A Quick Look Back on Linux and Open Source 2015

The year is almost over and what a year it has been. Once again I must bemoan the fact that the year of the Linux desktop has still eluded us. That's okay...for now. Why? Because Linux managed to dominate in a world that is far more important than the desktop. Oh, and there's the fact that the desktop is slowly becoming irrelevant to a large portion of the world. More on that later.

If I were to consider the most important piece of the Linux and open source 2015 puzzle, I'd have to say it would be its continued dominance in the Enterprise. This is something no one would have predicted ten years ago. But lo and behold, 2015 saw the continued dominance of Linux in the space of space...big business. What was the cause that led to this effect? A large portion of that cause can be found in big data and SUSE. SUSE managed to prove that it could absolutely own big data with its in-memory databases and kernel updates sans reboot. Uptime, uptime, uptime.

But even beyond SUSE and big data, Linux has become the darling of the enterprise. Web servers, databases, security, virtual servers...the list goes on and on. If Linux had a claim to stake on 2015 it would be how it further solidified itself as that which runs the backbone of enterprise computing...