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 Channel Futures

Open Source


Linux Foundation End User Summit: Right Mission?

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • October 6, 2009

The Linux Foundation recently announced the second annual Linux Foundation End User Summit, to be held this November.  At face value, it might sound like a conference dedicated to assessing and addressing the needs of the type of people who use Ubuntu and other distributions for day-to-day computing.  Unfortunately, it’s not quite that.

The Linux Foundation, which famously acquired the linux.com domain last year, is dedicated, in its own words, to “fostering the growth of Linux.”  That’s obviously a noble, if ambiguous, goal, and the promotion of Linux on any front is beneficial to the free-software community as a whole.

But it’s somewhat regrettable that the Linux Foundation has chosen to focus a huge majority of its resources catering to corporate users and geeks, rather than advancing Ubuntu’s mission of pushing Linux onto the desktops of normal people.  That problem is exemplified in the linux.com website, which is not as helpful as it could be for non-geeks trying to figure out if Linux could work for them.

The non-end user end user

The trend is also evident in the announcement of November’s conference.  In the Linux Foundation’s lexicon, “end user” turns out to mean “CTOs, Architects and Technical Directors from Financial Services, Online Services, HealthCare, HPC and other verticals”–in other words, people who are in a position to spend money putting Linux on servers, not on consumer-targeted workstations, laptops or netbooks.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with devoting resources–even a majority of them–to courting big businesses that will use Linux mainly in the back room.  Linux’s commanding presence on servers of all sorts ensures that companies continue to pour money into supporting development, which benefits the community as a whole–although the extent to which it encourages developers to focus on servers at the expense of desktop functionality is an item of debate.

A conference is probably also not the best way to acquaint the masses with Linux, so the exclusive selection of people who can attend in November is understandable.  But in addition to investing resources in events like this, the Linux Foundation would do well also to focus on campaigns that can reach non-geeks, or to work with hardware vendors to get distributions like Ubuntu pre-installed and supported on more mainstream PCs.

Desktop Linux now

There’s nothing wrong with devoting a little money to spreading Linux to the real end users, the people who need a desktop operating system for Web browsing, word processing and the like.  Ubuntu and a handful of other desktop-oriented distributions have proven themselves viable vehicles for spreading Linux to the masses, but the “Linux for human beings” cause has been chronically hampered by a reluctance on the part of many of the best heeled forces in the community to engage the desktop market seriously.

It’s been the Year of the Linux Desktop for some time now, insofar as Linux–or certain versions of it, at least–has been a viable desktop operating system.  But if Microsoft has done one thing well, it’s demonstrating that good products don’t become popular on merits alone (and vice-versa): publicity is key.

Until the most powerful players in the free-software community decide that the desktop of non-geeks is a worthy prize, Ubuntu’s aspiration of effecting a real Year of the Linux Desktop will remain a distant pipe dream.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Mobility Open Source

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10 comments

  1. Avatar Scott October 6, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
    Reply

    For once, I could not agree with you more. The “End User Summit” is one of the biggest misnomers I’ve ever encountered. Prior to the first one there was a lot of publicity in the usual Linux channels, and I commented on the sites of some of the publicity notices about the disconnect between what is meant by “end user” by these people and what it means in any other context. There was no response at all to my comments. Clearly, they consider server users the real end users and consider end user Linux desktops mere curiosities, at best.

    If you want to advance the Linux desktop, don’t look to the Linux Foundation for help. Perhaps Canonical should sponsor a summit called “The Real End User Linux Summit”.

  2. Avatar Hmm October 6, 2009 @ 6:52 pm
    Reply

    “it’s somewhat regrettable that the Linux Foundation has chosen to focus a huge majority of its resources catering to corporate users and geeks, rather than advancing Ubuntu’s mission of pushing Linux onto the desktops of normal people”

    Agreed.

    Do we really need a “Linux Desktop”, though? What’s wrong with an “Ubuntu Desktop”? The kernel is not the OS. If Hurd were ever finished (ha ha), Ubuntu could use that, and it wouldn’t be a Linux desktop, though the end user couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe we should de-emphasize the words “Linux” and “GNU” and just focus on the operating system’s name: “Ubuntu”.

    “Whoa, what version of Windows is that?”
    “It’s not Windows at all. It’s Ubuntu, a free alternative operating system.”

    You don’t need to mention “based on Linux” or “Linux distribution” at all. People don’t call OS X a “Mach distribution”.

  3. Avatar László Torma (toros) 's status on Tuesday, 06-Oct-09 22:34:4 October 6, 2009 @ 7:34 pm
    Reply

    […] http://www.workswithu.com/2009/10/06/linux-foundation-end-user-summit-right-mission/ a few seconds ago from Gwibber […]

  4. Avatar Walt October 7, 2009 @ 12:36 am
    Reply

    Well, remembering that IBM-PC got its real start by catering to corporations instead of real people, leaving apple ][s in the dust for not only corps but for real people too, maybe, just maybe the strategy of courting the corps with Linux is the way to back dooring “real people”, eh?

  5. Avatar Mel October 7, 2009 @ 8:53 pm
    Reply

    I agree with you too. Linux.com is not what it should be and Ubuntu needs real publicity to get traction in the market.

    Hmmm:
    Do we really need a “Linux Desktop”, though? What’s wrong with an “Ubuntu Desktop”? The kernel is not the OS. If Hurd were ever finished (ha ha), Ubuntu could use that, and it wouldn’t be a Linux desktop, though the end user couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe we should de-emphasize the words “Linux” and “GNU” and just focus on the operating system’s name: “Ubuntu”.

    Great comment, agreed 100%

  6. Avatar guy lafleur October 8, 2009 @ 2:05 am
    Reply

    I was curious about this End User Summit and thought, hey, theyre finally going to try to work on this user friendly thing and the desktop.

    ‘in the Linux Foundation’s lexicon, “end user” turns out to mean “CTOs, Architects and Technical Directors from Financial Services, Online Services, HealthCare, HPC and other verticals”–’

    So when they say ‘end user’, they dont really mean ‘end user.’

    Good job Linux Foundation and by ‘good job’, I dont really mean it.

    This end user thing is the sort of thing that the marketing droids love doing.

    And ‘good job’ you too Hmmmm.
    You want to end the confusion between the kernel and the OS by calling the OS after a popular distro?
    Yeah. that makes perfect sense.

  7. Avatar Ronal B. Morse October 8, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
    Reply

    Follow the money.

    The foundation is resourced primarily through corporate memberships/donations. I don’t know of many “desktop end users” who are paying membership fees to the Linux Foundation. It seem pretty natural to me the foundation will concentrate on the needs of the paying membership.

    I don’t expect the corporate membership to get excited about the “desktop end user” lack of ) market segment until someone can show there is a revenue stream attached. They are what they are, after all.

    I suspect Jim Zemlin and the rest of the foundation board/staff will begin to pay serious attention to “desktop end uses” when “desktop end users” start paying their salaries. Until then, we’re just going to have to settle for the crumbs that fall from the table where the fat cats sit.

    There probably is a need for a companion organization (or maybe a sub-organization under the Foundation) to promote the interests of “desktop end users”, assuming you could get consensus on what those needs were and what ought to be done to promote them, but I don’t have a clue as to how it would be financed and sustained. It’s not something I see that the corporate membership would be interested in supporting.

  8. Avatar Jef Spaleta October 8, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
    Reply

    @Ronal B. Morse:

    Point of information, Canonical joined as a Silver member in 2008. And Shuttleworth was a sitting Board member in 2007. Seems like the corporate interest behind a desktop linux push are inside the Foundation already as of last year at least.

    The only question is Canonical still a member? There’s no evidence of it on the Foundation website that I can find. Someone with a journalist bend should probably confirm their Silver level membership. Hopefully the lack of a Canonical decal on the membership page is just an oversight on the Foundation’s part.

    Reference: news.cnet.com / 8301-1001_3-10020314-92.html

    -jef

  9. Avatar Ronal B. Morse October 8, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
    Reply

    Ah…unless I’ve missed something, Canonical’s business model is selling services to enterprise users.

    Ubuntu has a role in that, of course, but it’s not why Canonical exists.

  10. Avatar Jef Spaleta October 8, 2009 @ 3:25 pm
    Reply

    @Ronal:
    The question as to why Canonical exists..is a very fascinating one. Why does it exist? If you have good solid numbers on how much revenue they are actually deriving from enterprise customers I’d love to hear it. Canonical has many…potential… service revenue streams. Some of them aimed at enterprise users… some of them aimed consumer device OEM manufacturers…some of them aimed directly at end users. None of them profitable.

    The fact remains, out of all the corporate members of the Linux Foundation, which company is going to be a better advocate for the sort of end-users Chris is concerned with if its not Canonical? Intel? Maybe soon if Moblin takes off in a big way in the retail space. Intel could end up being the corporate champion of retail end-users (as compared to enterprise end-users) that Chris wants to see a focus on

    -jef

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