

Cloud computing will significantly reduce usage of Linux among web developers. - amichail
http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine/browse_thread/thread/574dab75be409a35

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gaius
_The solution of course is for Google to release a user-friendly and slick
Google OS built on top of Linux_

That is the solution only if your _problem_ is that not enough people use
Linux. Most people, most of the time, care about building and deploying the
applications they need to get their real work done; the OS's job is to get out
of the way and facilitate that. If something does that better (quicker,
easier, cheaper) than maintaining your own Linux servers (not difficult if
Linux is synonymous with RHEL in your organization) then that's what you
should use.

~~~
amichail
So you don't see a problem with few people having any familiarity with
development in a Linux environment?

Linux as a desktop/dev environment will essentially disappear, at least in the
US/Canada.

~~~
wmf
_So you don't see a problem with few people having any familiarity with
development in a Linux environment?_

Those few people can charge higher consulting rates. :-)

 _Linux as a desktop/dev environment will essentially disappear, at least in
the US/Canada._

Linux will disappear only if it provides no value, and I'd say in that case it
deserves it.

This is overblown anyway. What fraction of Linux users are developing Web apps
and only use Linux because they have to develop on the same platform they
deploy on? You might as well argue that Rails killed desktop Linux, because
many Rails developers develop on OS X and then deploy on Linux.

