By Ryan Paul | Published: January 02, 2009 - 09:12AM CT
The past year brought some exciting advancements for the Linux operating system and open source software. Open technology continues to become more pervasive and the Linux kernel is now widely used in a multitude of mainstream products ranging from set-top boxes to mobile phones. With 2008 coming to a close, we wanted to take a minute to look at some events of significance to the open source software community.
Mozilla releases Firefox 3
Mozilla's Firefox web browser is one of the most successful and widely-known open source software applications. The popular browser continued its ascent this year with the official launch of Firefox 3, which attracted a record-setting 8 million downloads in the first 24 hours. The release was widely reported in the mainstream press and even got the coveted Colbert Bump.
Google releases Chrome
Google also dropped a browser bombshell this year with the launch of Chrome, its own open source WebKit-based browser for Windows. Chrome delivered some excellent innovations, including a process isolation system and a built-in task manager that allows users to view the resource consumption of individual tabs. Google has pushed Chrome forward at a rapid pace and has closed some of the remaining feature gaps by introducing a complete bookmark manager and other capabilities. The browser exited beta earlier this month and could soon land preinstalled on hardware from major manufacturers.
Android platform arrives on handsets
Another major open source move by Google this year was the launch of the company's Linux-based Android platform for mobile phones. Although Android got off to a rocky start and the flagship G1 device imposed some disappointing limitations, Google made things right by releasing special developer models. The platform source code is now fully available and Google has begun to accept patches.
KDE 4 officially released
The KDE ecosystem got a major boost this year with the official release of KDE 4, a major update that completely transformed the open source desktop environment. The original 4.0 release had a lot of rough edges that generated considerable controversy. It has improved enormously over the past year and delivered a very strong update with version 4.1. The next point release, which is due in January, will take the desktop even further. The early KDE 4.2 betas are very impressive and many aspects of the user experience have been enhanced.
Nokia plans to liberate Symbian
Mobile phone giant Nokia has become one of the most influential players in the open source software landscape. The company completely redefined its software strategy this year and has significantly boosted its commitment to open source. Nokia acquired Symbian this year as part of a bold plan to liberate the platform. It will eventually be distributed under the open source Eclipse Public License and is gradually moving towards a community-driven development model.
Nokia acquires Trolltech
In January, Nokia announced plans to acquire Trolltech, the company behind the open source Qt toolkit. Nokia aimed to use Qt to bridge the gap between mobile and desktop development and also to provide a portable toolkit that would work across several different mobile platforms. The Qt developers have been working to add Symbian S60 support to the toolkit, a feature that is demonstrated in a preliminary technical preview that was released several months ago.
Maemo 5 revealed
Nokia is also pushing forward with Maemo, its Linux-based Internet Tablet operating system. At the Open Source in Mobile conference in Berlin, Nokia's Ari Jaaksi unveiled the roadmap for Maemo 5, the next major version of the platform. The new platform includes a multitude of exciting technical improvements and user interface enhancements that were discussed at the first ever community-oriented Maemo Summit. The first alpha of the Maemo 5 SDK was released this month, fueling lots of fascinating speculation about features that could potentially be included in future Internet Tablet devices.
Python 3 slithers into view
Open source language development technologies also saw major gains this year. The Python programming language shed backwards compatibility with the long-awaited 3.0 release, which introduces some powerful new features and syntactic improvements. Python has gained significant traction and continued to see more high-profile adoption this year through Google's App Engine and other venues. Python is also one of the most popular programming languages in the Ars Orbiting HQ and we have written several tutorials about it in recent months.
Mono 2 released, first Moonlight beta emerges
This was also a big year for the Mono project, an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET platform. The Mono developers released version 2.0, which supports C# 3.0 and introduced support for Mac OS X, which has helped attract new developers to some Mono-based projects. WinForms support has improved significantly and the runtime itself has become very robust. This year also brought the official release of MonoDevelop 1.0, an open source development environment for building GTK# applications. Mono gained several high-profile adopters this year, including Linden Labs, the maker of the virtual world platform Second Life. The Mono developers also launched the first beta release of the Moonlight project, which seeks to provide Linux users with an open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight web plugin.
Sun's OpenSolaris lights up
Sun released the very first version of OpenSolaris this year. OpenSolaris, which emerged from Project Indiana, was created to build a user-friendly desktop distribution on top of the open source Solaris platform. Despite some early friction, the project shows a lot of promise. The second release, which occurred earlier this month, included some impressive functionality, such as a new ZFS snapshot visualization feature.
Looking forward
This year brought many exciting new developments for open source software, but there are many more that we can look forward to in 2009. Intel's intriguing new Linux-based Moblin platform is finally arriving on devices and will make major inroads in 2009 as the platform gains broader acceptance. The ACCESS Linux Platform and other emerging LiMo-compatible platforms could also debut on devices in the coming year and bring the open source operating system to more handsets.
Netbook growth will likely continue to surge, creating many new challenges and opportunities for Linux. Netbook-centric development initiatives, such as Ubuntu's Netbook remix and ARM port will continue to advance. We also expect to see community-driven distros gaining some enterprise traction as companies look for more ways to cut support costs.
Another area where Linux will continue to grow is in virtualization, where the platform's flexibility makes it uniquely suited for JeOS appliances. Major Linux distributors will continue to build robust enterprise virtualization technologies around Xen and KVM.
Although the coming year will bring many exciting new developments, there will be some challenges as well. The ongoing debate about how to bring freedom to the cloud will intensify and become more urgent as more users turn to web-based applications. The role of the open source software community in civic and political issues will become more pronounced, too. The principles of software freedom can make a difference in many critical areas, including national security and election integrity.
The coming year is bright for Linux and open source software. Despite its continued inability to gain a broad foothold on the desktop, the open operating system is practically everywhere else and many believe that it is the platform of the future.
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