Linux的未来：进化无处不在

本人对计算机文章翻译有兴趣，特转载此文。

原文出处： http://www.networkworld.com/article/2170832/software/the-future-of-linux--evolving-everywhere.html

Mark Shuttleworth之前关闭了Ubuntu Linux的第一号bug（“微软拥有最高的市场占有率”），导致了一些争议，也引出了一些意味深长的讨论，讨论自从1991年Linus Torvalds以个人玩物项目发明Linux以来，Linux所走过的路。

微软也许不会那么快退出桌面系统的历史舞台，但是随着Linux逐渐成长成为IT行业的一块重要基石，计算机的本质也已经完全改变。如今，从云服务到手机操作系统，几乎行业内的所有领域都受到了Linux的直接推动或间接影响。

Linux体系：提交、审核、采纳

伴随着支持者的不断增加，Linux的开发进程也在不断加快。

但发展的方向又在何处？如果Linux的普及和开发程度正在接近顶峰，那接下来Linux将去往何方？因为Linux具有超高的定制性和超多的“分身”，也许没有哪一个单独的答案能够回答这个问题。

或许，更重要的，是快速成长中的Linux如何应对挑战，变得更加成熟稳定，成为在多个领域主导市场发展的领头羊。接下来，让我们分别从以下几个方面尝试预测一下Linux的未来：原材料、社区产品与企业贡献、其特质所面对的各种挑战、技术实力和成长方向。

Linux作为原材料：弯曲、塑形，你想让它是什么样都可以

如果用一个形容词来总结Linux独有的优点，那就是“可塑性(malleable)”。Linux是这样一种原材料，可以装订切割，也可以为任意场合量身定做，小到嵌入式设备，大到大规模并行超级计算机。

但同时，这也是Linux的缺点之一。它千变万化的特性使得它很少以“Linux”的本来面目出现 ―― 相反，人们使用的是各种“基于Linux”的产品，例如Android、或家用路由器这样的硬件设备。桌面Linux的多个发行版（之间往往不相容）也把最忠实的用户群分割得七零八落。

Linux基金会执行董事Jim Zemlin承认，“Linux终端用户的体验的的确确是支离破碎的，但这也是Linux的一个强大之处。”

“它就像一块建筑地基，使得Google能建立Android和Chromebooks，Amazon建立Kindle，Canonical建立Ubuntu，等等这样的例子还有很多。所有这些产品对用户来说意味着不同的使用体验，而选择权完全在消费者自己手里。”

Mark Baker，Canonical公司的Ubuntu服务器产品经理，目前负责领导Ubuntu项目。他的话更加具体准确地表明了这一观点：“开源意味着选择的自由。”开源自然会促进模块化，因此，无论你是一个技术宅男还是正在开发数据中心的系统架构师，“通过开源，你可以选择最适合你的组件”。

但是IDC的操作环境分析师兼系统软件项目副经理 Al Gillen 却质疑这种完全放任自流的价值观。“Linux是开源的，由此，任何人都可以修改代码，把它变成别的什么东西。但是，现代工业已经表明，没有价值的产品会被淘汰，代码的发展主线应当始终紧靠主流价值观。”

Android用户对此有直接的深刻体会，诸多Android操作系统间存在着严重的碎片化问题。严格来说，尽管这并不都是Linux的责任，但是看看在Android之前就已经出现的无数五花八门的Linux桌面发行版吧，放任产品随意修改，差异化实现又造成更大的影响 ―― Android碎片化只是将这些问题生动放大了而已。

讽刺的是，即使“可塑性”真的是Linux的最大优势，但过犹不及，Linux作为这样的原材料将会付出成倍的代价。

Cloudera的工程部经理 Eric Sammer 并没有孤立地看待这个问题，他认为Linux的用户群“与Firefox或Apache等产品的用户群并不一样”，Linux“面向的并不是终端用户，而是操作系统类工程师”，因此它需要与“很多其他软件一同建立一个完整的系统 ―― 其中大部分软件是捆绑发布的，并对用户透明（例如boot loader）。”就如同Torvalds在Linux最初的内核发布日志中亲自写道，“只有内核，你什么也干不了。”

Android验证了Gillen和Sammer以上两人的观点，作为Linux最受欢迎的“衍生品”，Android所有的附加值都来自于Google以及Google专门为其开发的App生态系统。因此说，Linux的可塑性只是它成为真正产品的第一步，正如下文中这些最成功的Linux拥护者 ―― 企业，所熟悉的一样。

企业的贡献：利还是弊？

Linux的另一个特点，它是一个合作产物，由众多贡献者共同努力缔造而成。那么，这些贡献者从何而来？

答案：企业。企业是最主要的贡献者，但是他们忠于利益，支持Linux只是为了自身的未来发展。除去Red Hat（不同于Canonical，RedHat是最为人所熟知的Linux解决方案供应商），排名前几位的贡献者主要包括Intel，IBM，德州仪器，甚至还有微软。

Linux的所谓“灵活性”，即能够运行在多个平台或设备上的能力，很大程度上来源于以上这些贡献者，而他们的主要动力则来自于不断萌发的自身需要：例如，微软为Linux内核添加的代码，大大改善了Linux在其产品Hyper-V下的运行状况。

Sammer相信企业背景的发行版之所以能够普及，是“因为Linux内核这样的项目其复杂程度和准入门槛太高，一般水平的C程序员很难在有限的业余时间内，仅凭个人能力，而不依靠企业的支持，跟上内核的更新进度、建立社区公信力，或者做出某些重大贡献”。在他看来，企业恰恰有能力有资源支持这样的努力，与之相比，高校和研究机构已被远远地抛在了后面。

但是企业发行版的普及就代表Linux已经陷入企业的控制了吗？难道这就是Linux的未来？沦为资本的玩物？

其实最重要的不是看谁对Linux的贡献最多，而是这种贡献所代表的企业精神。不管是纯粹为了圈钱，还是为了把挣来的钱都回馈于社区，无论这些企业最初的动机是什么，作为Linux的贡献者，它们始终对贡献本身坚信不疑。

Mark Coggin，Linux红帽企业版的市场高级总监，他坚信，“最佳的创新点是那些经过开源社区的无数参与者利用、改进后的方案。”

“我们所有的新点子都会先作为开源项目，寻求社区上游项目组的增益评估，然后才加入像红帽企业版这样的产品。我们希望那些为Linux内核及配套项目工作的每个人，也能拥有像我们一样的眼光。”

还有一小部分观点认为，企业发行版Linux其实是一种“被绑架的Linux”，正如Gillen所提倡的 ―― 这是一种让Linux“稍稍不那么贴合主流用户群需求”的方法。他确信，对Linux的商业化支持与商业优化“对Linux的开发模式大有裨益，而不是相反。”

同样的，对Zenmlin来说，Linux开发“并不是一个零和游戏”

“如果移动领域的某位开发者改善了耗电量，另一位在数据中心工作的开发者会因此而受益，他可以使用前者的改进来确保自己的数据服务运行得更有效率，”Zemlin说道，“共享开发正是Linux如此强大的原因。”

同样，企业开发也并非敌人，“人们为Linux的开发工作付费从来都不是坏事；这些钱款可以让Linux的改善与创新变得更加迅捷快速。”

真正的问题是，Baker补充道，“一些超大型网络公司对Linux作出改进并上线应用，但是却为了保持自己的优势，而把这些改进捂在自家门里。”

GPL协议第三版 ―― 从Linux发布协议的一个早期版本改进而来 ―― 当初修改该协议的部分原因就是为了应对上述行为。尽管如此，协议只能防止获取他人代码后作为Web服务重新开发。除此以外，并没有什么固有的方法（或法律手段）能够禁止公司或个人在代码开发完成后封闭独占这些改进后的代码，也许，这就是Linux对全世界自由开放所不可避免的一部分社会成本吧。

Linux面临的最大威胁

感谢开源机制，Linux始终能够作为一个开源项目，企业才无法像以前那么独断专行。那除了企业，现在什么才是Linux所面临的最大威胁呢？

没人会真的认为Linux会被版权欺诈或诉讼所威胁，更不会因此从OS版图上消失。类似的最大一起诉讼案，SCO Group公司控告IBM案，被广泛解释为间接对Linux的攻击，也最终以悲惨的失败而告终（译者注，该案件间接导致了SCO Group的破产）。

Coggin也倾向于该观点：“依靠巨大的开发者网络和全球范围内的推广传播，Linux取得了巨大成功，这意味着它具有很强的韧性。尽管专利威胁一直都在增加，正如许多科技公司最近所做的那样，但是看起来专利诉讼并不会对Linux产生任何实质性的威胁。”

除此以外，其他类似开源产品的竞争，甚至更加自由化的协议（例如各式各样的BSD们），目前为止，都没有真正达到能够危及淘汰Linux的程度。

Sammer用一个单词总结出了，在合法范围内，Linux面临的最大威胁：自满！ ―― 自满地认为已经成为所有领域的市场领导者。

他说，“如果你正在竞争第一名的位置，你常常愿意更开放地做出改变，无论是过程上的、心态上的，还是有关发展路线的，甚至维持现状本身。想想Firefox被Chrome以如此快的速度抢走了如此多的份额，再想想当年的商业化Unix们被Linux抢占江山，这样的例子还有很多很多。”

大致根据同样的思路，Zemlin看到了这样一种威胁，面对日益增长的需求，Linux的天才开发者们才气有余，但经验不足，因此这才有了Linux培训项目。

Gillen发现的威胁来自于社区的变化，“随着时间推移，Linux的主流用户群 ―― 社区，正在从企业的客户（服务的消费者）转变为服务的提供者。”

这样一种变化可能会导致Linux用户被迫作为Linux服务提供者的同时，却完全无法将自己的智慧和创新回馈社区。这种变化也许会持续十几年甚至更长，但它“对整个Linux世界都具有深远的消极影响，包括各个Linux商业发行商在内。”

Linux所要面对的另外一个潜在威胁是公司兼并 ―― 这并不会威胁到Linux本身，但它可能会间接导致各种各样的可能性。Baker担心移动设备的快速增长，除了受Linux自身的发展影响外，更多的会受到来自企业施加的影响。

他说，“这就是为什么我们需要诸如Ubuntu和Firefox这样的第二选择，目的就是为那些上网时不愿受Apple和Google摆布的人们提供真正的替代品。”

说到Google，Google是Android的发展道路上最坚定的捍卫者。围绕Android作为Linux发展而来这一话题，有许多反对意见的争论，这样的争论对于Google的世界观来说，就像与它的首页相比较一样，稍显多余，同时它们也不符合Linux（自由开放）的精神。

简而言之，目前Linux面临的最大威胁来自于它自身 ―― 无意中，衡量Linux产品的第一标准已经变成了如何让它看起来更吸引人。一直以来，Linux所固有的灵活性和可塑性帮助它战胜自满和企业兼并，克服重重困难，但如今还能否一如既往，情况并不明朗。

路在何方？

毫无疑问，无论从哪个层面来看，Linux现在都正处在关键的岔路口，它将去往何方，又将付出怎样的代价，都值得探讨。

Linux最明显的未来之路，首先，它不仅仅是一块基石，或者说不仅仅是一种建立基础设施的途径；其次，它应当减少过多的产品形式；最后，真正的革新，不仅仅是拓展Linux本身，还要拓展其作为发现问题解决问题的创新办法。目前还很少有人如此对待Linux，要想真正做到这一点，除了呼吁更多的人改变对Linux的看法，还必须打破技术壁垒，将眼光放得更长远。

对此，Coggin说道：“Linux正在逐渐成为一个更加成套或灵活的操作系统，进而超越其作为一个基础设施平台的作用。我们看到，开发者和架构师们正在使用Linux建立新一代解决方案，创造出新一代的企业架构。”这些工作中的大部分已经开始付诸实施，他说道，包括“云计算、大数据、移动领域以及社交网络等多个方面”。

Gillen也同意上述观点，Linux“即将成为公共云基础设施中非常关键的一个部分，由此，Linux确保了它在现代工业中能够长期发挥作用。”

Baker说道，“Linux已经在运行着云业务，这是毫无疑问的，它需要巩固自己作为基础设施平台的位置 ―― 这意味着它需要时刻保持最新的技术领先优势，例如ARM服务芯片、超大规模集成电路、网络设计，以及所有的软件设计数据中心。”上述这些工作应当可以作为开源系统硬件设计（例如开源计算机项目）的有效补充。

Linux体系：提交、审核、采纳

伴随着正面需求不断增长，Linux的开发进程也在不断加快。

Linux作为普遍存在的基础设施元素，其中一个潜在的缺点就是它有可能成为商业化的制度产物，正如曾经它所取代的闭源Unix们。但是Zemlin认为，Linux极大的灵活性在这方面发挥了作用：“十几年前，如果你问到Linus Torvalds或其他社区成员，Linux是否会比其他任何平台都要更多的装到移动电话里，他们当然会说‘不会’。所以，我们要做的只是注视Linux的发展，不要尝试去预测它，因为所有的预测几乎都会是错误的。”

另一个重要的未来发展方向，就像上面提到的，“独立于Google之外，在移动领域有更大的发展，”Baker如此预测道。像Mozilla专门针对移动电话的Firefox操作系统项目，就是这样一种典型的尝试，尽管在Google的存在下，以及Android如此巨大的市场份额面前，其成功的几率并不明朗。

最后，最关键的问题，谁将担负起指引Linux未来之路的责任。因为Linux可以由其他人任意复制(fork)并开发，历史证明，拥有单一核心开发团队对于Linux来说是最好的，同时要求基于该团队的所有项目，其核心都能贯穿始终。

这样核心团队能够承担更多的责任，以推动Linux弥补现有或将来可能出现的不足，避免闭门造车式的技术封锁，最终使Linux成为它最应该成为的样子。

如果Linux的未来真的无处不在，现在没有人能够想象得到它会是什么样子 ―― 这是一件好事，难道不是吗？

英文原文：

The future of Linux: Evolving everywhere

Mark Shuttleworth's recent closure of Ubuntu Linux bug No. 1("Microsoft has a majority market share") placed a meaningful, if somewhat controversial, exclamation point on how far Linux has come since Linus Torvalds rolled out the first version of the OS in 1991 as a pet project.

Microsoft may not (yet) have been taken down on the quickly fading desktop, but the nature of computing has changed completely, thanks in large part to Linux's rise as a cornerstone of IT. There's scarcely a part of computing today, from cloud servers to phone OSes, that isn't powered by Linux or in some way affected by it.

Linux by the numbers: Commits, jobs, adoption

The pace of development hastens, as demand for Linux pros grows

But where from here? If Linux acceptance and development are peaking, where does Linux go from up? Because Linux is such a mutable phenomenon and appears in so many incarnations, there may not be any single answer to that question.

More important, perhaps, is how Linux -- the perennial upstart -- will embrace the challenges of being a mature and, in many areas, market-leading project. Here's a look at the future of Linux: as raw material, as the product of community and corporate contributions, and as the target of any number of challenges to its ethos, technical prowess, and growth.

Linux: Bend it, shape it, any way you want it

If there's one adjective that sums up a significant source of Linux's power, it's "malleable." Linux is raw material that can be cut, stitched, and tailored to fit most any number of scenarios, from tiny embedded devices to massively parallel supercomputers.

That's also been one of Linux's shortcomings. Its protean nature means users rarely use "Linux" -- instead, they use a Linux-based product such as Android, or a hardware device built with a Linux base such as an in-home router. Desktop Linux's multiple (and often incompatible) incarnations winnow out all but the most devoted users.

"How end-users experience Linux is definitely fragmented," admits Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "But that's one of the powers of Linux.

"It's a building block that has allowed Google to build Android and Chromebooks, Amazon to build the Kindle, Canonical to build Ubuntu, and much more. All of those experiences are different for the user, but there is choice for the consumer."

Mark Baker, Ubuntu Server product manager for Canonical, which leads the Ubuntu project, puts it in almost exactly those words: "Open source delivers freedom of choice." Open source naturally encourages modularity, he says, so "with open source you can choose the best components for your situation," whether you're a user working on a home machine or a systems architect developing a data center.

But Al Gillen, program vice president for system software and an analyst at IDC specializing in operating environments, questions the value proposition of such total freedom going forward. "Linux is open source, and as such, anybody can fork off code and turn it into something else. However, the industry has shown that forks without value go away, and there is great value associated with staying close to main line code."

Android users have experienced this most directly with the fragmentation that exists between different editions of the OS. None of that is, strictly speaking, Linux's fault, but as with the myriad desktop distributions before it, Android fragmentation illustrates the tension that arises between allowing the freedom to change the product and the fallout of inconsistency of implementation.

Ironically, that might mean the best thing for Linux, going forward, is to double down on Linux as raw material.

Eric Sammer, engineering manager at Cloudera, doesn't see Linux alone as having users "the same way as something like Firefox or the Apache Web server." Linux "is targeted toward operating system builders, not the end-user," and so it needs "tons of other software -- much of it tightly coupled, from a user's perspective (such as a boot loader) -- to form a complete system." As Torvalds himself noted in the release notes for the very first Linux kernel, "A kernel by itself gets you nowhere."

Both Gillen's and Sammer's words are echoed by how Linux's biggest uptake with users has been, again, Android, with all its attendant value added by Google and the app ecosystem developed for the OS. The malleability of Linux is only a first step toward an actual product -- as its most successful advocates understand.

RESOURCES

Another of Linux's hallmarks is that it's a collaborative effort; out of the contributions of many come one. But where are those collaborators coming from?Corporate contributors: Asset or obstacle?

Answer: Corporations -- mainly, those who stand to benefit themselves from supporting Linux for their own future endeavors. Aside from Red Hat (apart from Canonical, the most widely recognized corporate vendor of Linux solutions), top contributors include Intel, IBM, Texas Instruments, and even Microsoft.

Much of Linux's flexibility is due to such contributions, which expand Linux's ability to run on multiple platforms and on a broad spectrum of devices. Enlightened self-interest is the main motive here: Microsoft's own kernel additions, for instance, largely revolve around allowing Linux to run well under Hyper-V.

Sammer believes the prevalence of corporate-backed contributors is "due to the barrier of entry to any project as complex and critical as the Linux kernel. Your average C hacker doesn't have the time to get up to speed, build the credibility with the community, and contribute meaningful patches in their spare time, without significant backing." In his view, corporations most often have the resources to support such endeavors, with universities and research organizations being further behind.

But has the prevalence of corporate contribution to Linux turned the OS into a mere corporate plaything? Is that Linux's future, to be a toy of the monoliths?

What matters most is not who's contributing, but in what spirit. Linux advocates are firm believers in contributions to Linux, no matter what the source, as a net gain -- as long as the gains are contributed back to the community as a whole.

Mark Coggin, senior director of product marketing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, believes "the best innovations are those that are leveraged, and improved by the greatest number of participants in the open source community."

"We put all of our innovations into open source projects, and seek to gain acceptance by those upstream groups before we incorporate them into our supported products like Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We hope that everyone who works to enhance the Linux kernel and the userspace projects also takes a view like ours," Coggin says.

It's also not widely believed that corporate contributions are a form of "hijacking Linux," as Gillen puts it -- a way to make Linux "less applicable to other major user contingents." He's convinced commercial support for Linux and commercial enhancements to Linux "are an asset to the Linux development paradigm; not a negative."

Likewise, to Zemlin, Linux development "is not a zero-sum game."

"What one developer does in the mobile space to improve power consumption can benefit a developer working in the data center who needs to ensure their servers are running efficiently," says Zemlin. "That shared development is what makes Linux so powerful."

Corporate contributions are not the enemy to him, either: "Having people paid to work on Linux has never been a bad thing; it has allowed it to be iterated upon quickly and innovation to be accelerated."

The real issues, as Baker notes, come when "some very large Web companies make some changes available and push them upstream, but decide to keep others in-house to give them an advantage."

Version 3 of the GPL -- the license Linux was released under in an earlier version -- was developed in part as a response to such behaviors. However, it only prevents taking code others have written and redeploying it as a Web service. There's no inherent (or legal) way to prevent code developed in-house from being kept in-house -- which might well simply be part of the ongoing social cost of offering Linux freely to the world.

The biggest threats to Linux

If corporate co-opting is less likely than ever, thanks to the mechanisms that keep Linux an open project, what real threats does it face?

Nobody takes very seriously the idea that Linux is about to be wiped off the map by a rogue patent threat or lawsuit. One of the biggest such legal attacks, SCO Group's lawsuit against IBM, widely construed as a proxy attack on Linux, failed miserably.

Coggin is of this mindset: "Linux's huge success, with a vast network of developers and widespread global adoption, means that it is highly resilient. Although patent threats arise from time to time, as they do with many technologies, it seems unlikely that a patent or combination of patents could pose an existential threat to Linux."

Plus, competition in the form of other closed source products, or even those with more liberal licensing (such as the various BSDs), hasn't really materialized to the degree that Linux runs the risk of being pushed aside.

Sammer sums up the biggest legitimate threat to Linux in a single word: complacency -- the complacency that goes with becoming a market leader in any field.

"If you're vying for first place," he says, "you're usually more open to change of process, of mindset, of road map, of status quo, whatever. I can't help but think of Firefox losing so much to Chrome so fast, or the commercial Unixes losing to Linux, or all the other examples of such things."

In roughly the same vein, Zemlin sees a threat in the form of a lack of experienced Linux talent to support the demand; hence the Linux Training program.

Gillen sees a threat coming from a transition that "over time, moves the majority of the Linux user community from the enterprise customer over to service providers."

Such a move would put Linux users at the mercy of people who may consume Linux and provide it as a service but don't return their innovations to the community as a whole. It may take a decade or more for such a shift to happen, but it could have "negative implications for Linux overall, and to commercial vendors that sell Linux-based solutions."

Another possible threat to Linux is corporate co-opting -- not of the code itself, but of the possibilities it provides. Baker is worried about the rise of mobile devices, many of which, although powered by Linux, are powered all the more by corporate concerns.

"That's why we need alternatives like Ubuntu and Firefox," says Baker, "to provide real alternatives for those who do not want their experience of the Internet to be determined by Apple or Google."

Of those two, Google -- by way of Android -- is the main offender in this accusation. Many of the arguments against Android revolve around it being a Linux-powered OS that's little more than a portal to Google's view of the world, and thus isn't true to the spirit of Linux.

In short, the biggest threats to Linux may well be from within -- unintended by-products of the very things that make it most attractive in the first place. Its inherent mutability and malleability has so far given it an advantage over complacency and co-opting, but it isn't clear that will always be true.

Where from here?

Linux is unquestionably here to stay, and in more than one form. But how it will do that and at what cost are up for debate.

The most obvious future path for Linux is where it becomes that much more of a substrate for other things -- a way to create infrastructure -- and where it becomes that much less a product unto itself in any form. The real innovation doesn't just come from deploying Linux, but deploying it as a way to find creative solutions to problems, by delivering it in such a way that few people are forced to deal with Linux as such, and by staying a step ahead of having it put behind technological bars.

Coggin puts it this way: "Linux is emerging beyond that of a packaged or flexible operating system to become more of an infrastructure platform. With this, we see developers and architects using Linux to build next-generation solutions, and creating next-generation enterprise architectures." Much of this work is already under way, he claims, in "cloud, big data, mobile, and social networks."

Gillen, too, agrees that Linux "is going to be a very key part of public cloud infrastructure, and as such, it has ensured itself a long-term role in the industry."

"Linux already runs the cloud, of that there is no doubt," says Baker. "It needs to maintain its position as the platform for scale-out computing -- this means staying ahead of new technologies like ARM server chips and hyperscale, software-defined networking, and the overall software-defined data center." Such work ought to complement other ongoing efforts to create open system hardware designs, such as the Open Compute Project's.

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One possible downside of Linux becoming an ubiquitous infrastructure element is it becoming as institutionalized as the commercial, closed source Unixes it has displaced. But Zemlin thinks Linux's very mutability works in its favor here: "If you would have asked Linus Torvalds or other members of the community a decade ago if Linux would power more mobile phones than any other platform, they certainly wouldn't have expected that. We'd rather just watch where it goes and not try to forecast since we most certainly will be wrong."

Another important future direction for some is, as mentioned above, "go[ing] mobile in a bigger way independently of Google," as Baker puts it. Projects like Mozilla's Firefox OS for phones are one incarnation of this, although it's unclear how much of a dent such a thing will make in Google's existing, and colossal, market share for Android.

Lastly, and most crucially, there's the question of who will be responsible for ushering Linux into its own future. While Linux can be forked and its development undertaken by others, history's shown that having a single core development team for Linux -- and equally consistent core teams for projects based on it -- is best.

That puts all the more burden on the core team to keep Linux moving forward in ways that complement its existing and future use cases, and not to protect it -- perhaps futilely -- from becoming something it might well be in its best interests to transform into.

If Linux's future really is everywhere, it might well also be in a form that no one now can conceive of -- and that's a good thing.

This story, "The future of Linux: Evolving everywhere" was originally published byInfoWorld.