daverea.com

Around New Year’s every year, there always seem to be lots of news articles asking “Will this be the year of the Linux Desktop?” – and every year (with 2007 being no exception) there are lots of people who cry out “we’re not ready!”

Helios, the outspoken Linux advocate who runs Lobby4Linux.com has asserted otherwise. According to his argument, Microsoft already made the determination for us: by inking a huge cross-licensing agreement with Novell, they asserted that Linux is indeed ready for the desktop – and they’re worried enough about it to start taking action.

If that weren’t enough, another very interesting article appeared in my feed reader tonight: Audi’s new luxury cars engineered on Linux. Yes, Audi – whose motto (translated to English) is “Progress Through Technology” – is busily and successfully migrating all of its computers … servers and workstations alike! … to Linux.

Linux has been a major contender in the backoffices and server farms of the world for a long time. I’ve run a Linux server of some kind, more or less continually, since 1999 – and I was a latecomer to the server game. Geeks like me have been running Linux as our main day-to-day desktop OS for a long time too. But if Audi can design cars using desktop Linux, and if Microsoft is scared by desktop Linux, and if an 86-year-old grandmother can happily use a Linux-powered PC – and moreover recruit other retirement community residents to make the switch as well – then where exactly is all this unreadiness?

Well, if you want the honest answer, look no further than right here.