Net Results: One of the more interesting sessions at the Computer Associates conference in Las Vegas last week was a roundtable discussion by Linuxians, held for the benefit of the gathered press.
The panel included Mr Linus Torvalds, prime creator and namesake of the open source operating system Linux (while Mr Torvalds started it all, Linux has been worked and reworked for more than a decade by thousands of programmers) and a slew of high-profile Linux advocates. These were Mr John "Mad Dog" Hall, president and executive director of Linux International; Mr Larry Augustin, chairman of VA Software; Mr Jay Peretz, the Oracle vice-president involved with Oracle's major push towards Linux; Mr Michael Evans, vice-president of Linux distributor Red Hat; and Mr Jürgen Geck, chief technology officer of German Linux distributor SuSE.
The discussion was moderated by Computer Associates' Mr Sam Greenblatt, senior vice-president and architect of CA's Linux group.
The panel wove its way in and out of some very technical questions on the operating system, but also took on a few broad issues.
It was interesting to hear the discussion, because, in general, this is a good time to assemble such a group, with significant developments under way at the moment in the Linux world.
The principal shift was underlined by several panellists - that Linux is no longer seen as a minor curiosity in the computing world - especially the big business world of enterprise computing - but as a serious competitor to Windows, commercial versions of Unix (of which there are several), and even Apple. The Apple comparison is a footnote to what is happening with the other operating systems, but nonetheless significant. As Mr Hall pointed out, sales of Linux for the desktop have now surpassed sales of Apple's OS X.
This is interesting because Linux has been slow to move into the personal computer desktop market, as opposed to the server market.
Indeed, when I asked the panel to name a disappointment or the greatest negative development in Linux's growth, Mr Augustin cited this sluggishness on the desktop front (all other panellists sidestepped the question, incidentally). On the Windows and Unix fronts, Linux has been steadily encroaching on territory once totally dominated by these operating systems.
At first, Linux advanced through little guerrilla skirmishes, sneaking into large organisations because the systems administrators wanted it there but didn't bother to tell senior management they were running an OS that was often free and downloaded off the internet.
Now several packaged "distributions" are widely available. But more significantly, the makers of the software programs widely run in large organisations - IBM, Oracle, and HP amongst others - and big hardware makers like Dell now specifically focus on offering Linux solutions for business.
These days, Linux walks in the front door rather than creeping in through the back.
Computer Associates made a set of announcements around its own Linux tie-in - hence, the gathering of this panel. But, despite Mr Greenblatt's obvious enthusiasm for the OS (he was even walking around in a giant penguin costume in the press room earlier in the day - the Linux "mascot" is a plump cartoon penguin called Tux), one really had the sense that Linux still has miles to go in gaining widespread acceptance in the enterprise space.
Why? Two reasons if you read between the lines of both CA's approach and journalist reactions. First, CA strangely didn't seem to know quite what it had on its hands with this panel. Mr Torvalds was a late addition to the CA programme and none of the other panellists was announced in advance. Yet this was one of the more impressive gatherings of Linux folk I've seen on one stage in some time, and with the ever-smiling Mr Torvalds to boot. The CA folk in the press room never let the press pack know Mr Torvalds and the panel were also in a general delegate session as well, though we were encouraged to attend all sorts of other sessions demonstrating security software and so forth. The Linux press announcements were contained in only one early session.
In contrast to the way in which other Linux partners - the companies mentioned above, in particular - have pushed Linux, this was a surprisingly tepid move by CA. It made me wonder how serious it was and, as another journalist noted, CA's newly-announced products at this big event had rather weak support for Linux built in.
On the flip side, one can look at general journalist reaction to the panel and the Linux announcements. The press briefing auditorium was only about half full for this panel, and the word did not seem to have spread widely that Mr Torvalds - generally a witty and interesting speaker and a big press draw - was to be on the platform.
And few journalists had questions, most of those coming from the specialist press (including an embarrassingly fawning comment and question from a LinuxWorld editor).
I had expected this session to be packed and to see the panellists peppered with questions, but most journalists seemed only half interested.
Now, you can argue that the journalists are out of touch but I've been to plenty of these events where anything to do with Linux draws a crowd, if only out of curiosity about the hype that sometimes trails after Linux developments.
CA certainly underplayed its Linux hand at this event, that's for sure. But separately, I think many journalists following developments in the enterprise software area aren't yet getting a big Linux message that makes the general press pack see the OS as hugely significant.
Now, you can argue all the statistics you want - and the surveys I've seen are clear warning signals for Microsoft in particular. They routinely confirm that companies and governments are very interested in Linux and in exploring what it might do for them within their own organisations.
And of course, big corporate or government wins for the OS are now regularly reported in the press - one of the most recent being the move of the city of Munich to Linux from Windows.
But the CA press event signalled that there's still real disconnect and hesitation. Organisations may be checking out Linux, and some are definitely jumping ship to the OS. But Linux advocates clearly still have a lot of proselytising to do.
Karlin's tech weblog: http://radio.weblogs.com/0103966/
