We all know that for the last years Linux has been positioned by a few big enterprises as the answer. Perhaps a few of us deployed Linux back “in the day”. Then, we found a closet or a hiding place and redid the funky old mailserver with a hidden Linux box. We perhaps put in a huge ole second drive that the BIOS did not support but that Linux did. We knew that we could tell the system BIOS to ignore that second drive and install the OS on the small drive and all would be fine. Because Linux just takes over from the BIOS and does its thing.
The company I work for now does Linux management appliances and I’ve seen the power curve coming from those days to this one. But the business case is interesting. What do people do with Linux and what do they think they can do? Do the two ever match up? Two years ago, people told me “how could you ever run Linux as a desktop OS?” Now, people ask what WindowMaker is and how it is to run Linux. My answer is, “I get lazy. I don’t need the spyware, the malware, the registry suckers and cleaners, the AV software”. So with Linux as a desktop, I am lazy. For my work, all that I need to do is easily done on Linux every day.
There is the business case and then there is The Business Case! Each one has its meanings. One means I am lazy and I have my own business reasons for running Linux. I feel lazy basically. Rebooting my Linux desktop hardly ever happens; although with changing it from hotplug to uDEV I have had to a few times after package updates. My debian laptop hardly ever reboots and it travels from work to home and back.
So we have this enterprise reason and then a bunch of other reasons. Perhaps the enterprise reasons are really smaller reasons all disguised. But the real reason is gonna still be how these reasons are defined and standardized and certified. You can have all sorts of reasons for the seasons but if you don’t have operational definitions and what makes it relevant, it ain’t sh*t.
In other news, I read that Ian Murdock has taken over a few roles at the FSG. Congrats Ian. Hope everyone is doing well there.
Over and out.
