In an IT Conversations interview, publisher and open source advocate Tim O’Reilly talks about a paradigm shift taking place in software. To give an example of the failure to realize the new paradigm, he asks the question, “Do you use Linux?”. He makes the point that even if you use Microsoft Windows as your operating system, chances are that you use Google, and Google is running on Linux. Therefore you are a user of Linux. The point is that the PC no longer matters, nor does the operating system. Services that exist on the network such as Amazon, Google, eBay, etc. are becoming much more important than the software used to access them.
Have a listen to the following excerpt where he discusses this issue. (The full interview can be found here.)
Tim O’Reilly – Do you use Linux? (0.5 MB)