OneAndOneIs2

If you're a Linux fan, you may already have read World Domination 201 by ESR and Rob Landley. If not, you probably should try to.

If you haven't time to spare, I'll give you the Executive Summary: The world is going to switch to 64-bit hardware soon, and if Linux isn't the 64-bit OS that runs on that hardware, it will stay marginalised.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I agree fully with this: FOSS in general, and Linux in particular, has been making significant inroads over the last few years, MS's monopoly notwithstanding.

But the main thrust of the article, I do agree with: If you really want to see Linux/FOSS become dominant, now is the time to push for it.

Why? Well, it's like this:

Linux started out very definitely "by hackers, for hackers" - it was Linus' pet project that he let other people play around with. It grew from there, until it was quite feasible for non-coder geeks to be able to install fairly successfully. It went further, to being easy for most people to be able to install and use fairly well.

And so the rumors started, and have circulated for years: "Linux is ready to take over the desktop" and "This is the year Linux becomes ready for the mainstream"

As thousands of Linux users will argue, Linux has been ready for the desktop for years: It's been their desktop for years. QED.

As for what it needs to become mainstream, well, it already has that: It's easy to install, it has a plethora of applications. Better third-party support is something it won't get until it actually becomes mainstream.

People have been saying "Linux is ready" for years. They've been wrong so far: Windows is still dominant. But sooner or later, they're going to be right. Linux isn't going away, there's no reason to think its market share is going to decrease, ergo it will someday become dominant.

Why is this a critical time?

Because Linux stopped being all about "by hackers, for hackers" - over the last few years, it's become big enough and good enough that people have started to want bigger things for it. Instead of being triumphant that they got X working, typical users want open-source graphic drivers to run XGL on. Instead of being glad just because they can get online, typical users complain that they have to use ndiswrapper to get wireless supported.

We want hardware support. We want games. We want standards compliance. We want Linux to be on more people's PCs.

So we've been arguing our case: FOSS is better quality. It has more developers doing better work. It's cheaper. It's more secure. It's morally superior. It can do anything you want it to do.

And slowly but surely, the world has started to listen, and be persuaded: Corporations, governments, and the man on the street, have all started to show an interest in FOSS. "OK, then," they say. "Show me what you've got."

Intel has released open-source graphics drivers. Mass. mandated open standards for all official documents. The decades-old BIOS is coming close to being replaced by LinuxBIOS, with AMD due to ship motherboards with it installed in the next year. Sun is giving us Java. In the news today, India is going open-source.

This is the proverbial "it". We've been saying to the world "Give us a chance" and they've turned round and given us one. It's no good saying we're not ready (it's never bothered Microsoft), it's no good saying it's not enough of a chance. We asked for a chance, we've got one.

What's more, we've been given one at an opportune time: Microsoft has shown clearly that they're barely capable of getting a new OS out the door, at the same time that the whole world is switching to hardware that requires (you guessed it) a new OS to make it work. MS had to drop features by the dozen and delay for years to get an upgrade of their existing 32-bit OS out of the door.

They have, if they're lucky, a couple of years to get their new OS usable with 64-bit. They are hugely at a disadvantage here: Most of their cherished driver support was written by other companies, and were written for 32-bit. MS can't upgrade those drivers to 64-bit, so it has to hope that the manufacturers will upgrade them, or hope that end users won't mind their 64-bit hardware running at 32-bit for compatibility reasons. There is a 64-bit version of Vista, but it's even more of a joke than the 32-bit version.

In contrast, Linux has been 64-bit for over a decade. You can install and use a mature, fully-featured, stable Linux desktop with very little effort. Today. Linux is ready for the next-gen hardware, it has been for years. Also in the news today: Audi has been upgrading to 64-bit Linux for years - they needed an OS that could address enough memory for their intensive needs. Linux was it. A perfect example.

The world needs 64-bit hardware, and it needs an OS that can reliably run it. Right now, Linux is the clear winner. If you *need* 64-bit. If your single biggest consideration is "Can it address 10 gigs of RAM?" then Linux is what you want.

If that much RAM is a luxury and you really care more about "Can I play games on it?" or "Will it play my MP3s and talk to my iPod?" Linux still has its drawbacks, 64-bit or not.

Hardware companies are open-sourcing their drivers. Software companies are open-sourcing their code. Governments, corporations, and people are switching to Firefox, trying out OpenOffice, advocating open standards, and checking out how easy to use KDE is these days.

The chance is there. The world is willing to be convinced that open-ness is the way to go. It doesn't need perfection, it doesn't need everything to be ready. Windows has a poor record at both.

It just needs us to be convincing. It needs us to be enthusiastic; it needs us to be positive; it needs us to be welcoming. It needs us to show that they will benefit from giving us their treasured source code.

It doesn't need us to say "Linux is only for hackers, if you can't contribute source code, sod off back to Windows" - because that's exactly what it will do. It'll accept the lousy EULAs, it'll ignore the requests for open-source drivers, it'll believe Microsoft and "Get the Facts".

Microsoft has pretty much achieved their goal, "A computer on every desktop"

If you want that computer to be running Linux, there will never be a better time to make the effort.