In the 1990s Linus Torvalds used to give a talk called World Domination 101 on the early steps he believed Linux would need to take to achieve "world domination — fast" ^[1]. We've made a lot of progress since then — in fact, with the rise of KDE and GNOME and OpenOffice much of the program Linus originally laid out, focused on GUIs and conventional productivity tools, has been fulfilled. World Domination 201 is about how to go the rest of the way.

The transition to 64-bit hardware is opening a critical window of vulnerability during the next two years, during which the dominant operating system of the next three decades will be chosen. A historical analysis of Moore's Law indicates that the new 64 bit desktop operating system will become entrenched by the end of 2008, and that this is a hard deadline. The last such transition was in 1990, the next one cannot be expected before 2050.

The three contenders for the new 64 bit standard are Windows-64, MacOS X, and Linux. The winner will be determined by desktop market share among non-technical end users. If Windows or MacOS X becomes the new standard, we can look forward to decades of steadily increasing DRM, locked-down video and wireless hardware, escalating patent claims, and other forms of attack as yet unimagined.

Part 1: Breaking Windows establishes why 2008 is a hard deadline. Part 2: Dispatches From The OS Wars examines the current state of the three major contenders vying to become the new 64 bit standard. Part 3: Facing the Music examines the major blocking issues to Linux's desktop acceptance.

Network effects in software, especially mass-market operating systems, make it highly advantageous to be using the same software as everyone else. Migrations en masse happen only when there is no alternative. Accordingly, the dominant operating system is normally only vulnerable to being knocked off its perch when it is obsolesced by a change away from the hardware platform it is tied to.

The pattern is consistent since the beginning of the personal-computer industry in the mid-1970s: software platform transitions follow hardware platform transitions. Long periods of monopolistic stability are interrupted by episodes of brief rapid change, in a pattern resembling the "punctuated equilibrium" of evolutionary biology.

8-bit computers were displaced by DOS during the 8-to-16-bit transition, DOS was displaced by Windows during the 16-to-32-bit transition, and Win-32 will be displaced during the 32-to-64-bit transition. But the window of opportunity won't last long; once the new dominant system is chosen for the 64-bit era, competition will effectively end for a long time — perhaps decades.

It is tempting for open-source boosters to assume that we have enough of a technical advantage to ignore the 32-to-64-bit transition and win during the 64-bit equilibrium by doing what we have been doing. But it isn't necessarily so; the historical example of CP/M vs the Apple II even shows that commodity platforms do not necessarily replace proprietary ones in the absence of a hardware platform transition. Even the incumbency advantage isn't enough to steer the market: Microsoft itself spent the 1980s trying and failing to replace DOS with Xenix, OS/2, and early versions of Windows before the 16-to-32-bit transition opened the way for Windows 3.0. Linux's glacial progress on the desktop over the last decade is not an aberration; between transitions the dominant platform is nearly unassailable.

Users buy the platform that has the most software, and developers write software for the platform that has the most seats. This positive feedback loop establishes a standard, and if that standard is owned it creates a natural monopoly.

Network effects cause the value of connected sets of nodes to grow faster than the linear increase in nodes (anywhere from n log(n) to n²). This allows even slightly larger networks to become "the obvious choice" for new installations and new product introductions, and eventually to take established market share from smaller networks. In a networked market, the largest player tends to get larger, and once past 50% market share usually continues up the s-curve to monopoly status.

A related factor is amortization of fixed costs. In the computer industry, one-time start-up costs (such as authoring software or building a microchip fabrication facility) are dominant, and incremental per-unit costs are minor in comparison. Thus pricing is almost entirely a matter of unit volume, and whoever ships the most units will have a better price to performance ratio as well as more research and development capital for the next iteration.^[2]

The desktop also matters because entrenched monopolies defend themselves. Minority players face closed hardware (3D graphics, 802.11g), patented data file formats (Quicktime, mp3), exclusive vendor relationships (Apple's iTunes), locked-down systems (Microsoft's Xbox), and an increasingly hostile legal environment (DMCA, the broadcast flag). These problems can only be addressed with lots of warm bodies, a critical mass of end-users who care enough about these issues to make attempts to corner the market financially and politically painful. Only the desktop market has this level of influence.

Trend curves we can extract from history will enable us to make a fairly exact prediction of the length of desktop Linux's market window during the 32-bit-to-64-bit transition, and the length of the next equilibrium period after that.

The interesting points were where a CPU architecture had to be abandoned, and when software platform for the new architecture became ubiquitous. When the old system's memory range hit the high end, early adopters had to start buying a whole new type of machine, and determined which one would start a volume ramp-up. When the old system's memory range hit the low end, and nobody was willing to buy the old system anymore because they needed more memory. New hardware required new software, and the new software standard generally emerged as the winner about the time the old platform stopped selling.

In 1975 the Altair came with 1k of memory but required 4k to run Micro-soft basic.^[4] In 1981, IBM's market research led them to introduce the PC with the ability to install anywhere from 16k to 64k of memory. In 1987, the Compaq Deskpro 386 beat IBM's PS/2 to market with the first 386 based PC in 1987, as 1 megabyte hit the high end highlighting the limit of 16 bit systems. These were the decision points for the new hardware platforms.

Although the new 16 bit hardware platform (the IBM PC) was introduced in 1981, it wasn't until 1984 that 64k fell off the low end, at which point the market for 8-bit systems like the Apple II and Commodore 64 suddenly dried up and blew away. The installed base of 8-bit systems lasted for a few more years, but new sales and software development both tailed off severely enough to oust Apple's Steve Jobs and Commodore's Jack Tramiel from the companies they had created. By this time DOS 3.0 had become the PC standard, eclipsing early challengers like ROM-Basic, CP/M-86, MP/M, and Xenix. The emergence of DOS as the standard PC OS wasn't a sudden thing, just a gradual reduction of other competitors to irrelevance.

The wall for 16-bit systems was one megabyte, which hit the high end in 1987, but it wasn't until three years later (1990) that 1 megabyte fell off the low end and DOS could no longer take full advantage of even the cheapest machines. Into this market vacuum Microsoft shipped Windows 3.0, an all but forgotten version that was not just unbelievably bad by modern standards but universally criticized at the time. But it succeeded because users were ready to abandon DOS for anything that could use a larger address space.^[5] Although IBM shipped OS/2 2.0 two years later (March 31 1992, a few days before Windows 3.1's April 6 1992 release), it was just too late. Windows had already picked up enough users from the pathetic but timely version to become the new standard.^[6]

Even after 30 years, these long-term trend curves have continued to be predictive. The doubling time of Moore's Law varies by component — hard drives double slightly faster than average and video resolution doubles more slowly — but the oft-quoted 18 month figure was derived from Intel's original core business, DRAM. It remains surprisingly accurate in part because memory and motherboard vendors schedule new product releases around it to avoid either falling behind the competition or cannibalizing the existing market unnecessarily.

Thus in 2005 x86-64 systems showed up at retail outlets like Fry's, and started up the S-curve. Even Apple switched from Power PC to x86-64, in part to take advantage of the economies of scale from the new standard PC platform.^[7]

This implies that 32 bit x86 systems become too obsolete to sell into the desktop market three years later, in 2008. The obsolescence of the hardware platform renders Win-32 obsolete as well, forcing the selection of its successor.

The next hardware platform transition is occurring now. When 4 gigabytes hit the high end in 2005, market forces forced even Intel to ship AMD's x86-64 instruction set rather than be left behind^[8] and 64-bit laptops showed up in stock at Fry's. The volume ramp is underway, and since Apple abandoned the PowerPC for x86-64 there's no longer any question: we know what the new hardware platform will be. The historical record indicates that the PC distribution channel will finish the transition to 64 bit hardware by the end of 2008.

In theory, three years later 4-gigabyte systems will fall off the low end and 32-bit x86 systems will no longer be viable outside the embedded market. Eventually, new systems will no longer regularly be sold with less than 4 gigabytes preinstalled. At that point, the win-32 API becomes a legacy system with little or no new software developed for it.^[9]

As the new 64 bit systems hits the low end, the S-curve of 64 bit adoption will go close to vertical. This is the last chance to capture 50% market share, when the largest surge of new users decides upon a software platform to go with their new hardware. This doesn't mean a platform can wait until the last minute to get its act together, this is when the decision becomes irreversible. Network effects will already be strongly influencing adoption decisions when 64 bit "crosses the chasm" and acquires the high volume to be found at the low end. This simply consolidates the market's decision. It's already too late to introduce a new contender into the 64 bit race.

After the s-curve flattens out again, gaining market share from undecided new users will no longer be a signifcant influence, and the largest platform will leverage its network effect advantage to consolidate the market. After 32 bit systems fall off the low end, the new 64 bit software platform will be entrenched.

The obselecense of 32-bit hardware doesn't determine the new software standard, it will merely lock it in place. The decision is happening right now. And whatever the new platform is, history indicates we'll be stuck with it for a long time.

It took us 50 years to exhaust the first 32 bits, from the Univac to 2005, which roughly matches Moore's Law's estimate of 48 years. It took 18 years (1987 to 2005) to go from 16 bits to 32 bits. Using the next 32 bits (to exhaust) 64 bits can thus be expected to take anywhere from 36 to 50 years.

If Linux fails to take the desktop this time around, we'll have to wait at least three decades for another such window to open.

The three contenders to replace 32 bit Windows as the new desktop standard are Windows 64, Linux 64, and Mac OS X. Once the choice is made, the history we've just examined suggests it will persist for many years.

Linux on the desktop is on a deadline. If it doesn't get its act together soon, the opportunity will be missed. The remaining two papers in this series will examine the possible outcomes, and what Linux must do over the next two years to take advantage of this window.

The point of this paper was that 2008 is a hard deadline. If you doubt this, consider that our trend-curve of address-space growth nailed 2005 as the introduction date for 64-bit systems working from a thirty-year successful retrodiction that includes the entire history of the microcomputer back to the Altair^[10] Consider also that the obselecense of 32-bit hardware doesn't determine the new software standard, it will merely lock it in place. The decision is happening right now, as each new x86-64 system gets installed. And whatever the new software platform is, history indicates we'll be stuck with it for a long time. The forces at work are deep, inexorable — and predictable.