Linux Burrows Into Cellphones

Phones are only the latest. Linux (properly GNU/Linux) is what powers the web, google, Hollywood's rendering farms, and virtually all the businesses that used to use Unix servers because of their superior reliability and security. Linux provides that superior reliability and security at far less cost. The server world is a Linux world. Now the embedded world is rapidly becoming a Linux world. Phones are just the latest development. Be aware that the desktop is not far behind. Apple (whose computers run BSD (related to GNU/Linux) under the fancy Graphical User Interface) no longer calls itself a computer company. The money is in iphones and ipods. Windows Vista is either another Windows ME disaster, or an inevitable disaster caused by Windows OS development having reached the point where the ratio of those doing productive programming to those doing debugging has become untenable. If not this OS release, then the next, or next. It is inevitable. Free Software/Open Source software is the only means of handling software that becomes increasingly complicated. Others have stated this concept far more eloquently than I just have. If you don't understand it it would pay you to understand the situation better. Those who understand these things and move to Free Software/Open Source software sooner than later will be at a competitive advantage. The world needs to stop thinking of software and the internet as something to sell to generate money, but rather as the "utilities" (like water and sewer, roads, and electricity) that make it possible to do things which make money: tools of productivity, not products.

Eric of NY 8:57PM May 14, 2008