No glass ceiling to Linux, says Torvalds

Fears that Linux will hit a glass ceiling are unfounded, according to its creator Linus Torvalds, who predicts the open source operating system will march from strength to strength.

Speaking during a panel debate last week at Computer Associates' CA World in Las Vegas, Torvalds was asked whether he thought application support for Linux would reach a plateau.

"I used to think so, but we passed that point so long ago that I don't think there's a glass ceiling. The point of open source is having people come together and improve the product," he told the audience.

Other panel members, which included executives from Red Hat, SuSE and Oracle, agreed.

Larry Augustin, chairman of VA Software, commented that if there were any limits, "we are not seeing them yet".

"You have to learn how to work in a world where open source is a very significant player. There are some companies still fighting and I think they are going to lose," he added.

There was some disagreement on the weak spots in the evolution of Linux to date.

While Augustin pointed to the slow uptake of Linux on the desktop, John 'Maddog' Hall, executive director of Linux International, said he had been happy with its growth there.

"When you consider that Linux started in 1991, and it is now strong in the embedded market and running on supercomputers, this is a remarkable accomplishment," he added.

Sam Greenblatt, senior vice president of CA's Linux technology group, felt too many companies approached Linux as a novel operating system rather than as a serious business tool.

"At times clients don't go in with a good plan. When you go in and say 'we're just going to play with it', it tends to fail," he said.

The panel also gave their views on SCO's lawsuit against IBM.

Greenblatt claimed it had not affected Linux take-up, while Augustin described it, quoting Macbeth, as a "lawsuit filled with sound and fury, and signifying nothing".

Torvalds refused to comment.

The other big talking points for Linux, Microsoft and fragmentation, were also touched upon.

Inevitably, the panel insisted that Linux would never fragment along the lines of Unix.

Juergen Geck, chief technology officer at SuSe, commented: "There's no distinct intellectual property available to differentiate the products. As we don't own it, we don't have any interest to deviate from the standards set down."

Hall charged that Microsoft was, for the first time, experiencing a competitor that it did not know how to address.

He dismissed the Redmond giant's shared source strategy, adding: "I'd question if they'd really share the source with [Oracle head] Larry Ellison or [Sun chief executive] Scott McNealy.

"They're trying to go against something that they can't understand or embrace."

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