Muggie van Staden is CEO of one of South Africa's largest and oldest open-source software companies, Obsidian Systems. But ask him what he runs on his desktop, and he'll tell you it's a Mac. And he recently moved to it from ... Microsoft Windows. Van Staden says his desktop computing choices are based on the fact that he's not particularly technical, and prefers the relative ease of use of both Windows and macOS. Indeed, many of the non-technical staff at Obsidian run Windows PCs or Macs, while the company's developers tend to prefer either macOS or Linux. That Linux hasn't succeeded in displacing Microsoft and Apple on the desktop, against the fervent wishes of many open-source software fans, doesn't worry Van Staden, who points out in this interview on the TechCentral Show (TCS) that Linux and open-source software have won everywhere else - on servers, in the data centre and on phones (Android). In this episode of TCS, Van Staden chats about:

• How Obsidian got its start;
• The relevance of open-source software in the modern computing world;
• Why Linux has never become popular on the desktop and whether it will ever be anything more than a niche on PCs;
• Why Microsoft should no longer be seen as the enemy of the open-source community, and why the community should not distrust the company's motives in its embrace of Linux and other open-source software; and
• The role of open-source software in enterprise computing in South Africa. Don't miss a great discussion!

Broadcast on:

17 Apr 2023