Red Hat has no plans to create a traditional Linux desktop software for the end user market, but will continue to place its bets on a desktop for commercial markets as it is not making money from them. From the press release:
An explanation: as a public, for-profit company, Red Hat must create products and technologies with an eye on the bottom line, and with desktops this is much harder to do than with servers. The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and some people still perceive that today’s Linux desktops simply don’t provide a practical alternative. Of course, a growing number of technically savvy users and companies have discovered that today’s Linux desktop is indeed a practical alternative. Nevertheless, building a sustainable business around the Linux desktop is tough, and history is littered with example efforts that have either failed outright, are stalled or are run as charities. But there’s good news too. Technical developments that have become available over the past year or two are accelerating the spread of the Linux Desktop.
Now I'm just wondering where this leaves Fedora Desktop in the long term? Ubuntu Linux seems to doing well and it is going to lead Linux Desktop market along with other distros. Linux is also getting installed on mobile and many tiny devices.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
A big company like Red Hat gave up the fight.
That’s not good.Competition always does good things for development.
The story is very simple. Though server market favors both windows and Linux, desktop market is still dominated by Windows. Building a consumer oriented Linux desktop is not supposed to be profitable for RedHat. That’s it.