's been much of a market for them until recently.

That could change as more people have broadband access and more apps are available in a web-based form. There's even a fairly capable web-based image editor now!

Perhaps the day of the web appliance is finally here. An embedded Linux would be a good choice for such a device.

[Cowboy Bob]

Really all this linux vs windows stuff is academic for most people. On the family computer (not the one I develop / experiment with) at home - it doesn't even need an OS. The only app that is run by anybody is a web-browser. There's gotta be a market for a browser-only pc that boots in sub-second time.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Pretty impressive for a grand total of 50Mb

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-3.1.jpg
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-2.3jwm.jpg

[bobhope]

Really all this linux vs windows stuff is academic for most people. On the family computer (not the one I develop / experiment with) at home - it doesn't even need an OS. The only app that is run by anybody is a web-browser. There's gotta be a market for a browser-only pc that boots in sub-second time.

[cottonfoo]

I regret writing that now, but it was a very silly thing to say by someone that obviously knows his (MS) stuff better than most!