The challenge facing open source

Just last week, Microsoft revealed plans to make users re-install future desktop versions of Windows following hardware upgrades or certain other changes - and to let it know by phone or online before so doing. Upon hearing this, silicon.com readers answered with a unanimous, disapproving voice.

A number of Reader Comments posted were from IT professionals who have had enough - they said this initiative, a feature of the upcoming Windows XP operating system, will be enough for them to turn to Linux, or move to Macs and the new OS X.

However, any widescale move to Linux, the best-known open source software, is fraught with uncertainties. Thousands of users, while recognising many of the benefits, just aren't comfortable with a technology that isn't served up and supported by a single vendor and its channel buddies. They're probably not fans of independent travel, either.

One issue is the 'personality' of Linux. "Who 'owns' it?" they ask, looking beyond the cuddly penguin logo.

In many ways, we all do (more so than commercial distributors such as Caldera, Corel and Red Hat.) In other ways, it's still the baby of its brainchild, Linus Torvalds.

However, the 31-year-old Finn isn't all that well known. This week silicon.com aims to change that. Whether it will help the open source movement or not, we don't know. That isn't our agenda.

But we all deserve to know more about software as important as the operating systems that run most desktops and thousands of servers, and an individual as important as Torvalds.

So this week be sure to check out our special coverage, derived from spending time in Santa Clara with the man himself. We will bring you his views on some Silicon Valley titans, the Microsoft case, the future of Linux - and much more.

It should help us get a better idea of the future prospects for open source.

For silicon.com's exclusive Linus Week coverage, visit http://www.silicon.com/linusweek