Would any of you care to speculate on the future technical developments in Linux, or, for that matter, in open source in general? For example, what markets besides the embedded and handheld device markets is Linux moving into? How about the development of new programming languages that are easier for the layman to understand? I'd appreciate any comments you have on the subject.

The biggest push for Linux will be towards the big server market and embedded software. That's where it has the greatest opportunity to show it's flexiblity and ability. Linux is not limited to the intel platform it also includes support for alpha,sparc,ia64,s/390,ppc and others.

I think desktops as we've known it will change and so will the market. It's about what the consumer wants. Most home users seem interested in getting on the internet and playing game. This is why I believe xbox has come out and Linux is interested in porting itself to Playstation.

maybe, just maybe, linux will continue to gain a sizeable share of the desktop computer market. I think that as people get more computer savvy they will realize that a good linux distro isn't very hard to use. There should be advancements toward a distro that is VERY easy for Windows users to use and understand... more specifically booting into a GUI login(maybe this is already supported??), better package management(although the RPM package management is pretty easy), more mainstream developers will start to support linux more and more as more people move into the linux arena, meaning higher quality programs and more customer support, easier USB configuration, and better all around hardware support...

While I don't have much experience (read: none) with Linux, i can tell you this: I am going to use Linux because I want something that isn't windows. I don't want a direct GUI login, or anything like that. I want to try this Linux jibba-jabba because I want to try something challenging, something that has integrity. Linux was, is, and should always be console based. I know you weren't saying to make it not that way, but if you start making exceptions and making it more and more 'user friendly', I think Linux loses some appeal. You sacrifice console versatility for something that looks 'pretty' from the get-go but is, when you get to the heart of it, pretty much uncustomizable. I can't wait until I learn enough to actually make my workspace look how I want it (may be a while, I don't know a line of UNIX or the console commands of Linux), and when I do I'll actually be proud instead of sayng "wow, I changed my toolbar."

This was not meant to be a mean-spirited tirade, so please don't take it that way. But I know why I am here, and I think I may have a lot in common with other people. All my life, I've been force-fed windows, and yet I watch my dad whip through DOS better than I still can with the Windo$e GUI. I want to learn to compute the way it was meant to be. A user deserves to have complete freedom over their workspace, and not be worried about violating funky laws to do so. Linux is about me, about you, about Joe-Schmoe...the USER!!! Let's keep it that way...I know I'll try.

G011um

P.S. So yeah, that was probably a little much. I like this thread, lets keep a discussion going.

There will be no programming language for non-programmers. Mostly because most people do not like to program. And new languages are more and more complicated. Simple program becomes a great challenge (compare C++ and C, for example).

IBM created a fourth generation declarative language which is easy to program in if a little ambiguous, which is commonly used in Linux, called SQL (later called SeQueL and later then called 'ess-que-el')

Unfortunately, SQL is a bit of a shambles of a programming language, which is why 4GL programming kind of ground to a halt and 5GL was just a Japanese computer industry myth.

Bert

Well, assembler is the fastes one, then there were next generations and programs are getting slower and slower...

There's already XBasic, that runs under both Linux and Windows. It's not the easiest of Basic languages, but it's pretty damn good. There's also this Basic thing from Janus software. Kylix, which is basically Delphi for Linux, KBasic... There's already a wealth of Basic-like programming languages around.

As for my opinion on the future of Linux:

It used to be here, but I've since upgraded it. Linux is already easy to use on the desktop, but the general public have had this God damned thing called 'Windows' on their computers for 7 years now (I'm not including Win3.x because it could actually be quite difficult to run, in the right situation ). They don't want to get used to something different, so they won't. Unfortunately, for Linux to survive the desktop environment, it will need to be more Windowsised - but that doesn't mean that everyone's Linux should be the same. Remeber, choice is why we are here now, and choice is why we're gonna stay. Sorry, where was I? The stereotypical Window user wants the CD to run automatically when you put it in. Yes, we have 'automount', but we need something like the autorun.inf. Installing stuff. It is easy with URPMI (one of the extensions of RPM), but who wants to spend all their time downloading dependancies for a program they got on some CD? We need people (read: computer magazines) to include dependancies. But more importantly: we need companies to get off their arses and be helpful with their hardware! If they don't like the idea of open source, why don't they write their own drivers?


Steps off soapbox.

I'm only talking about a FREE "user friendly" distro here, not much unlike Lindows (a current project for a extremely limited and very expensive linux distro that aims at linux/windows in one package.)except for the fact that it would have a fully functional console for the advanced users, but during the installation the user would be able to choose each component that is installed, and then it would be automatically configured and installed. If you wanted a custom GUI, boom, you would be able to configure the options you want. And hardware installation would be as simple as windows, if the user wanted it to be...there would be no maunal re-compiling of the kernel, you plug it in to your CPU, it recgonizes the type of upgrade, goes online and downloads the necessary driver files if necessary, and compile them into the kernel, with only minimal user input needed, i.e. a few y's or n's. As a user of linux for a little over 2 months now I find great satisifaction in installing programs from source and getting them to work the first time, or working out a hardware problem. When you get something to work just by only using your knowledge of the console the pay off is usually very nice. But I'm looking at this from the viewpoint of a windows convert who doesn't want to learn a totally new OS and wants some chioce over what they have on their cpu.

It's hard to make such a disrto.. But maybe one day someone will.