Understanding the Linux ecosystem

Before it make sense to describe the inner working of the Linux community let us investigate how the Microsoft ecosystem was built from scratch. Before the year 1975 there was no Microsoft company available because it was the starting date. Rascally spoken, Microsoft has built together with other large software companies the PC industry from scratch. They have created a market for software which consists of consumers on the one side who are spending money and the employees within the companies on the other side how are earning money.

This social relationship was pretty stable over the decades. The names of the products have changed from Windows NT in the early 1990s, to Windows 2000 professional in the year 2000 over the current Windows 10 Pro which is sold for 400 US$ to the customer. The open question is, which kind of product is sold by Microsoft? It's not the software alone, because the current Ubuntu Workstation ISO file available in the internet has nearly the same features like the latest release of the Windows 10 Professional operating system. But it's everything around the software which includes commercial advertisement, printed books, education in the universities and the marketing efforts in the retail stores who are responsible for the success of Linux.

Basically spoken, if the customer enters the computer store and buys the box with the Windows operating system he is not only buying sourcecode but he part of a larger marketing concept which is available in journals, Television and in educational institutions. In contrast the Linux operating system doesn't have any kind of marketing, or it is very bad marketing. The question is how to realize the marketing for Open Source software. Nobody has an answer to the problem, and because of this reason, the market share of Linux on the desktop is less than 1% while Windows 10 is used by hundred of millions users worldwide.

But what is marketing? Marketing is the difference between the current Ubuntu iso and the current Windows 10 iso file. From a technical perspective both software products are nearly the same. Windows 10 professional comes with the powerful NTFS filesystem, a window manager and powerful network features, and Ubuntu provides all the same features. Some Linux fans are arguing, that the Linux system is superior, because the customer gets more software, doesn't pay anything and gets also access to the sourcecode. But it seems, that it's not enough to provide the better software, if the merchandise of Microsoft is superior.

How marketing is working for close source software is well known. The efforts of large companies like Apple, Microsoft and Intel are documented. .They are spending millions of millions of US-Dollar for advertisement and the result is, that the average customer likes to buy the product. In contrast, the Linux ecosystem is working without any sort of marketing. Most of the Linux distributions are technically driven. That means, a technican has created a piece of software and then he is surprised if the world doesn't like to install the product on the own computer.

Let us take a closer look, what Linux has to offer from a technical perspective. There is a powerful kernel, an advanced filesystem, a state of the art webserver, a C/C++ compiler, an office application, a video editing software, a drawing software, and many other high quality software. Most of the software in the Linux ecosystem has a higher quality than the commercial counterpart. For example GCC compiler is more powerful than the Visual C++ compiler and the ext4 filesystem is more robust than NTFS. But, the customer prefers the software from Microsoft. And the only explanation which makes sense is because Microsoft products are feeling better. They have a better branding. They are introduced in the market already and it's easy for the customer to install the software.

The question left open is, how to reduce the entry barrier in Linux? It has to do with marketing. This can be realized with two ways. One option is, to assume that Linux is a commercial product. As a consequence a company like Red Hat has to build a brand on top of Linux. That means, Red Hat makes some advertaisment for Linux and then all the customer will install it on their PC. The other option is, that Linux is working different from classical products and the marketing has to be realized by the user groups. This is equal to the Debian philosophy in which not a commercial company stays behind the software, but local chapters of volunteers.

To answer which option is the preferred one we have to take a step backward and describe what is wrong with Linux. The good news is, that from a technical perspective, Linux is a great piece of software. It has no serious security bugs, it contains of hundreds of state of art software projects and it outperforms easily Windows 10 and Mac OS X. There is not a single case known in which a Linux user has switched back to Windows. If somebody is familiar with Linux he will laugh about Windows 10 because the system is weaker. That means, there is no need to improve the sourcecode of libreoffice, Lyx, the Linux kernel or from Wayland.

The only thing what is missing in the Linux world is a community. Ubuntu was the first effort to build such a community. The project was successful. Not because Ubuntu has contributed very much to the Linux kernel but because it has build some advertisement around Linux, which includes a wiki, a forum, some books and some conferences.

Roughly spoken, Ubuntu is nothing else than a marketing campaign to bring Linux into the mainstream. It contains of t-shirts, advertisements, indoctrination for universities and unscientific case-studies. The assumption is, that not technical innovation, but merchandise will bring Linux to the desktop.

Clear Linux vs Debian

Let us make a practical example to explain the difference between software and marketing. A recent state-of-the art Linux distribution is called “Clear Linux” which was published by the Intel company one year ago. Nearly all users of Clear Linux are excited how fast the software runs. The package manager is superior because it downloads only delta upgrades and the desktop runs faster than any other Linux distribution. Clear Linux is more advanced than the current Fedora Linux so it can be called the queen of all distributions available.

So the prediction is, that Clear Linux will bring Linux to the desktop, right? No the project will fail. Similar to the Antergos project a while ago. Antergos was similar to Clear Linux a very advanced Linux distribution. It was supereasy to install, was compiled with the fastest flags and was based on the latest package manager available. The sad news is, that Antergos is no longer available, not because of the software but because of the missing community. And exactly this is the problem with Clear Linux as well. The iso file runs great, but most users who have tested it out are not motivated to use it for daily work. The reason is, that Clear Linux is technically advanced but there is no marketing community in the background.

The counterpart to Clear Linux is debian Linux. Debian Linux is according to most Liniux expert technically outdated. It's a failed project, because the debian community is focussed on their own problems, but not motivated to compile the latest software into an iso file. The surprising fact is, that the Debian community was established 27 years ago, it is one of the oldest Linux projects. And the assumption is, that they will survive Clear Linux, Fedora Linux and all the other distributions easily. Basically spoken, Debian has the focus on marketing. Their strength is to provide nice stickers, create podcasts about the debian operating system and start nonsense-debates about the cons of systemd.

Debian is not a Linux distribution but it's a movement which has in part to do with creating an operating system. It seems, that the focus on marketing first and reduced priorities for technical questions has made Debian successful. One episode from a debian conference will make the point clear. There was a talk, in which the user on the stage explained, that is not using Debian on their computer, but has installed a normal Windows operating system. But at the same time, the speaker was confident to talk about the Debian project.

Or let me explain it the other way around. Debian is not about the Linux software, but Debian is about Open source software in general and Linux is only one part of it.

Again, Clear Linux vs. Debian

The comparison between both Linux distributions makes a lot of sense, because they are representing both an edge case. Clear Linux can be introduced as an advanced form of Fedora Linux. Fedora is programmed by the Red Hat company. And Red Hat is the company who is programming the Linux kernel, the gnome environment and the systemd framework. From a technical point of view, all these distributions are great: RHEL, Fedora and Clear Linux are representing the latest technology available. They are equipped with virtualisation software like qemu, are nearly error free and can be installed easily.

The interesting question is, if Fedora and Clear Linux is so great, why is the user base so low? This is indeed a problem. It's an unsolved problem in the Linux ecosystem. There is on the one hand advanced software which is provides for free to the customer and on the other hand, nobody likes to install it. Only to get the fact right. The Clear Linux distribution provides all the features of Windows 10 Professional and much more but the software is available for free as an ISO Download. From a logical perspective, around 100 million Windows have to switch to Clear Linux, and all the Ubuntu users as well because it's the best software ever developed.

Everybody who has analyzed the Linux ecosystem will predict that this switch of the main stream towards Clear Linux won't happen. Instead the prediction is, that the project of the Intel company to bring their own Linux distribution to the market will suspended within 24 months from today. That means in 2023 nobody will care about Clear Linux anymore. The question is: why?

In the beginning of this blog post a possible answer was given. It makes no sense to compare LInux with Windows from a technical perspective, because most of the user decisions are the result of marketing campaigns. And the reason why Fedora and Clear Linux have failed is because they have a poor or even no marketing at all. The absence of marketing is perceived by the average user and he won't install the software on his own PC. Some users will test out the new distribution in the virtual box but they will use a different operating system for their daily work.

Under the assumption that marketing is everything in the decision for a Linux distribution the logical next step is to search for the Linux distribution with the best marketing and with the lowest technical performance. And this is – without any doubt – Debian. The quality is the worst of all Linux distribution, and at the same time, the community is the largest.