I have been using UNIX for a while, I used SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, BSD, and now Linux, suddenly I realize, what is next ?.
The transition between these operating systems has always been very smooth, and thanks to open source software (which means thanks to thousand of developers behind it, thanks to thousand of companies funding these open source projects, thanks to thousand of companies that base their strategies and business plans around Linux and open source, and thanks to hundreds of companies like SUN, IBM, SGI,RedHat that innovate and share their wealth and wisdom with the community), it just gets simpler and simpler.
It has been about 17 years of working with systems that are basically compatible and that do not force me to re-think my whole way of using computers, at the same time, these systems have always given me the freedom to shape my work environment.
Now days I only use Fedora Linux, it has an excellent community supporting it and it just works. There are daily updates fixing problems and security issues, and there is an upgrade every 6 months, which can be applied either via a CD/DVD boot up, or even on-line (while you are busy working and being productive, the system upgrades itself). Every computer I use is a Fedora system, at work all our systems are Fedora systems, and same thing at home.
There are many, and I mean hundreds of versions of Linux, "distributions" in the Linux jargon, and the great majority of them are excellent as well. I encourage you to get one, and I am certain that you can find one that matches your favorite color, even if that color preference changes once a week.
But then there is the conundrum, the upgrades are simply better one after the other, if there is a problem, it will soon get fixed (I even get the chance, and so do you, to e-mail the actual person that is in charge of the area of the OS or program that has the issue and help in the process of fixing it). The Gui guys, Gnome, Kde, Xorg, Xfce, etc keep coming up with new stuff. Distributions are very advanced, innovation is all over the map, OS, user programs, GUI. All this makes me wonder about what is next.
But does it really matter what is next?, I know that in 6 months a new distribution is going to be ready, heck, I could start using its beta version right now (so can you), and if anything is broken it will get fixed real soon, at the same time, it is going to have many great new things while I am resting assured that it will let me use what I always used and are accustomed to without any drama.
Linux, I get it. Fedora, I get it. Unix, I get it. Open Source, I get it.
Do you ?
Note: I admit, there are so many ideas that this post tries to talk about that I probably ended up saying nothing.
