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Linux Pipeline Newsletter www.LinuxPipeline.com Tuesday, October 05, 2004 In This Issue: - Gartner: Four Out Of Five Linux PCs End Up Running Windows - Open-Source Group Blasts Gartner Over Linux Report - Red Hat Releases Enterprise Linux Beta - More News... - Feature: IBM Looks To An Open-Source Future - Analysis: Secure Linux: Hope Or Hype? - Feature: Open Source Goes Button-Down - More Picks... Join InformationWeek for a FREE, on-demand TechWebCast on Monitor and Measure - Making Print Accountable! Would your organization benefit from gaining control of your document output costs? We'll feature representatives from IDC, Cooper Cameron Corporation, Equitrac, and IKON Office Solutions. Register and view now: http://www.techweb.com/today/montr062804 ----------------------------------------- Editor's Note: Gartner Rounds Up The Usual Suspects Research analysts get their workaday kicks two ways: drinking free booze at industry conferences and seeing their names in print. Gartner analyst Annette Jump must have been delighted with the publicity she earned last week, although Linus Torvalds isn't likely to pick up her bar tab anytime soon. Jump is the author of a Gartner report linking growth in the desktop Linux market to rampant piracy of Microsoft Windows. She claims that a growing number of firms are buying cheap, pre-installed Linux PCs only to replace free copies of Linux with free (and illegal) copies of Windows. As a result, Jump concludes, the growth of Linux in the desktop market is largely an illusion--or, more accurately, a fig leaf that can't hide the ugly truth. I'm shocked--shocked!--that so many firms would replace a high-quality Linux distro with a bloated, bug-riddled security menace that sometimes passes as an operating system. Okay, I'm not shocked--in fact, I'm not surprised at all. But when Jump goes on to claim that in some countries up to 80 percent of pre-installed Linux PCs will run pirated copies of Windows, I have to question the assumptions behind her analysis. Gartner analysts use standard research methodologies to forecast trends; in fact, the company's data-gathering and analysis activities are among its most valuable assets. Gartner recently allowed me to study its operating system forecasting methodology, and it's impressive--as far as it goes. How, for example, can Gartner gather accurate software piracy statistics, especially when the sample consists entirely of businesses with a lot to lose if they get caught? Therein lies one problem. I won't fault Jump's conclusion that software piracy is endemic, especially in the developing world. I also don't doubt that some companies buy cheap Linux PCs and then promptly pack them with purloined Microsoft products. But I do wonder about Jump's (and many other analysts') desire to swaddle these assumptions in a blanket of statistical certainty, whether or not they deserve it. I also have a problem with Jump's not-so-subtle linkage of desktop Linux systems to Microsoft's ongoing piracy woes. We all know that Linux causes baldness and bad breath; now, apparently, it leads to kleptomania as well. As the Australian Open Source Industry Association (OSIA) recently pointed out, Gartner analysts might as well blame Microsoft Office piracy on the fact that millions of PCs come pre-loaded with Windows. This reasoning also reminds me of the Business Software Alliance's bug-eyed (and wildly exaggerated) software piracy estimates, all based on the nutty belief that every piece of unlicensed software equals a chunk of lost revenue for the developer. If Jump intended to suggest a causal relationship between Linux and piracy, then I'm being far too kind in this column. If Jump didn't intend to do so, she might really need a couple of free drinks right now. It's too bad that some people in the open-source community, including the folks at the OSIA, are taking extreme positions when they criticize the Gartner report. I think it makes sense, for example, that some vendors will ship cut-rate Linux PCs with a wink and a nod, instead of facing Microsoft's wrath for selling "naked," OS-free PCs. And believe me, there are plenty of reasons to pick apart these research reports without having to invent new ones. That's it for now. Have a good week.
Matthew McKenzie Gartner: Four Out Of Five Linux PCs End Up Running Windows A Gartner report claims to find a direct connection between Linux and software piracy.
Open-Source Group Blasts Gartner Over Linux Report
Red Hat Releases Enterprise Linux Beta
Sun Unleashes Its 'Tiger'
Bill Gates Offers Qualified Praise For Open-Source Licenses
Open Applications Group Releases Free WSDL Library
Red Hat Picks Up Netscape Assets
Linux Tool Delivers Low-Cost Anti-Spam Solutions
3Com Preps Linux-Based Software Switch
Systinet Debuts Web Services Tool For Eclipse
Sun's McNealy Lashes Out At Red Hat
Web Inventor Warns Of Patent-Licensing Royalty Threat Editor's Picks Feature: IBM Looks To An Open-Source Future A new IBM executive group aims to use the company's intellectual property to promote open source and open standards.
Analysis: Secure Linux: Hope Or Hype?
Feature: Open Source Goes Button-Down
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