
Google propels Linux to the top - taylorbuley
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-propels-linux-to-the-top/
======
jordigh
Meh, Android is a locked-down OS that happens to use the Linux kernel.
ChromeOS is a crippled internet-only OS that happens to use the Linux kernel.

Sure, this makes a lot of people have "Linux" in their hands, sort of, hidden
away where they'll never find it and where it doesn't matter. I'm not sure
this is much of an "open source" victory.

~~~
sroerick
Everyone says how great Google is for Linux, but nobody talks about how good
Linux is for Google.

Not that I think Google is exploiting the free software movement or anything,
but Google would have never had a chance with Android without the Linux
kernel. The Google play stack is the opposite of a free software victory.

I'm tired of hearing all the things Google has done for Linux. Maybe we could
talk a little more about how free software has facilitated the growth of one
of the top tech companies on the planet.

~~~
lutusp
> I'm tired of hearing all the things Google has done for Linux. Maybe we
> could talk a little more about how free software has facilitated the growth
> of one of the top tech companies on the planet.

I think the case can be made that both are true -- Linux desperately needed a
way to win public acceptance, Google needed an unencumbered foundation for
various projects.

Also, we mustn't forget the snowball effect -- when an operating system gets
to a certain point in installed base, it becomes _the_ operating system. All
signs are that Linux will get to that point, and Google will have been one of
the primary reasons.

~~~
Zigurd
Quite so: It took a company with the resources to give Linux a modern touch-
based managed language userland to make it popular. If you want to know where
the next Ubuntu is coming from, look to fully open Android distributions like
CyanogenMod. With their deal with Oppo, you can make a good case that Cyanogen
has done better than Ubuntu in making OEM deals.

------
Pxtl
I'm constantly surprised at how Google drags its feet with getting Android out
to more uses. I mean, we've seen 3rd-party hardware manufacturers sticking
Android on All-In-One PCs, netbooks, HDMI sticks, mini-PCs, video-game
consoles, etc. Even Android support for tablets came out well after
manufacturers had released hundreds of Android-based iPad clones.

In spite of its various UI failings, android is well-positioned to be the next
Windows, and with it the Play Store could take over the world. And yet Google
sits in their hands and sticks to phones and tablets.

~~~
Zigurd
Android is already 60% of all interactive devices:
[http://www.telirati.com/2014/03/who-makes-how-many-of-
things...](http://www.telirati.com/2014/03/who-makes-how-many-of-things-we-
code-for.html)

Google was correct to focus on dominating handsets. If you dominate handsets,
you dominate devices as a whole.

Android also has a very strong position in embedded UI in "appliance" devices.

There is an argument to made that Google sucks at marketing tablets, and gave
iPad too big a lead in the market. But overall execution is hard to find fault
with.

~~~
Pxtl
Devices sold each year is not the same as devices in use at any given moment.
Because of the break-neck pace and carrier subsidies, consumers replace
smartphones faster than anything else. So obviously you're going to see fewer
set-top boxes, portable gaming devices, notebooks, etc. devices being sold.
But Google doesn't care how many Android devices are sold, because they don't
make a dime from sales. They want the OS to be _used_.

~~~
Zigurd
Android's dominance in sell-in in handsets is not new, so you won't find a
large lag between sell-in and the installed base.

~~~
Pxtl
No, but my point is that most people still have a PC that doesn't run a Google
OS, they just don't buy a new PC every 2 years - but that PC may see equal or
greater use than their phone.

~~~
Zigurd
I don't want to argue because we agree completely that Android has more
potential that it has yet accessed. And I have been sharply critical of how
Google has handled marketing of Android in some contexts. But they're not
bunglers. They got 90% of the task 90% right, and Android is on track to have
a multi-decades dominance, surprisingly similar to how dominant Windows was.

Criticism has to be tempered by reality and the reality is that Andy Rubin
made the right first moves and executed about as well as possible. And if that
makes Google late to an enterprise focus, which will get more love in the next
version of Android, that's a relatively small price to pay for total focus on
and crushing what really matters. Also, embedded Android isn't completely out
in the cold in terms of becoming "Google logo" products. The newer Android-
based cameras from Samsung have the Play store. These are real Android
cameras, with a fully Google-blessed, general-purpose Android OS in them. in
addition to sharing photos to any app, you can edit your Drive documents on
your camera.

------
ForHackernews
Android/Linux is not the same as GNU/Linux.

From the perspective of users, a proprietary userland with a free kernel is
not meaningfully different than an entire proprietary OS.

By this article's logic, OSX is a massive victory for FLOSS because, hey, it
uses the XNU kernel.

~~~
Shebanator
True enough, but the article's main premise was that Google's products
propelled _Linux_ to the top of the OS heap. That only indirectly benefits
FLOSS.

~~~
ForHackernews
> the top of the OS heap

Fair, but again to be specific, _Linux_ isn't an OS--it's a kernel. When
people talk about "Linux" as an OS, they typically mean some variant of
GNU/Linux: RedHat, Ubuntu, Debian, etc.

Android (as promoted by Google) is not a member of that club. Maybe ASOP is,
but more and more of Google's development effort is shifting to Play Services,
and away from ASOP.

------
coreymgilmore
I do agree with what the article states, but I feel the author misses on a key
point.

Google was based on linux and grew around it. As Google grew, they needed more
linux boxes and started to develop more. They built their entire
infrastructure around linux OSes and contributed most of their knowledge back
to the open source world. Examples: MapReduce, GFS,... Google build it for
internal, people redevelop for open source, and therefore Linux grows in
usage.

However, the growth in Linux could also be attributed to the boom in
software/app development which theses days mostly runs on Linux anyway. Think
of a big-name web or app company that doesn't use linux. Not too many I can
think of.

~~~
CanSpice
I'm not quite sure what AngularJS, a JavaScript framework, has to do with
Linux.

~~~
coreymgilmore
touche...removed.

------
rkuykendall-com
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the next big Linux distributer: Valve.

I had my doubts about how well SteamOS would do, until recently when the
Unreal and Cry engines were opened to licensing and both touted SteamOS
support as a major current or upcoming feature. People seem to be taking this
seriously.

~~~
FD3SA
Mark my words, SteamOS will do for the desktop what Android did for mobile.

~~~
Zigurd
There is an interesting symmetry there: ChromeOS is taking traditional
notebook form factor devices away from Windows. Steam OS might do the same for
gaming PCs. With the high price of current-generation consoles, people will
increasingly ask "Why not a PC?"

------
jsnell
> [ChromeOS] is gaining ground faster than any operating system ever has,
> thanks to dirt-cheap hardware and an amazingly simple interface.

Citation seriously needed on that. I'm not aware of any sales figures on
ChromeOS, but at least the usage numbers still appear pretty pathetic, 3 years
after the launch of the first commercial devices. By what useful and publicly
available metric would ChromeOS be growing faster than any OS ever?

------
ericraio
Linux is easily the most used OS for servers. Linux has been at the top for
awhile, just because the consumer doesn't run the OS natively doesn't mean
that they are not using Linux machine. I disagree that google "propelled"
linux to the top.

~~~
cgh
No, Windows is if you count individual deployments. Any big enterprise runs
countless Windows file and print servers.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Servers)
(look at the second, smaller table)

~~~
ericraio
Accordingly W3
Tech...[http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/operating_system/al...](http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/operating_system/all)

~~~
cgh
That's only web servers.

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__abc
Ugh ... the prose and overall writing style .... not for me.

~~~
seabrookmx
And the content..

Android is the most popular mobile platform?!? Who knew?!? /s

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cryptos
What a bullshit! The user has no idea that there is a linux under the hood and
the user cannot use the power and freedom of linux. Would Android be a
proprietary system nobody would care (besides some cyganogenmod users). So
Android is not about linux from the end users view point.

------
sebnukem2
What is the Linux market share across all platforms?

~~~
coreymgilmore
Take a look at this wiki article.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems)
Basically: desktop wise linux is small, but smartphone/tablet it is huge.

Also, Mark Shuttleworth closed Bug #1 for Ubuntu: Microsoft has a majority
market share. It really depends on how you count market share though.
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1)

~~~
jessaustin
ISTM that bug should not have been closed. From the bug:

    
    
        Steps to repeat:
          1. Visit a local PC store.
          2. Attempt to buy a machine without any proprietary software.
    

These conditions still obtain.

~~~
coreymgilmore
This is true. Very, very true.

But then again, go visit a Verizon/ATT store and count the amount of Android
vs. Windows phones. Its all about how you count market share.

~~~
jessaustin
Sure the market has changed so that PC numbers aren't quite so important. But
even Android phones have some "proprietary software", don't they?

~~~
scholia
Android is really a Dalvik VM that runs Java bytecode. You could port it to
any OS, and BlueStacks runs it on Windows
[http://www.bluestacks.com/](http://www.bluestacks.com/)

