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Linux adoption refers to the uptake of the Linux operating system by homes, organisations, companies, and governments. Linux migration refers to the change over to Linux from other operating systems.

Part of a series on:

Linux

History

GNU Project • Linux kernel (history • portability) • Naming controversy • Windows and Linux • Adoption • Linus's Law • Tux • SCO and Linux

Distribution

Linux distribution (list • comparison) • Linux package formats • LiveDistro (list • comparison) • Live USB • Mini Linux

Applications

LAMP • Desktop • Embedded • Gaming • Thin client

Legal bodies

Linux Foundation • Linux Users' Group (LUG) This box: view • talk • edit

Contents 1 History 2 Power users 3 Government 4 School and education 5 Home systems 6 Business 7 Motivations 8 Desktop adoption of Linux 8.1 Application support 8.2 Quality of peripheral support 8.3 End user support 8.4 Other factors 9 Advocacy 10 See also 11 External links 12 References

[edit] History

• 1983 (September): GNU project was announced publicly
• 1991 (September): first version of the Linux kernel was released to the Internet
• 1999: Linux is the most popular Internet serving OS, counted by domain name, with 28.5% of market (Zoebelein)
• 2001: Linux in use by 35.5% of Japanese corporations (Impress Corporation)
• 2001 (second quarter): Linux server unit shipments at 15% annual growth rate IDC
• 2002 (July): Linux and Microsoft (Windows XP and CE combined) have 30% share each in terms of developer use for future embedded projects (EDC).
• 2002: 25% of servers running Linux (IDC)
• 2002: Linux in use by 64.3% of Japanese corporations
• 2002 (October): 59% of developers expect to write Linux applications in the next year (EDC)
• 2004 (second quarter): Linux server unit shipments at 40% annual growth rate (IDC)
• 2004: Linux shipped on approximately 50% of the worldwide server blade units, and 20% of all rack-optimized servers. (IDC [1])
• 2004: Linux deployments in retail increased 34 percent over 2003 (IHL)
• 2004 (February): 1.1 million developers in North America working on free software ("F/OSS") projects (Evans Data survey)
• 2005: Massachusetts Government uses OASIS' OpenDocument format for public records. In 2007, however, Massachusetts approved Microsoft's OOXML format for official state use while Microsoft's older .doc format is still not approved.[2]
• 2007: Dell announces it will ship select models with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed.[3]
• 2007: Lenovo announces it will ship select models with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 pre-installed.[4]
• 2007: HP announces that it will begin shipping computers pre-installed with Red Hat Linux in Australia.[5]

[edit] Power users

Linux's roots in the Unix operating system mean that in addition to graphical configuration tools and control panels available for many system settings and services, it is often either easier or necessary to use plain-text configuration files to configure the OS. While user access to these files and utilities is controlled by the system administrator, and in theory the user does not need to worry about them, in practice the administrator and user are often the same person on a desktop system.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Government

As local governments come under pressure from institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Intellectual Property Alliance, some have turned to open source software as an affordable, legal alternative to both pirated material and expensive computer products from Microsoft, Apple and the like.^{[citation needed]}

The spread of free software affords some leverage for these countries when companies from the developed world bid for government contracts (since a low-cost option exists), while furnishing an alternative path to development for countries like India and Pakistan that have many citizens skilled in computer applications but cannot afford technological investment at "First World" prices.

• Brazil's PC Conectado program
• City of Munich has chosen to migrate its 14,000 desktops to Debian-based LiMux [6]
• US Department of Defense, use and develop open source software
• City of Vienna, has chosen to start migrating its desktop PCs to Debian-based Wienux [7]
• Spain has been noted as the furthest along the road to Linux adoption [8], for example with Linux distribution LinEx
• State owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is rolling out Linux in all of its 20,000 retail branches as the basis for its web server and a new terminal platform. (2005) [9]
• In 2005 the Peruvian government voted to adopt Open Source across all its bodies. The 2002 response to Microsoft's critique is available online [10].

In the preamble to the bill, the Peruvian government stressed that the choice was made to ensure that key pillars of democracy were safeguarded: "The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of a state of law."

• In January 2006, Venezuelan open source law goes into effect, mandating a two year transition to open source in all public agencies. [11]
• In April 2006, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced that it had completed a migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in one third of the scheduled time and saved 15 million dollars.[12]
• The government of Pakistan established a Technology Resource Mobilization Unit in 2002 to enable groups of professionals to exchange views and coordinate activities in their sectors and to educate users about free software alternatives. Linux is an option for poor countries with little revenue available for public investment; Pakistan is employing open source software in public schools and colleges, and hopes to run all government services on Linux eventually.
• The Ministry of Defense in Singapore began switching its computers from Microsoft to free software in 2004, while South Korea, China and Japan agreed to cooperate in creating new Linux-based programs.
• The French Parliament have switched to using Kubuntu on desktop PCs.^{[citation needed]}
• The Govt. of India has set up a resource centre for Free and Open Source Software NRCFOSS managed jointly by C-DAC Chennai and Anna University, Chennai. It has one of its node in Mumbai at VJTI College

[edit] School and education

• The OLPC XO-1 (previously called the MIT $100 laptop and The Children's Machine), is an inexpensive laptop running Linux, which will be distributed to millions of children as part of the One Laptop Per Child project, especially in developing countries.
• Macedonia deployed 5,000 Linux desktops running Ubuntu across all 468 public schools and 182 computer labs (December 2005) [13]
• Italian schools in Bolzano have switched to a custom distribution of Linux (FUSS Soledad GNU/Linux), which will be used by the 16,000 students in the area when they return on 12 September 2005. [14]
• Brazil has around 20,000 Linux desktops running in elementary and secondary public schools.
• The Netherlands has an initiative called "Open Source en standaarden in het onderwijs", in English "Open source and standards in education". [15]
• Government officials of Kerala, India announced they will use only free software, running on the Linux platform, for computer education, starting with the 2,650 government and government-aided high schools. [16]
• 22,000 students in the U.S. state of Indiana were using Linux as of 2006[17]
• Germany has announced that 560,000 students in 33 universities will migrate to Linux. [18]
• Russia announced in October 2007 that all its school computers will run on Linux.^[1] This is to avoid cost of licensing current unlicensed software.

Linux is often used in technical disciplines at universities and research centres. This is due to several factors, including that Linux is available free of charge and includes a large body of free/open source software. To some extent, technical competence of computer science and software engineering academics is also a contributor, as is stability, maintainability, and upgradability. IBM ran an advertising campaign entitled "Linux is Education" featuring a young boy who was supposed to be "Linux".^{[2][citation needed]}

[edit] Home systems

• Sony's PlayStation 3 comes with a hard disk (20GB, 60GB or 80GB) and is specially designed to allow easy installation of Linux on the system. However, Linux is prevented from accessing certain functions of the PlayStation such as 3D graphics.

[edit] Business

Linux is also used in some corporate environments as the desktop platform for its employees, with commercially available solutions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and Linspire.

• Ernie Ball, the guitar string manufacturers known for their famous Super Slinky guitar strings, have used Linux as their desktop operating system since 2000. [19]
• Google, the search engine, uses several different Linux distributions on the desktop and a customised version of Red Hat Linux on over 100,000 servers[20].^{[citation needed]}
• Novell is currently undergoing a migration from Windows to Linux. Of their 5500 employees, 50% were successfully migrated as of April, 2006. This is expected to rise to 80% by November.[21]
• Wotif.com, the Australian hotel booking site, migrated from Windows to Linux servers in order to keep up with the growth of their business.[22]
• Union Bank of California announced in January, 2007 that they would standardize their IT infrastructure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux in order to lower costs. [23]
• Peugeot, the European car maker announced plans to deploy up to 20,000 copies of Novell's Linux desktop, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and 2,500 copies of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, in 2007. [24]
• Mindbridge, the software company, announced in September, 2007 that they had migrated a large number of Windows servers onto a smaller number of Linux servers (and a few BSD). They claim to have saved "bunches of money."[25]

[edit] Motivations

The primary driving forces behind Linux adoption can be summarized as:

• Security
• Reputation
• Technological one-upmanship

Other reasons cited are:

• Open source - it is visible what is being done with data, how the program works, and that it does what it is said to do.
• Lack of vendor lock-in - data can usually be ported more easily because there is often less incentive to make this difficult than with proprietary software.
• Long term usability (reduction in duplication and/or built in obsolescence) - open source software packaged with Linux usually lasts longer because repeated rollouts and "must have" updates are not part of the marketing model.
• Low cost - most of the popular Linux distributions are available as a free download over the Internet, while Windows, depending on version and how it is purchased, costs between US$199 and US$299 per seat. Mac OS X costs US$129 per seat, or US$199 the family pack (5 licenses), and runs only on Apple hardware.
• Core packages run across more platforms, and are often more standards compliant and interoperable. Major proprietary software tends to be compliant with, and interoperable with, its own manufacturer's software only, and is often hard to port to other platforms or systems.
• At a professional level, Linux is configurable and robust.
• Many of its core services, including expandability, and functions such as clustering, stability, and supercomputer-creation, are easier with Linux than many alternative common systems.
• Upgrades are issued and problems fixed more quickly.
• Other factors include the large number of languages Linux's interfaces are available in, the flexibility to customise it to local needs, and high quality remote management.

Companies are engaging in Linux adoption and free software / open source:

• because it is the dominant trend in software production
• to cause market disruption
• because customers are demanding it, and
• to move the value-adding to different areas.

The use of Linux on desktop PCs in corporations is being driven by employees requesting it, and by corporations seeing competitors successfully deploying Linux. [26]

In government, self-determination and vendor independence are valued, as well as the local software industry development that may surround the adoption of Linux.

In the developing world, recent WTO agreements have encouraged organizations to look to Linux as an alternative to using copyright-infringing software.

(For more details see Peruvian congress letter to Microsoft detailing the advantages it sees in Linux that influenced its 2005 Linux adoption decision)

[edit] Desktop adoption of Linux

Linux accounts for around 1% of desktop market share. In comparison, Microsoft operating systems hold more than 90%. ^{[3] [4] [5] [6] [7]}

The low desktop market share of Linux may be because it is not seen as a direct Windows replacement. ^[8] 69.5% of respondents to an openSUSE survey conducted in 2007 said they dual boot a Microsoft Windows operating system in addition to a Linux operating system. ^[9] Bill Whyman, an analyst at Precursor Advisors, notes that "there still isn't a compelling alternative to the Microsoft infrastructure on the desktop." ^[10]

Application support, the quality of peripheral support, and end user support are seen to be the biggest obstacles for desktop Linux adoption. ^{[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]} According to a 2006 survey by The Linux Foundation, these factors were a "major obstacle" for 56%, 49%, and 33% of respondents respectively. ^[19]

[edit] Application support

Users are accustomed to and want Windows applications which have not been ported to Linux, ^[20] such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk AutoCAD, and Quicken Quickbooks. In addition, 51% of respondents to the 2006 survey believed Linux desktop standards cross-distro should be the top priority for the Linux desktop community, highlighting the fact that the fragmented Linux market is preventing application vendors from developing, distributing and supporting the operating system. ^{[19] [14]}

[edit] Quality of peripheral support

While open source drivers have long been an issue for Linux desktops, the availability and capabilities of drivers for printing, wireless support, and audio are seen as particular areas which need attention. ^{[21] [19]} For example, Dell will not sell certain hardware and software with Ubuntu computers, including all printers, projectors, Bluetooth keyboards and mice, TV tuners and remotes, desktop modems, and Blu-ray disc drives, due to incompatibilities and legal issues. ^[22]

[edit] End user support

When compared to Windows, Linux is lacking in end user support. Linux has traditionally been seen as requiring much more technical expertise. ^{[23] [24]} Dell's website describes open source software as requiring intermediate or advanced knowledge to use. ^[18] Founder of the Ubuntu project, Mark Shuttleworth, comments that "it would be reasonable to say that this is not ready for the mass market." ^[23] CTO of Adeptiva Linux, Stephan February, noted that Linux remains a very technical software product with few people outside the technical community able to support consumers. Windows users are able to rely on friends and family for help, but Linux users generally use discussion boards, which can be uncomfortable for consumers. ^{[25] [26]}

[edit] Other factors

Linux's credibility has also been under attack. ^[27] There is continuing debate over the total cost of ownership of Linux, ^{[28] [29]} with Gartner warning in 2005 that the costs of migration may exceed the cost benefits of Linux. ^[30] In the SCO-Linux controversies, the SCO Group alleged that source code donated by IBM was illegally incorporated into Linux. In addition, the open source paradigm of Linux has been called "fundamentally insecure". ^{[31] [27]}

[edit] Advocacy

• The Linux Foundation - host and sponsor key kernel developers, manage the Linux trademark, manage the Open Source Developer Travel Fund, provide legal-aid to open source developers and companies through the Linux Legal Defense Fund, sponsor kernel.org and host the Patent Commons Project
• iFOSSF International Free and Open Source Software Foundation, nonprofit organization based in Michigan, USA accelerating and promoting the adoption of FOSS worldwide through research and civil society partnership networks.
• Open Invention Network, is intended to protect vendors and customers from patent royalty fees while using OSS
• IBM's Linux Marketing Strategy
• Linux User Groups
• Asian Open Source Centre (AsiaOSC)
• Brazil government, under Luis Inácio Lula da Silva [27]
• Software Livre Brasil, a Brazilian organization promoting Linux adoption in schools, public department's, commerce, industry and personal desktops.
• One Laptop Per Child
• FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan.

[edit] See also

• OpenDocument adoption
• Diffusion or adoption (business)
• Technology acceptance model
• Technology lifecycle
• Disruptive technology
• Open source vs. closed source
• Comparison of Windows and Linux
• Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD)

[edit] External links

• O/S market share monthly estimations, based on internet trafic
• LinuxWorld: What's Driving Global Linux Adoption?
• OSDL Desktop Linux Client Survey (pdf)
• Canadian Provincial Medical Association To Use Open Source Platform For EMR Project
• IDC: Latin America Linux Migration Trends 2005
• OSDL Claims Linux Making Major Gains in Global Retail Sector
• Munich delays switch to Linux
• Government of Peru representative rebutts Microsoft's corporate stance in the Windows/Linux debate
  (full detailed letter from Peruvian congressman to Microsoft's representative, describing basis for adoption)
• Linux Advocacy mini-HOWTO
• Big Names and GNU/Linux

[edit] References