Is Linux or *BSD going to replace closed source OS (Mac, MS,...) at some point?
 

Hello,

Open Versus Closed Source Systems?
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/o...erating-system

Looking now more and more users behave and use like they would on a Mac, MS machine,... more users are using Linux and *BSD systems.

Is Linux or *BSD going to replace closed source OS (Mac, MS,...) at some point? It won't happen today, but maybe in the next 50 years or 100 years.

I don't see it happening in the 10-50 year timeframe.

In the 50-100, quite possibly.

No. Their 2% will shrink, and M$ fade away. Google buys Netflix, and thus repeats mid-1900s monoply where at&t==communication.

I think you'll continue to see what you see being done today. Apple's OS/X (MacOS) and iOS systems are both based on open-source "Mach." A proprietary infrastructure and set of tools has been built on top of that, but to this day the core is Mach.

Likewise, Android was built on Linux.

I think that people who manufacture products will continue to keep the source-code that is tightly related to their products and to their trade-secrets closed. And, people will continue to buy their stuff because what they care about is the stuff. But it is extremely obvious that open-source is a great foundation to build on. "A rising tide lifts all boats, and in the most-economical way."

I agree with sundialsvcs.

For most persons, computing devices are mystickal magickal boxes. As long as the boxes do what the purchasers want them to do, they don't think about the underlying operating system.

I think *nix/BSD will continue its current dominance everywhere else except in desktops and laptops.

Yes.

Everyone will become enlightened to the values of Free Software and boycott Apple and MicroSoft until they release their systems as 100% free software, and then those companies will lobby congress to write it into law that all new programs must also be free software, because it's in everyone's interests and also a national asset. Every distribution will move to the perfect init system that solves every problem and has no bugs. Everyone who programs in C and C++ will rewrite their old programs in D and Rust and forget those bad old days existed. Everyone will adopt GoboLinux's file structure, so we can all install programs concurrently, without waiting for whatever flatsnapakimage to check all of the product boxes. And /dev/random will get merged into /dev/urandom. Linus and Spengler will get along and merge in grsec. And everyone will live happily ever after.

For many things I saw Linux and BSD based OSS operating systems replacing core operating systems years ago. At the same time I watched OSS software features and code enhancing those systems. All of our web servers were ported over from MS, AIX, HP-UX, and True64Unix to Linux long ago, with a clear benefit in enhanced performance. All of my data servers were moved over from MS-SQL, DB2, and Oracle to MySQL (and now MariaDB) or to faster non-SQL database systems.

I think the replacement process is well along and accelerating. The desktop I am using to answer this thread is Q4OS Linux on an HP laptop: no MS OS installed at all. My phone runs Android. My car runs Linux with GM customizations. My favorite animated movies were rendered on Linux using a mix of custom applications and OSS rendering and animation software. It is hard to think of any environment where OSS has not invaded and started to overcome at multiple levels.

It is actually bad, because lot of bad programmers will enter the world of Linux.
There are many software that are opensource and need a rewrite (inkscape,...). If everyone comes to Linux, from MS mostly, Linux will become like MS OS and even worst, since it doesn't mean that there will be talently made products of high quality. Let's see.

Nothing I've read about Microsoft makes me think they have bad programmers.

Surely it depends on many things. Eg C# has many good advantages under MS, but it wouldnt be worth to try to port anything of it on Linux.

Hm.

Linux or other free OSes probably won't replace MacOS or Windows on the consumer desktop level within the next decade or so, but what with current advancements we may see more people switch to it in future.

I read recently that last year was the first when the sales of smart phones outnumbered those of laptops and desktops. This is the big change: people who don't need a traditional computer are beginning to stop buying them and those in poorer countries could never afford them anyway.

On office desktops, Linux will expand in countries where the school system is switching to Linux (e.g. Russia, Brazil), because that's what employees will be used to, but it will obviously linger in the G7 countries where they have more money to waste in the school system.

The last holdouts for Windows will be the hard-core gamers and those who have a lot of custom software that would be difficult to convert (e.g. the Royal Navy).

Universities in Brazil and Germany are largely using Linux. Brazil it is mostly Ubuntu. In German, many types.
Otherwise making use of Linux at Universities in the whole world is relatively very poor.

Most programmers learn today C# on Windows platforms. Linux is not at all popular even in informatics studies.

MIT has mostly MS Windows and Mac, and Fedora or other Linux distros aren't that much employed.

When you look well, Education, even in Informatics, is a MS world.

Do you know how nice it would be if we could install the distro of our choice on any smartphone? Sure Android is Linux But.....its also google:rolleyes: To bad Ubuntu touch didnt make it:banghead:

I am not so sure that it is too bad.

Ubuntu is a sort of freedom-less linux distributions. I woundn't bet that one day they (ubuntu distros) will ask you your phone number, address, email, and so on to install it. later credit card number as does Apple iPhones so well.