[GTALUG] why reliable linux hasn't gained more market share?

[Ron / BCLUG]

Karen Lewellen via talk wrote on 2024-07-22 18:44:

> crowdstrike makes news headlines, many Windows become blue screens

https://www.techspot.com/news/103899-crowdstrike-also-broke-debian-rocky-linux-earlier-year.html

> Amid the turmoil, it is instructive to consider a little-noticed
> event earlier this year when a CrowdStrike update caused all Debian
> Linux servers to crash simultaneously and refuse to boot. It took the
> cybersecurity provider weeks to provide a root cause analysis,
> revealing that the update was incompatible with the latest stable
> version of Debian.

This CrowdStrike incident affected Windows, but these types of issues 
can affect anything.


> it is evident that many people around still use Windows
> 
> according to some statistics linux has only 4% desktop market, 73%
> for MS, 15% for MacOS
> 
> why free OS hasn't gained more share even after 30 years of
> development?
Because Big Box retailers don't sell Linux pre-installed on computers.

The power of being the default is incalculable.

Google spends ~$18,000,000,000 USD per *year* to be the default search 
engine in Safari (and on iPhones?) - that's how enormously important the 
default is.


Of course, in the server market, especially for internet (vs intranet / 
corporate internal) sites, Linux dominates.


Linux used to ship with WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) for Windows 
compatibility.

Now, Windows can install WSL (Windows' Subsystem for Linux), which is a 
complete Linux-within-Windows environment.

Gotta keep the developers who require node.js, git, ssh, etc. on the 
Windows platform, even if it's Linux inside Windows.


Many a modern developer how-to guide will give instructions in bash 
instead of cmd.exe commands, as that's how things are done in "production".

MS is clever enough to realize that.

rb