The Yankee Group has hit back at critics in the Linux community who have claimed that its surveys comparing Linux and Microsoft Windows are not impartial.
Its latest survey, published on Monday, reported that Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is at least as good if not better than Linux, in terms of quality, performance and reliability.
Laura DiDio, an analyst at the Yankee Group who has been at the receiving end of much of the criticism from Linux advocates, claimed the radical elements of the community could damage the reputation of open source software.
"There's an extremist fringe of Linux loonies who hang out on forums and are disrespectful and threatening because you disagree with them," DiDio told ZDNet UK on Wednesday. "That can hurt the Linux community."
DiDio feels she has been unfairly criticised on open source forums, including being nicknamed DiDiot, and has even had Linux advocates contacting her at home. "I've had these nut jobs calling me at 11 o'clock at night," said DiDio.
The reactionary nature of much of the open source community is something that DiDio claims is unique in the software industry.
"I've lived through the Unix wars — none of them reacted in this way," said DiDio. "It's just software. This has got way out of proportion."
Some of DiDio's critics have claimed that Yankee Group's surveys comparing the total cost of ownership of Linux and Windows have been funded by Microsoft. DiDio strongly denies this claim.
"I don't take any money from any vendor," said DiDio. "Yankee Group paid entirely for the survey. We use an independent survey house."
Yankee Group surveyed executives at over 500 companies, asking them questions on factors that influence TCO such as deployment costs, the cost of downtime, and the time and staff associated with security attacks.
As the study was carried out independently, DiDio said she had no influence on the results. "I think its hilarious that I'm [accused of] colluding with 500 or a 1,000 people," said DiDio.
The fanatical side of the Linux community has been highlighted by others in the past. Security analyst Mi2g, which released research last year claiming that Linux was hacked more frequently than Windows, experienced a 'hostile' response from some in the community, according to the company Web site.
"Any empirical evidence pointing to a high level of online Linux breaches is immediately shot down by religious zealots as if a church had been desecrated," Mi2g stated on its Web site. "The management of Mi2g has been threatened with damage to reputation and online property unless more is preached in favour of Linux."
Several senior executives at commercial open source vendors have also admitted privately that they are concerned that the radical side of the open source community could damage the reputation of open source software.
Although there are some negative aspects to the open source community, some point out that there are many positive aspects including the team work, the lack of hierarchy and the supportive element of the community.
Jon 'Maddog' Hall, the president of Linux International and a leading open source advocate, said at the LinuxWorld conference in London last year that one of the great aspects of the open source community is its willingness to help others.
"A friend of mine is a systems administrator at a large company and uses a lot of open source software to help him in his systems administration tasks," said Hall. "He said that if he asks a question [on a forum or mailing list] he gets lots of responses by the next morning. He told me: 'I give so little and I get so much.'"
Talkback
Miss DiDio should grow a thicker skin.
She has repeatedly expressed her views in the SCO case publicly. If you do that, you might expect some people expressing their view too, especially if her view is hers alone, and noone elses.
To call her in the middle of the night is a bit harsh, but she should stop whining.
If you can't stand the heat.....
Its the same old story: a research study is funded by a company with a vested interest and suprise, suprise, the research "proves" that company is the best.
I'd like to see one single released research study sponsored by Microsoft (or any other big company for that matter) that hasn't found that the sponsoring company is the best/cheapest/best value for money.
Same old story.
The Linux fanatics are easily the biggest local terrorist group in America.
Imagine making threathening phone calls to this poor woman's house late at night.
These cowardly patheticc Linix crazies are worse than Nazis.
And the world's biggest cowards.
Lets see how brave these vermin are, when they are made tyo meet real men, in man to man combat, , instead of making weasely, perverted anonymous phone calls to defenseless women.
How pathaetic can you get?
Laura Didio has only become such an infamous character by the wrong headed statements she has made over the years. Is it any wonder people find any claims of impartially suspect when she has frequently behaved as a biased zealot herself. It's easy to take pot shots at extremists on the other side, while pretending to stand in a position of impartiality.
Her nickname Didiot came from the PJ from Groklaw, who would rarely stoop to something like nicknames but became so exasperated with Ms Didio's biased reporting that the name kind of stuck.
Yankee group really need a different figure head if they want their "impartial" studies to be taken seriously. Especially if they release press releases spinning the results a certain way, long before they back that spinning up with the actual report.
enogh already : "Laura Didio has only become such an infamous character by the wrong headed statements she has made over the years"
This a free country.
This is America, not communist China or the Soviet Union.
People are free to say what they think.
Laura Didio had every right to state her opinions.
On the other hand, it is against the law, to make late night phone calls to defenceless women, threatening them with violence , like the Linux nutcases do on a regfular bases.
Time for these brainless Linux nutjobs to be put in jail, so they can meet some real men there.
Lets see how brave these Linux psychos are then, when they become some toughy guy's bitch in prsion, shall we?
So Yankee Doodle 'lost her pony'!!! Sob! Sob!
Well, Smithy. I'm a Linux supporter. I am trying to get Linux adopted in my company. If you want to meet me "man to man" then fine.
I don't make annoying phone calls to women (my mother in law works with victims of domestic violence, so I hear all about the damage than men can do to women's lives) and I am certainly not a communist (I vote conservative or Lib-Dem, depending upon their policies).
We care passionately about the Linux OS. Many people have put hundreds, even thousands of hours into making it what it is. LD's comments, apart from being "blanket statements" and funded, indirectly (look at the Yankee Group's funding) by Microsoft, have no basis in fact.
If you want to make threatening statements on the internet (where you are protected by your moniker of "Smithy") then you are a bigger coward than the so called Linux cowards that you refer to.
"This a free country.
This is America, not communist China or the Soviet Union.
People are free to say what they think.
Laura Didio had every right to state her opinions."
Yet in that same free country, people aren't allowed to critize her opinions. Or point out falsehoods?
"On the other hand, it is against the law, to make late night phone calls to defenceless women, threatening them with violence , like the Linux nutcases do on a regfular bases."
Another spin, extending one nutter to represent a whole community. Isn't that just another American taking their free speech rights too far? Not typical of the linux community at all.
"Time for these brainless Linux nutjobs to be put in jail, so they can meet some real men there.
Lets see how brave these Linux psychos are then, when they become some toughy guy's bitch in prsion, shall we?"
You sound like a zealot yourself. The windows using psychos vastly outnumber the linux ones, just through sheer numbers. Yes, people who make threatening calls should go to jail, but that solitary nut would be outnumbered by religious zealots, homophobes and racists who are far more common.
Enough already : "Yet in that same free country, people aren't allowed to critize her opinions. Or point out falsehoods? "
What on earth has making late night threatening phone calls to defenseless women got to do with criticizing anyone?
In this country, it happens to be against the law.
Your Linux madmen should be put in jail, as they will if they continue with their Nazi style method of "expressing their opinions" as you put it.
Enough already : "Another spin, extending one nutter to represent a whole community. " Isn't that just another American taking their free speech rights too far? "
FACT: Threatening, late night phone calls were made to a woman by Linux crazies.
No matter how you spin it, you can't spin that FACT away.
You want to talk about spin, take a look in the mirror, dude.
You are the one doing the spinning.
"Isn't that just another American taking their free speech rights too far?"
The right to free speech in America does NOT include threats of violence to defenseless women .
I suggest you go read the American constitution before you open your ignorant mouth!
"Not typical of the linux community at all. "
Au contraire.
The Linux community is simply rife with lunatics, psychopaths, rabidly vicious vermin, and all kinds of cum of the earth.
This behavior is if anything very typical of the Linux community.
Every single analyst who has come up with a report critical of any aspect of Linux has had his/her life threatened by the Linux crazies.
You guys are going down with that kind of behavior.!
"What on earth has making late night threatening phone calls to defenseless women got to do with criticizing anyone?"
Are you being deliberately obtuse? I was talking about the criticism she received from groklaw and elsewhere not phone calls.
"In this country, it happens to be against the law."
And I assume she's reported them to the police? And there will be a follow-up as to how they've been arrested for breaking the law.
" Your Linux madmen should be put in jail, as they will if they continue with their Nazi style method of "expressing their opinions" as you put it. "
Again you're deliberately taking my quotes out of context. That's not expressing opinions, that's abuse.
smithy. I do not care for Linux and thing its stronges weekness is the many distributions and the war between linux users about wich GUI is the best. Fact is though that people who lives and breaths Linux can run circles around the vast majority of windows users. They love the power provided by Linux. The rest of us don´t know there to begin, and that is its strongest weakness. You however sounds like an Idiot comparing calling all Linux users Communist nuts. Some may be. But I am sure you will be able to finde more communist windows nuts and proberly also some communists nix* and mac nuts
if you want to talk about communists... chinese government uses windows ^^b
Smithy wrote:
"Time for these brainless Linux nutjobs to be put in jail, so they can meet some real men there.
Lets see how brave these Linux psychos are then, when they become some toughy guy's bitch in prsion, shall we?"
Ironic that the people that Smithy thinks are "real men" expend their "pent-up-energies" in illicit relationships with other men. So law-breaking, convicted, criminals are what he considers "real men?" Tells us a lot about where his ethics come from.
Why don't you act like nut-job Zell Miller and challenge everybody to a duel? That would be typical of someone with your brains, ethics and, as evidenced by your spelling and grammar, obvious educational apptitude.
Ingrid, and ZD, you are redeemed. Keep it up.
I am surprised US is called free. Nothing in US is free. You have to pay for everything. You can buy everything.
US is a money country. And if you try to speak real words of freedom the change to get killed or put in a military camp as a terrorist, without any rights is frightening.
The only reference to me for US is the bully-one. Gulf1, Gulf2, Iraq, they didn`t find the weapons, they did find the oil over there...
Comes to GNU/Linux vs Microsoft and the whole story of that yankee group.
How on earth can anyone take this serious? It`s all clear where the money comes from and whose gone take the great bat in this story.
Well here's some topical background on the style of journalism that Didio participates in:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050407113517663
To call people using Linux "Linux extremists" or "zealots" perhaps indicate the real position of these surveys. I was forced to Firefox and then Linux only few months ago, but even then I can't say linux is good in everything. I have to say that the so called zealots have at least used and tried something else. That I will think is different from one who has not tried something else and insists that what he has is the best.
She does not collect money from her vendors, yes, neither do the zealots. As a matter of fact some pay to have and use Linux, but they still have some interest that make them defend it.
She is implying "that radical elements of the community could damage the reputation of open source software". Is it possible, that the fact that one cannot remember any remotely positive comment from her about any thing, or any relevant company' that competes with windows, may have tarnished her comments in the so called community, and possibly the audience that these surveys are supposed to serve? If one goes back to the 20 years of experience, and during the Unix fight, could it be the same type of position and comments that she issued even then?
It is just hard to take one seriously when they don't have anything good to say about a particular object or people. I will define that as biased because that object cannot be 100% bad and the compared object always 100% good.
The adoption of Linux have not supported her position all along with Linux. It is hard for me to believe that all the individuals and companies that are using Linux can be all stupid and wrong. There must be a good reason for them to be using it.
Regarding this particular survey, is it possible that she was given the type of answers that she expected? The surveyed most likely read her comments about Linux/Windows constantly and may have some opinion just like the "Linux extremists" do.
Two comments:
First, there are good and bad things about Linux and the open-source movement. Good analysts/journalists can see this, and comment on the good and the bad. DiDio has never published anything positive about Linux.
Second, it isn't only with regard to Linux that DiDio falls short of expectations. Her comments about the Val Kreidel tragedy were grossly unprofessional, and hurtful to the Noorda family.
As long as there are editors who aim to increase profits by printing sensational muck instead of by informing their readers, there will be people like DiDio writing for them.
"FACT: Threatening, late night phone calls were made to a woman by Linux crazies. "
She never claimed they were threatening. And how many calls did she actually get? One? Two? Three? Is that the linux community? Three calls.
Ms. Didiot has acquired her reputation by repeatedtly writing results that we the sysadmins, managers and end-users know are false. In light of Microsofts FUD campaign and it's propensity towards purchasing survey results and only publishing the ones that favor it, and the facts that hers do also, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make that connection. In fact it would be extremely surprising if one was not to do so.
You me and every enlightened and un-biased user knows that the support cost of an x86 system is about the same not matter what O/S is on it. Every company that is using both in quantity knows this. Why doesn't Ms. Didiot?
I agree, calling her home is way over the line. But then again, so are the lies she has published.
For everything there is a price......Even if it's free as in beer.
A couple of articles, straight FUD, now nobody believes her anymore, awww...shucks. I almost wish I could feel sorry for her.
This type of thing tends to happen when an "analyst" in the press gains a reputation for favoring one side or another, especially when that analyst is perceived as either being (a) technically incompetent or (b) regularly taking a position which is contrary to general opinion.
The same thing happened to some writers in the OS/2 days, in the Amiga days, and when the Mac was the main Windows competitor -- writers who tended to write articles which favored the mainstream platform or which criticized the alternative platform in question without adequate technical justification received a lot of responses, some of them from folks who were less then diplomatic in their approach to feedback.
Such responses come with the territory. Over ten years of history have shown that this is nothing new, and anyone with a clue about the technology industry should realize this.
If Ms. Didio wants to set herself up as an analyst in the press and use her position to take pot shots at a minority platform, particularly when those shots are presented in a condescending tone, then she should expect this kind of response.
If she isn't capable of dealing with it then perhaps she needs to find a kinder, gentler profession.
Didiot and her fellow-idiots Enderle and Brown (of Awful de Torquemada Institution) the deserve all the trashing they get, because they are manifestly unqualified to pontificate on the computer industry. Worse, they are likely paid shills who have no sense of ethics or shame.
Calls to her home are clearly out of line, but how many did she get? And who do those callers really represent?
Every movement has its radicals, particularly when it's a revolution.
But Ms. Didio really has made a name for herself ("Didiot").
What she needs to do is to design her studies on objective criteria. It appears she doesn't even understand that she's comparing Apples to Oranges. Many researchers miss things, but Didio really misses a lot. That's why she stands out so much.
And she needs to respond to the hard criticisms--it's not really all that relevent that Microsoft funded the study, unless she's corrupt or Microsoft also specified the parameters.
Clearly, when you specify the parameters, you can make the study results turn out in your favor almost every time. I think she's just so familiar with the Microsoft view of the field that she cannot see outside of that box. She doesn't understand what the advantages of GNU/Linux are with any kind of depth and thus her comparisons are mislead.
Examples:
A common reason why "TCO" is cited as being higher for GNU/Linux is for scripting costs. But to do the same things as are possible on Windows, normally you don't need to do any more work than you do on Windows. GNU/Linux environments simply provide more capabilities through scripting, thus scripting is used. Typically for tighter integration or more customized operation than is possible in a proprietary product.
More security announcements in proprietary software is good/bad depending on how it was discovered--by an actual breach or by a tester? The testing ability are highly constrained in comparison to open source. More security announcements in open source software means the open source model is working--it enables one to find more holes faster. All software has bugs, quality is measured by how many you find and correct. This principle holds even much more relevent for open source.
Matthew C. Tedder
In a large population there's a reasonable chance of finding someone who's more extreme. That's statistics. There's a huge amount of people using Linux and a huge amount of people who, thanks to the Internet, get to read these articles and can respond to them.
.
Don't take the vocal minority to represent the majority. For a start, if even a fraction of a percent of Linux users were to respond as stated Laura Didio would be under police protection by now - or would have no phone line left.
.
To say that these people would damage the reputation of the rest is as sweeping a generalisation as saying that Jack the Ripper damages the reputation of all British People.
To start with, calling her home, threatening her, etc is totally unnacceptable. No one, no matter what their opinion should be scared to voice it. That said, on the rest of it, she has no credibiltiy left. She should expect it by being an outspoken SCO supporter, and has never once backtracked from her uninformed opinion that, wow, look at the pretty slide, looks like SCO has a very strong case.
A challenge. Can anyone find, anywhere, a comment or quote from this lady that is positive in it's statement. I am not talking about the backhanded compliments like 'linux sucks less than it did', but a statement like, Linux does xyz better than.... I don't think you can find it. Now, lets take it to extremes. If there is NOTHING good, or superior about Linux, then why are we here? What would anyone care? It wouldn't be taking over a larger and larger market share if there isn't something good about it would it? In everything I have ever read from this person, she has been staunchly biased, in my opinion, against Linux and Open Source in general. Since my opinion is the only one that truly carries weight with me, and I think she has little credibility, I can say that you, Mrs Didio, have to WORK again to establish credibility with me. Without that, you are just flappin your gums. Want to start, do the following....
Publish the study. The ENTIRE study. The methodology. How were the companies picked, what were they questions, were they leading questions, the whole shootin match. PROVE us commies wrong and subject your study(s) for peer review. No scientist gains any credibiltiy without peer review, why should you be any different?
Kevin
What is this woman talking about? "I've lived through the Unix wars — none of them reacted in this way," said DiDio. How long has she used computers? Remember Amiga users? Remember OS/2 users? Remember NT usres? Right there are two examples of passionate user groups. I especially enjoy her making gross generalizations and calling names. That's from a person supposedly neutral and objective in her research... yeah.
Sorry Miss that we open source people feel so adimit in our movement. I would agree phone calls are harsh and unaprropriate.
BUT dont think we are going to sit on the sidelines like so many companies did to Microsoft. If you have an opinion, well so will someone else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The one thing this lady fails to understand is you cant measure opensource. It is what it is and always will be.
Dildio is just like her skinnier sister <brother?> MoG she can dish it out, but the sow can't take it.
"FACT: Threatening, late night phone calls were made to a woman by Linux crazies.
No matter how you spin it, you can't spin that FACT away. "
Actually, yes...you can. Reread the article. Nowhere does it say that Didio was threatened in a phone call. It says she was called at 11 o'clock at night by a Linux advocate, who she characterized as a "nutjob". But then, judging from Didio's previous opinions, anyone who uses Linux must be a nutjob, because Windows is so much better.
That means you're guilty of...what....falsely reporting a crime?
RE: "FACT: Threatening, late night phone calls were made to a woman by Linux crazies.
How is it that you know that to be a fact? Let's see, based on your comments we have to assume that you're not Laura Didio. So how could you know that this is a fact?
Are you the caller?
Without Windows, Didio is nothing.
Same with Enderle. They are fighting for their financial lives
Only software? It's only my livelihood Laura's trashing with her - at best - incompetence.
On one hand we have surveyors reporting a 50% rise in virus infiltrations over the last year, and on the other we have Laura and her fellow travellers assuring us that Microsoft has markedly improved their security.
Given that the number of probes hitting my own servers has risen, I have to say: it's not Laura.
You also plenty of other indicators to hand. About 3x as many web sites are run on Apache as on IIS. About 2x as many IIS sites are defaced as Apache. About 2x as many attacks arrive tailored for Apache servers, or at least so say my own logs across many sites. This tells you several things: crackers are much more interested in getting control of a Unix server; Apache-based (almost all Unix) servers are roughly 12x as secure as IIS.
Despite every PHB and his dog demanding MS Exchange as an email server, roughly 4/5 of the email servers fronting the internet are not MS Exchange. Yet which server makes the headlines regularly for suffering breaches?
I charge roughly 50% more than a typical MS Windows tech, locally, and get called out about one third to one quarter as often. My servers cost much less to procure and set up, too. My commodity Linux box running alongside the latest-greatest hardware-RAID dual-PSU Windows 2003 server is _more_ reliable.
These are arguments from experience, and local businesses of all size are not so much interested as fascinated by them. They are not two-steps-removed "studies". Call me biassed, but I regard them as far more reliable than the collective words of a bunch of PHB CXOs who often wouldn't _know_ what their sites were really running.
And to the nutjob who rang Alfred E Didio at 23:00 one night: don't. Say it to her politely, and in person. Or better still, say it to someone else: it seems to be all water off a duck's back to Laura, in terms of getting her to change. Upsetting her is not a worthy goal, waking her up and producing a positive change will only happen when besuited _others_ have told her enough times to smell the coffee.
DiDio is nothing more than another two-bit journalistic hack. She needs to realize that the reason the open-source folks are so mad at her is that they actually know what they are talking about due to the hard work they put in actually working with computers, in such areas as development and systems administration, as opposed to typing at a word processor and being a pundit. She has no real background in computer sciences at all, but rather is a writer who works for an overly respected (at least by PHBs) "analyst" group. If she wants respect by the open-source community, she should get it the old-fashioned way-- actually get her hands dirty with the technology and earn it. When the DiDiot actually does this, she'll have my respect, whether or not I agree with her position.
LD, RE, MOG etc are paid to provide 'talking points'. I didn't understand this at first, but there is a scumbag on the SCOXE Yahoo board who made it very clear. What ledite said was that you cannot win a debate, but you can win by shaping the argument, by determining what is talked about. A lie repeated often enough tends to take on a patina of truth. It must be true, everyone knows that. That is what LD, RE & MOG get paid to do. I don't think they are under any pretentions regarding their level of competence or intelligence, but I suspect they must be somewhat alarmed that so many see them for what they are - tools, I like the phrase "Mouth of Sauron" it could be applied to any of them. See because most people don't believe anything they write, some other shills will be employed to take their places. Less income, less power, fewer invites. Evolution in action.
As to ringing people at 11pm at night, its easy to get confused with time zones. No one forced her to answer. Most people have caller id, or the sense to suggest they call at a more convenient time. Ever wonder how the nutjob got her number? Perhaps she gave it to the nutjob? Perhaps its was her cell phone number?. That said, as a female and someone who has used computers for ~ 20 years, its very frightening when nutjob computer users of any kind hassle you where you are not expecting it - especially if they go to your home. So I kind of pity Laura Didiot, but there's the old adage about making your bed and having to lie in it. I do so hope someone is sending this whole article and the feed back to her employers - it may come in useful for when its time for her annual review / severance package negoitiations. I certainly see the name Yankee, and think - oh yeah, paid crap. She has a large part in the forming of that opinion - see Laura - you have influence, just not the kind you'd like.
FACT: SHE EARNED IT! It was not because of any "fanatics"...just about every single person in the WHOLE linux community knows that she is an idiot. I am a high level IT professional from a fortune 50 company, and even I KNOW that she is an idiot and have seen what stupid stuff she has said over the years.
She has a very long track record of being one of the absolute worst analyists there is on the subject of Linux.
She needs to get another Job in movie reviews or something.
And people like ZDNET need to STOP QUOTING HER and other idiots from this lame Yankee Group.
Having her quotes in your articles make us PROFESSIONALS in the industry (who actually work for a living and not write about it) think your article is a joke.
If you want REAL professionals to respect your writing then KEEP this woman and anyone from the usless Yankee group of out it.
Anonymous Engineer: she really is that dense. I don't think - in Laura's case, at least - that deliberate malice is involved. Enderle and a few other fellow travellers, on the other hand...
The Yankee Group = 0 (Zero) credibility!
Hey ZDNET.
Like an eariler comment here said.
These people have ZERO credibility with anyone who is a real professional. I'm not talking about these kids running Linux and whatever, I am talking about real honest to goodness 30-50year old IT pros that read your publications. We think that this Didiot (yes even us old pros now call her by that name around the office), and this stupid Yankee Group have ZERO credibility with us. Do not quote them ever again, they are not IDC, and they are not Gartner they are 2-bit usless outfit full of people not qualified to write about NASCAR races let alone real technology trends.
Don't give them ANY more quotes in your articles if you want us professionals to take your publications seriously.
Smithy, you troll, posing as an expert is fraud. Laura is posing as an expert. Is that protected by the right to freedom of speech, or not? She's restrained from doing that by fraud and duty-of-care laws, not by censorship. And the people her words have hurt are entitled to the same freedom of speech, no?
BTW, "here" is nominally in the UK, not the USA. And I'm posting from Oz. Horrors! The rest of the world _does_ exist after all.
Take it easy.. Smitty has two strikes against him.. he uses MS.. & he's a salesman.. Feel sorry for him.. and don't bait the (d)idiots.. (;-)
I am a Linux user and a Windows user...as a matter of fact I love both at certain things. But truth is...there are serious Linux freaks out there who are a nut job...from my own experience - newsgroups to Linux general meetings ( that should tell you how far I am with Linux). I do not understand the "religious" war of Linux people. Like I said, I prefer to use Linux in some things (security, forensic, firewall, file / print sharing,) and Windows 2003 / XP main Controller / Exchange, etc) for others. There are excellent to both, but only Linux has true nutz and zealots.
For the record: Phoney IT analysis: bad.
Threatening phoney IT analysts: bad
Does Smithy seem to equate criticizing Didio as an endorsement of this kind of criminal behavior? Methinks he does. Missing a few links in the logical chain, is my boy Smithy.
Wasn't it Laura Didio who kept writing about how SCO had Linux dead to rights? :) Ah, those were simpler times.
Oh, Boy.
I've read little enlightening in the comments here - a lot of namecalling and general foolishness. I did get a laugh out of the guy who said "After all, this is America". I laughed because I was reading his comments on a web site called "www.zdnet.co.uk". Gee, that domain name would be in the United Kingdom, so this is hardly America.
But back to reality. Ms Didio has, as many folks have pointed out, such little credibility that she is not taken seriously. I've read some of her articles and can't beleive the misinformation that has been penned by one claiming to be a "journalist".
That is not intended to be inflammatory. It's simply a statement of fact.
That being said, the way to fight FUD is with facts, respectfully presented. Facts presented in such a way are more readily received by their target audience than a raving "I Hate You" type of lunatic.
I have no doubt that Linux has radical "zealot" supporters (I have seen them in any technical/hobby pursuit). However, a radical zealot has no more credibility than Ms. Didio has.
Fight FUD with facts, not fire.
Taming of the DiDioT Shill
Laura DiDioT has been shilling for Microsoft since her journalistic hack career was incepted. She signed the NDA with SCO and told the world how Linux was SCO's code. Even though she knew nothing about either.
She compares Linux and Windows TCO's every 4 month's with the same response- even though Linux is completely FREE and is improving exponentially every hour. What does Total Cost of Ownership mean again?
Her 500 "independent" whoever's are never disclosed. Their responses and data are never open for evaluation statistically. Her facts have NEVER been verifiable. As in science- as in mathimatically- as in common sense.
She is just another casualty in this revolution of technology. The eventual outcome in the bell curve of evolution in the age of "Intellectual Property". In 50 years, owning thoughts will be tantamount to owning people aka slavery. She is an embarassment to her already embarassing profession.
My advice Ms. Didiot- Get a real job and build something you worthless heap. Your history is your credit. And your credit is ruined.
I wonder on what planet Smithy lives.. The statements he makes are typical of a bad salesman talking loads of bull**** without having the evidence to back up his claims....
The Linux community is very diverse and mostly consists of people that have a passion for computers. In general these are people that tend to think outside of the box and are prepared to question why things are done a specific way instead of blindly following like sheep (obviously Smithy can be classified as one of those sheep).
These studies are not always accurate either. I have a statistics background and I know how easy it is to manipulate the results to give the result you want. Anyway, I am not going to slate Microsoft even though I think their product is inferior to others on the market. (Damn, did I slate them there?) Some people believe that a Microsoft solution is the best although they have never looked at ANY of the alternatives...
Please do not waste our time with mindless comments like that about computer enthusiasts, just because we think in binary does not mean we are heartless "nazi's". Get a life dude...
BTW, I think there are more extreme Apple followers that Linux... :-)
There are definately nutjobs in the linux community. Just like there are nutjobs using microsoft. This particular comment about Linux crazies does nothing to help support her claim.
People, people, don't you see this is exactly the sort of reaction they're wanting? You all say that she has no sort of reputation or credibility . . . well that doesn't matter when you have scores of people catapulting the woman into stardom . . . we're feeding this woman's ego and that is no good thing!
Most of us know that UNIX and its clones have been around way before MS was even conceived and will remain long after it has gone . . . I promise you it WILL happen!
In the meantime let's rise above the quite feeble obstacles that money-grabbing corporations have laid before us and continue to develop and share technology as a world wide family in the pursuit of discovery and progress and not merely for money and material gain!
The best will always win out no matter how much money (or journalistic hacks) are pumped into the opposition. Does that mean we shouldn't fight? Absolutely not! It does mean however, that we should never assume their level of arrogance or dirty trickery when opposing them. That's a Microsoft trait and one of the corporate (so called "Free") west! We're far better, and wiser than that.
The fact remains that Microsoft is a corporate company that does not innovate, it copies. It does not solve problems, it creates them. It does not share willingly, it steels. It does not represent, it merely mimics. Don't believe me? Then see the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" and watch how Microsoft unleashed it's poison on the world.
Business and governments around the world are and will see through the veil and realise they're being cheated. Look at the British Government, for example, who have recently announced the Open Source Academy promoting and building open source software for national and local government in light of "the collossal failures proprietary software has caused in recent years". Look at Ernst and Young, arguably one of the worlds largest Accountancy firms who went from a just a handful of support engineers when they used Apple Macs to "hundreds" of support personnel when they switched to windows.
Shout and scream if you must . . . but remember that we are part of something much greater that they can only ever hope to copy, badly.
No, I'm not a psychopath
Laura.
Yes it is bad that people target individuals, but the comment....
"I've lived through the Unix wars — none of them reacted in this way," said DiDio. "It's just software. This has got way out of proportion."
says it all... It is all about who controls information ultimately and monopolies, even if Linux is not quite as "economically viable" as other vendors I will still use it because I choose to.
No matter if you agree with the studies or not I don't think it is right to call someone you do not know at home to discuss it.
I'd say if you don't agree with her findings call, email, write the Yankee Group. If they get enough complaints and find that she is taking money from M$ then they'll take care of it.