Thursday, October 17, 2002
***Real Stories***
Mysteries at Sea
In two days I leave for Linux Journal's second annual Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise <http://www.geekcruises.com>, where this year I'm the keynote speaker. My topic: "The Silent Majority: How Linux Got to be Everywhere While Nobody was Watching".
As I pointed out the other day <http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6375>, we seem to be in a new phase of SuitWatching for Linux in Business. In the crosshairs is what Don Marti calls "mysterious subversive projects within large corporations". That puts me in the market for stories about important projects nobody talks about -- including accounts of quiet but widespread adoption.
That means I want to hear from *you* about how Linux has been quietly adopted in *your* organization, or by other organizations you know about. If you want, I'll give you credit as a source; if not, you'll still help me tell some interesting stories that need to be told.
Write me at [email protected].
LOTD at last?
Linux on the Desktop (LOTD) has been edging toward the mainstream so slowly that many began to doubt that it would ever break through. But now, finally, there are signs.
A month ago Sun Microsystems made big news by rolling out their own brand of white-box desktop PCs running Linux. Quite aside from news yesterday that Sun may be laying off between four and eight thousand people <http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Oct/gee20021016016840.htm>, the move was significant. Now four of the top-name UNIX vendors -- IBM, HP, Sun and SCO -- all have serious Linux offerings; and the newest, Sun, is taking rthe LOTD lead.
In the last few days a pair of next-generation distributions have also arrived. Red Hat Linux 8 and SuSE Linux 8.1 both boast much easier installation, configuration and management. But what makes Linux itself much more ready for desktop prime time is the maturation of Mozilla, OpenOffice, Ximian's Evolution and other applications that now offer solid alternatives to Microsoft's familiar browser, office suite, email and personal information management offerings. In many ways, these apps offer more on Linux than more expensive competing products offer on Windows. Plus they're cheaper and less hassle-free.
At Linux World Expo in August, Ximian founder Nat Friedman told me a growing raft of device drivers are also reducing the number of reasons for customers not to switch over to Linux.
And there has been other positive news. A few days ago, for example, eWeek labs gave a thumbs-up to the latest version of Lindows:
The Lindows General Release should make waves in the value desktop space and give Linux a lucrative, low-end foothold.
But is all this enough to set off a firestorm of adoption? I doubt that will happen until we see Linux systems featured at Circuit City and Best Buy. Seeing is believing. We need need to see Linux in stores.
I don't think we're far off. Fry's, the big geek-oriented retail chain, now features Linux systems at the top of the front pages of its newspaper advertising inserts. And Wal-Mart is selling Lindows-based machines for under $200. So how long before we see Linux-based HP boxes at Costco? I'm betting that one's not more than a year away.
The continuing death of Internet Radio in the U.S.
For months I had known that Bill Goldsmith (of KPIG and Radio Paradise, which both run on Linux) and other webcasters were still in negotiations with the RIAA over royalty rates. Now and then Bill would tell me we'd be hearing something soon, but also that trying to come to a deal with the RIAA -- which so clearly wants to see the end of webcasting as we know it -- was a nearly impossible challenge.
Then in late September Congressman James Sensenbrenner, a powerful figure in the House, introduced a bill (HR 5469) l that would hold imposition of royalties for six months, so Congress would have a chance to review the situation and webcasters could delay payments that many said would surely kill both their stations and their industry.
Then, at the 11th hour, a deal was made between the RIAA and a small group called Voice of Webcasters, rather than with the Internet Webcasters Association, which was the trade group established in 1996.
The original bill, HR.5469, was a simple one-paragraph affair. But the final bill is reportedly thirty pages long. At best it's an awful compromise. Bill Goldsmith writes,
I see this as a stopgap measure that will allow us to limp along for a while. However, the high royalty rate and the many limitations on growth that are included in the bill will preclude us or any other independent webcaster from truly competing on an equal
footing with terrestrial broadcasters.
He adds,
We were disappointed that so many of the most important terms and conditions of the final bill were virtually identical to the RIAA's initial offer to us in July. It was difficult to get them to budge at all from what they had decided they wanted from us....
I found it amazing that a member of the RIAA legal staff would look me in the eye and say that unless we were running tightly-controlled playlists of nothing but the top big-label hits (just like terrestrial radio) they saw no promotional value whatsoever to them in our efforts to promote artists & CD sales. I suspected they thought that way, but it surprised me that they would come right out and admit it.
Meanwhile, Ann Gabriel, who had been a high-profile member of the IWA, resigned in protest, publishing an open letter <http://www.neworleansradio.com/ArticlesLettersDetail.asp?ID=68> explaining why. Others have joined her, and now the webcasting community is deeply split. As I understand it, the deal struck with the RIAA saves some webcasters from making huge back payments, but still leaves the industry with fees that will allow only a few stations at best to survive, and all unable to compete with over-the-air broadcasters who are not encumbered with the same royalty and reporting burdens. Commercial stations that broadcast on the Web, such as KPIG, are unlikely to return to the webwaves.
The shame from a Linux standpoint is that we see another innovative new industry -- one that makes resourceful use of free infrastructural building material like Linux (and which creates plenty of useful new software in the process) -- flattened by an incumbent industry with powerful influence in government.
The story isn't over of course. Stay tuned for more.