Day 2: Feature Presentation: Executive Round Table



Patricia Sabga, Co-anchor of the N.E.W. Show, CNNfn, was the moderator for this round table of executives
The panelists were:

Patricia asked the following questions:

Is the rate at which linux is being adopted satisfying?
Basically, the current rate is good, but we can always do better. For instance we need to be better at providing solutions.

How about the problem of differences between distributions, that doesn't help vendors like Oracle to qualify their applications.
There is a standards effort, but it's true that it doesn't move as fast as it should.

But if you make standards, maybe it would undermine the efforts of distributions to differentiate themselves
A self hosting standard is needed, but there is still a lot of work in tailoring 500+ packages, so clearly distributions still have room to show their own individual work.
One good point Larry made was that the core part of linux is maybe only 40 packages. The other hundreds of packages that each distribution has don't really influence compatibility.

How soon until a self hosting standard?
Two members of the pannel mentionned "a couple of months", but from their tone, it shouldn't be taken very seriously :-)
Bob Young doesn't see a set date, but more a list of small tasks that can progressively get done, while we'll never have a full set.
Art sees a first set of tests in the first quarter of 2001.

Where is the future of linux (servers, desktops, embedded)?
Bob sees linux really taking over on the servers and embedded. While it'd be good to take over the desktops too, it's not a requirement. Larry doesn't want to give up on the desktop though, as it is an important piece.

What is the big boost in linux that we're going to see in the next 3 years?
Embedded devices, infrastructure deployment of devices using linux (routers). For Larry, open source is the key, people will wonder more and more why they'd use or write proprietary software.


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2000/08/23 (00:06): Version 1.0