Linux
service isn’t unimaginable without
Linux (think of the early ISPs in the
90s), the scale and price structure of
an AWS would be hard to replicate.
Meanwhile Google would look very
different without Linux (its cloud and
data centres would likely be far less
scalable due to the cost of UNIX
hardware alone) and the other open
source technologies that power the
company’s underlying infrastructure.
The phenomenon du jour in the
data centre today is Linux containers,
which provide a way of packaging
applications with only their necessary
operating components, simplifying
development, maintenance and
management of these applications at
scale. As the name might imply, they
use the standardised components of
Linux itself to provide their benefits,
namely namespaces and cgroups, both
foundational pieces of the Linux kernel.
From Linux containers, we have seen
even more innovation emerge, from the
Docker project (container development)
to Kubernetes (container orchestration),
creating an emerging market for
applications and tools that can create
and manage simple, isolated processes
at a scale that matters to the enterprise.
Linux has also impacted hardware
evolution. Beyond providing a
standardised platform for commodity
hardware like x86 by splitting the
application and hardware, Linux has
also paved the way for new hardware
approaches, like ARM and system
on chip (SoC). This common base
for computing has enabled enterprise
IT to grow, emphasising innovation
instead of simply keeping the lights
on with expensive maintenance and
exorbitant licensing fees.
Overall, Linux driving open source
has led to much greater technology
transparency and accountability.
Without it, we’d likely still see the
enterprise data centre as a brickwalled silo, with little to no insight
into the broader business. Instead,
IT is now far more transparent to the
enterprise, helping to better align
with business goals and proactively
innovate rather than pedal hard to
maintain a status quo.
What’s next for Linux?
Thanks to the operating system’s
flexibility and scalability and the
community’s constant drive to directly
match and solve software challenges,
Linux has enabled major IT innovations
and helped make open source
practically ubiquitous across the tools
and services that enterprises use every
day. But with the rise of IoT and cloud
computing, further hardware advances
will be required and the enterprise will
face new IT challenges. The Linux
community will have to continue
adapting, as it has done for 25 years,
to meet users’ needs as well as help
identify ‘what’s next’.
The next 25 years of the Linux
project will be defined by how Linux
collaborates not just within itself but
outside of the project boundaries.
Linux needs to continue to bridge
divides between other communities,
like OpenStack or the various
platform-as-a-service projects, to
ensure the continued survival of
open source as we know it. Many of
today’s disruptive areas of innovation
in cloud, devops and data analytics
have very tight dependencies on
Linux evolution – Linux has never
been more influential and core to
broader technology innovation. Much
challenging work lies ahead and that
will require the power of community
to succeed.