The "Year of Desktop Linux" Chimera

For most of the last decade, a variety of tech industry pundits have touted the "Year of Desktop Linux", which is usually met with articles from the opposition claiming "Linux Not Ready for Prime-time". Both arguments are specious attempts to attract readers and flame-wars at the expense of observable fact. Meanwhile, those less cognizant of matters digital are left pondering, "Linux? Uh, they make air-conditioners, don't they? Hunh, a desktop air conditioner. That could work." Alas, dear reader, the laws of thermodynamics do not favor such an endeavor.

The "Linux Not Ready" argument has long since become the effete diatribe of the mean-spirited and puerile, which warrants neither attention nor response. The "Year of . . ." assertions, however, usually come from those with good intent. Unfortunately, this apparent anticipation of cataclysmic change derives from an essential misperception.

When working systems are in place, newer, better systems do not suddenly supplant them. The internal combustion engine did not instantly replace horses and steam engines. Nor did hydraulic brakes instantly displace mechanical ones. Indeed, it took decades for the new technologies to gradually dethrone their predecessors. Who among us can't recall the tired refrain, "Get a horse!"? Well, alright, some of you young whippersnappers may not have heard that, but, if you're that young and were educated in the United States, you're probably not up to reading this blog, anyway. Go watch EewwToob, or post something incoherent on LieSpace. This here's serious bidness. But I digress.

Closer to home, there was no "Year of the Windows Desktop", either. While the uptake of Windows 3 by home users was fairly rapid, that was driven as much by the growing availability of low-cost PCs from companies such as Packard Bell and Leading Edge as by the operating system those computers came with. For most of these home users, this was their first PC. In business it took much longer for Windows to gain sway. Again, functioning systems were in place in most businesses and until they were replaced, Windows wasn't needed or even, usually, desired.

So it is that there will be no single year that is the coming out for Linux on the desktop. It's already here and it's growing, fast. In the third world Linux is rapidly claiming market share for the same reason Windows 3 made its inroads in the home market; for most people in those countries their Linux PC is their first. The real surprise is how rapidly Linux and Open Source Software is claiming the European market. Already, in Finland Firefox has claimed almost half of the entire browser market. In France, Germany and other European countries, governmental entities are implementing desktop Linux at a dizzying rate.

Microsoft C-level executives aren't staying up nights for fear that they'll wake up to find Linux has suddenly sprouted on all the world's desktops overnight. Rather, they are losing sleep as they watch a gently rising tide gradually drowning an exhausted, monopolistic business model.

On Political Corruption

The idea is frequently floated that the Republican Party in the U. S. is more corrupt than the Democratic Party. While vehemently denied by Republicans, it would make little sense for the situation to be otherwise.

Corrupt individuals put power and profit before ideology. Does it not stand to reason that such an individual would, therefore, align himself/herself with the party in power? Simply put, political success breeds and attracts the corrupt. In recent decades the Republican party has been largely ascendant in American politics. As a consequence, there has been no shortage of those paying lip service to conservative values, simply to gain the political power such demonstrations give access to.

As the political winds shift, we can expect the corrupt to seek shelter in whichever party dominates. Jefferson and Adams walked out on the Congress of the Confederation because they saw the process being subverted by the wealthy and powerful. Those more common citizens, whose blood, sweat and tears had built the revolution's success, were being quietly coopted out of having a real voice in the nation's future. Little has changed in the intervening centuries.

Finally, this is not a new or unique phenomenon; it predates recorded history and exists in all political cultures. Democracy has the potential to hold corruption in check. Unfortunately, the performance of the electorate rarely rises to the task. More often they view their clearly corrupt representatives with the same eye as Franklin Roosevelt did Anastasio Somosa when he said, "He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch."

In the beginning . . .

The stirrings of change are afoot. In the United States, in the political arena, the level of discourse continues its pitiful degradation, playing to the detached repugnance of the electorate. Election '08: The stench of things to come.

On a brighter note, around the world Open Source Software persists in its advances against exhausted proprietary models. In contrast to the political realm, Open Source continues to improve and gain momentum.

These, then will be the primary topics of this blog, along with the occasional cultural, sociological, or religious digression. I hope you find it entertaining and perhaps a bit enlightening.