Slashdot Mirror

jtheory writes "There's an interesting article on Salon.com (free daypass available, ads, etc.) about the counter-reaction to SCO's attacks on Linux, and how SCO may actually be one of the best things to happen to Linux lately, because their attacks have turned a lot of attention to the possible Achilles' heel in the code contribution process. Includes some good detail on OSRM, a company offering insurance against lawsuits like SCO's, who notably hired Bruce Perens and PJ of Groklaw fame, and is doing their own extremely thorough analysis of the code and any possibility of improperly included code. The founder of OSRM also wrote a story called Why the Linux Community Needs Open Source Insurance on LinuxWorld." We've mentioned risk insurance before.

jtheory writes "There's an interesting article on Salon.com (free daypass available, ads, etc.) about the counter-reaction to SCO's attacks on Linux, and how SCO may actually be one of the best things to happen to Linux lately, because their attacks have turned a lot of attention to the possible Achilles' heel in the code contribution process. Includes some good detail on OSRM, a company offering insurance against lawsuits like SCO's, who notably hired Bruce Perens and PJ of Groklaw fame, and is doing their own extremely thorough analysis of the code and any possibility of improperly included code. The founder of OSRM also wrote a story called Why the Linux Community Needs Open Source Insurance on LinuxWorld." We've mentioned risk insurance before.

An anonymous reader writes "A month ago, a trial version of a little-known Linux application called 'CoLinux' was released that is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. It's the work of a 21-year-old Israeli computer science student and some Japanese open source programmers; in Israel, analysts are already saying it could help transform the software world." (CoLinux is short for Cooperative Linux; we mentioned this project in January as well.)

An anonymous reader writes "You gotta love Marc Andreessen's 12 reasons why Open Source is set to boom: can anyone use fewer than 103 words and still adduce as many reasons as he does?"

jg21 writes "Following on from yesterday's Slashdot coverage of the idea to launch a games-based Linux distro, LinuxWorld Magazine has held a Gaming Round Table involving Chris DiBona, Ryan Gordon, Timothee Besset, Gavriel State, and Joe Valenzuela about where Linux currently stands and how it will one day become a premier gaming platform. 'It became perfectly clear to me that most of the technological issues are already solved, and that the others won't take too long to fix once the game publishers really get into the mix,' reports Dee-Ann LeBlanc, Gaming Industry Editor for LinuxWorld, who coordinated the round table. Well worth reading."

An anonymous reader writes "If in the FOSS community we could only get our act together and launch a game-based distro, we will be home and dry. That, at least, is the view of one British games enthusiast, Ian Bonham, who says in the short Linux World article: 'I would be happy to help a group of volunteers create a distro based on games, because I believe that's where the next generation is - NOT in giving away copies of Linux or OOo. That's a short-term ideal. The PS2 and the X-Box(sic) run Linux, so let's create a distro that turns home PC into a console with development potential. Expand that distro to the consoles. And lets get some 'killer' games on that disk.'"

iswm writes "HP has supposedly been selling MandrakeSoft Linux on the desktop for a while but has been so quiet about it that for all intents and purposes it's been a stealth operation. That's all about to change, with two new Linux desktops ready for rolling out by HP to the North American SMB market, both boxes to be sold with Mandrake Linux."

herrvinny writes "As proprietor of SCO Countdown, I just wanted to remind people that today is the deadline for SCO to sue a Linux user. As everyone should know, SCO, 3 months ago, promised to sue a Linux user within three months. Well, that day has come. Who is SCO going to sue, if it is even going to sue?"

An anonymous reader writes "Experts, shmexperts - it's time for the Linux community's own predictions, felt the editors of LinuxWorld Magazine. Prognostications in their Jan 2004 round-up cover media players ('turning your phone into an iPod will be hot by the end of 2004'), IPOs ('Of course, LinuxCertified, Inc'), and MS ('Microsoft will start an intensive campaign to promote their Longhorn technology as Linux standards compliant') - that last is one from Samba's John Terpstra." The original story was back in November.

An anonymous reader writes "Following up the earlier Slashdot item on this, LinuxWorld is carrying both sides of the discussion as to whether UserLinux GUI should be GNOME only, as Bruce Perens last week decided "by fiat," or include KDE."

An anonymous reader writes "Following up the earlier Slashdot item on this, LinuxWorld is carrying both sides of the discussion as to whether UserLinux GUI should be GNOME only, as Bruce Perens last week decided "by fiat," or include KDE."

An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw today reported that they have discovered another SCO programmer, Tigran Aivazian, who has committed code to the Linux kernel. According to the latest story Mr. Aivazian contributed a microcode update feature, a testing program, and made contributions to SMP and vmalloc. This new story adds weight to earlier stories about Caldera coder Chris Hellwig's additions to XFS, SMP and JFS. " Also on the SCO front, an anonymous reader writes "SCO's last Open Letter has drawn two new responses, one from Red Hat cofounder Bob Young, and the other from Jon 'maddog' Hall. 'maddog' makes a carefully reasoned rebuttal that defends the GPL and includes observations like 'How could the founding fathers or the early legislators have foreseen the Web, or even computers?' Young curtly offers McBride the following advice: 'Be less vocal' - making him the King Canute of Linux, perhaps, because it ain't gonna happen anytime soon."

An anonymous reader noted LinuxWorld running an entertaining little Top Ten SCO-related "Linusisms. If you're new to the story, you might find these insightful... but you're reading this site on a sunday, so you probably will find them more amusing than informative.

Slashback is back from a Thanksgiving hiatus with a bigger-than-usual collection of updates, corrections and followups to previous Slashdot stories, including pretty maps of the Internet, spammers' OS choices, stupidity in the wild, and more. Read on for the details. Of course, Red Hat didn't claim to be the first ... cmeyer writes in response to the news that Red Hat is expected to attain Common Criteria certification. "Linux achieved the first Common Criteria certification back in the beginning of August. It was a joint effort of IBM and SUSE." He points to this August Slashdot posting about the news and to a press release on SUSE's site.

Well, it's robust, stable and handy for networking tasks ... Linux and Unix users may be justifiably smug about our machines' resistance to viruses and trogans (including ones that send spam), since most of these things are aimed at Microsoft Windows. Maybe it should be no surprise that spammers like Linux, too:

Niels Provos writes "You might remember Honeyd? I have been using it since June to capture spam emails in an attempt to better understand how spammers operate. A recent feature in Honeyd is passive fingerprinting which allows Honeyd to passively identify the operating system that contacts it. For spammers, it turns out that about 43% seem to be running Linux. And mostly Unix, Windows ranks at around 0.7%. The unknown fraction is 52%, so there might be surprises lurking there."

Apple products must be ripened before consumption. Ipodlounge.com editor Dennis Lloyd was one of several readers to note that, rather than the November date named in the recent 2-year iPod retrospective in the New York Times, the device came out just a bit earlier. "The iPod's anniversary was in October ;) The iPod was officially launched on Oct. 23, 2001. The NYT article is incorrect."

May the tide be with you. Doc Searls writes: "Thought I'd direct your attention to the first half of a transcription of the talk Linus gave on the September Geek Cruise that got Slashdotted a few weeks ago. Can't find the link to the Slashdot item, but as i recall it didn't have the benefit of a real transcription." (Here's the Slashdot post about the cruise.) "This one is not only a full transcription (by yours truly, all disclaimers apply), but features pix of his slides and demos as well."

Searls also has up the second part: "That's the Q&A, which is even longer than the prepared part of the talk," as well as the third: "The third part is a transcription of a talk Linus and others gave to the Victoria Linux Users Group. Shorter than the first two."

Searls' three-part report on the cruise itself ran in Linux Journal.

This way to the Egress! Rick Chapman, author of the recently reviewed In Search of Stupidity , writes to point out that book excerpts are available at insearchofstupdity.com, along with some of the book's illustrations.

"Also, I recently was interviewed live on a local CT business show and I've had the session digitized and am mounting on the site today. It runs about 45 minutes and I discuss a lot of the stuff in the book as well as other issues revolving around software marketing and development. ... I have a lot of samples of really bad things I brought to the taping and I think you'll get a kick out of the session."

They should sell nice prints to buy bandwidth. An anonymous reader writes "From the New Scientist article: A project to create a comprehensive graphical representation of the Internet in just one day and using only a single computer has already produced some eye-catching images."

Back pedal, back pedal, baker's man, cover that label with tape if you can. Mr. Slippery writes "According to this Yahoo! News story, L.A. County did not ban the use of 'master' and 'slave' in labeling, but made more of a polite request to vendors. A subtle but important distinction.

'"I do understand that this term has been an industry standard for years and years and this is nothing more than a plea to vendors to see what they can do," said Joe Sandoval, division manager of purchasing and contract services. "It appears that some folks have taken this a little too literally."' (As, perhaps, did those who got offended in the first place...)"

The original memo called Master and Slave labels "not acceptable" -- how non-literally can that be taken? -- and as further news stories have reported, was prompted by an employee's workplace discrimination complaint against the city. That sounds to me like more than a polite request. At least the city has found that a little tape is enough to make the world safe from misinterpreted words.

I bet Bill is a better actor than Keanu. Karma Sucks writes "After some embarrassing PR backlash it seems as if Microsoft is clamping down on distribution of pictures or videos related to the Matrix Spoof that featured Linux and Windows at COMDEX. Even more interesting are the reports that Microsoft is systematically scouting Open Source desktop technology."

And this is what percentage of the industry's profits? dlh writes "Boston.com is reporting that a federal judge Thursday approved a $143 million settlement of a lawsuit that accused major record companies and large music retailers of conspiring to set minimum music prices."

Time to get a new watch. Krellis writes "DynDNS.org, a major dynamic DNS provider, has announced that they will shut off access to any customers using the Linksys WRT54G wireless router to update their service on December 8th unless the router is patched. See the story on ExtremeTech and the DynDNS Press Release for more details. Updated firmware can be downloaded from Linksys."

Lucky writes "Bruce Peren's idea for UserLinux was much discussed on Slashdot some weeks ago; however, there was no formal proposal. Linuxworld is running an analysis of the proposal and links to the first draft."

An anonymous reader writes "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us says a Pogo-quoting James Turner, in trying to pinpoint "What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?" for LinuxWorld this morning. But he doesn't *just* say that it's we developers ourselves, he also has five hard-to-deny reasons, including 'Open source developers often scratch the same itch' and 'Open Source developers love a good feud.' He also suggests we often approach the whole issue of encouraging migration to Linux from Windows entirely wrongly." There's also a decent rebuttal with this story as well - worth reading.

An anonymous reader writes "Well, Darl and co. may have decided which company to sue next: Google. Sources say Google will be sued for not paying their Linux taxes. The story quotes 'Industry wags are saying that God invented SCO to give people a company to hate more than Microsoft.'" This is all speculation until such a suit is filed, though.

An anonymous reader writes "John Terpstra and Eric S. Raymond have started the ball rolling on LinuxWorld's poll of the community for what they think will happen in the world of Linux in 2004. Terpstra says 'I predict that during 2004 at least one significant USA government body will adopt Linux on the desktop.'" Depending on how you define "significant", this has already occurred.

prostoalex writes: "New TPC-H world record for performance and scalability of database software on Linux platform has been set. The winner - Oracle 10g running on a four-node Lenovo Cluster Server DeepComp 6800, each with four Intel Itanium 2 1.3 GHz processors. Oracle also emphasizes that it's 3.5 times more performance than similar IBM DB2 benchmark. TPC-H benchmarks are available at TPC Web site."

Lucky writes "This story at Linuxworld talks about some of the potential features of UserLinux, as well as Bruce Peren's proposed community desktop project and its potential features. There's some exclusive commentary by Perens there, too."

dmorelli writes "Since it seems to be a SuSE news day, here's something from Friday this past. Novell tried and failed to buy SuSE, according to the Linux Business week story."

Joe Barr writes "It's been two years since I first wrote about Mplayer. Maybe the fury of the developers/community reaction to the fact that I dared to criticize them for their treatment of users kept me away. Whatever. Now Mplayer has a pre1 version of release 1.0 out there and it's time for another look." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.

anoopsinha writes "A story in linuxworld reports that SCO itself has no idea what the history of a particular snippet of code might be - even a high profile snippet like the one SCO highlighted at SCO Forum. Having no idea if its claims have merit has not stopped SCO so far, so we can expect more from SCO along the lines of big claims with no merit."

anoopsinha writes "A story in linuxworld reports that SCO itself has no idea what the history of a particular snippet of code might be - even a high profile snippet like the one SCO highlighted at SCO Forum. Having no idea if its claims have merit has not stopped SCO so far, so we can expect more from SCO along the lines of big claims with no merit."

wampl3r writes " Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens deliver a great response to SCO's recent Letter to the Open Source Community. Their response does a good job of presenting many of the finer points we have been arguing about around here, but it's nice to see them in such a formal, well-thought-out letter." Munchola adds "Meanwhile, ComputerWire, from where McBride misquoted Perens in the first place, sets the record straight: 'In his statement McBride appears to have attributed a ComputerWire paraphrase as a quote from Perens.'" stefan points to this response to McBride's letter from Kevin Bedell, LinuxWorld Magazine's Editor. Below, find one reader's idea about the "stolen lines" SCO claims are in the Linux kernel, and one expert's claim that SCO might not know some of its own source code very well.

VikingBrad writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on Dr Warwick Toomey of The Unix Heritage Society claiming that SCO may not know the origin of code in System V, including claims that there is a lot of BSD software in Sys V."

Alex writes "I wondered where the 100k+ lines of copied code in the linux kernel would come from in comparison to the SCO Unixware stuff. Then a thought popped up in my head: what if they just compared linewise? All those empty lines in the code would have the same content. But how many empty lines are in the Linux Kernel Code? This small shell script counts them for you:

emptylines=0; function parse_dir () { for file in $1/*; do if [ -d "$file" ]; then parse_dir $file; else while read line; do if [ "$line" = "" ]; then emptylines=$[$emptylines+1]; echo $emptylines; fi; done

Kernel 2.4.22, yet cleaned of the code which SCO claimed was stolen, has still 733140 empty lines, probably copied and pasted by the bad, bad kernel developers from the good, good SCO guys..."

joefish_only_1 writes "SCO CEO has posted an open letter to the open source community. There's some things Mr McBride mentions that I hadn't heard of yet, like an admission by Bruce Perens that "UNIX System V code is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there."" A slashdot reader posted a comment recently that breaks it down quite well.

greenrd writes "Ever spent hours trying (and failing) to get a printer driver to work on Linux? Struggled to configure something ever-so-slightly out-of-the-ordinary? What have been your biggest annoyances when using Linux? Three O'Reilly authors are compiling a book on Linux annoyances - and their suggested solutions - and they've started a mailing list here. I can't help but think, though, that such a book will be dated quite quickly. Sure, some problems do languish unfixed for years - but equally, I suspect many of the problems will be fixed before, or soon after, the book's publication date. Still, increased visibility might motivate developers to create fixes or workarounds for some of the problems, so maybe this is an ideal opportunity to get your pet peeve finally addressed!"

An anonymous reader writes "Joe Barr at LinuxWorld has a hands-on look at the new Ximian desktop and he seems to like it a lot. The story is currently running on Linuxworld.com"

An anonymous reader writes "Nick Petreley over at LinuxWorld.com gives the uninitiated an excellent view of what the world of Gentoo is like."

markcappel writes "RAM, bandwidth, and disk space are cheap while system administrator time is expensive. That's the basis for Nicholas Petreley's 3,250-word outline for making Linux software installation painless and cross-distro." The summary paragraph gives some hint as to why this isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

markcappel writes "RAM, bandwidth, and disk space are cheap while system administrator time is expensive. That's the basis for Nicholas Petreley's 3,250-word outline for making Linux software installation painless and cross-distro." The summary paragraph gives some hint as to why this isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

An anonymous reader writes "TransGaming's announcement of the availability of WineX 3.0 got a lot of pixel dust, but that wasn't the only recent news about WINE. The Microsoft monopoly also reached out to touch the project when Whil Hentzen, a leading proponent of Visual FoxPro (VFP) development on Linux, was contacted by an Microsoft manager and told it was a violation of the VFP EULA to run it on Linux." I guess thats one way to stop emulation. update Oh well, its a dupe. Whatever, it gives people something to complain about I guess ;)

overshoot writes "Just what we've always (said we) wanted: people who are fed up with Microsoft and are willing, even eager, to give Linux a real try. Well, she did. And did. And did some more. Not only that, she's a technical writer and she took notes. Not fun reading, but worth reading anyway."

Slashback with corrections and updates on backyard coasters, the Associated Press' (not CNN's) interview with Steinhardt, Open Source and Free software in India, the Kartoo visual search engine, how you too can assemble some pulsating glassy spheres. Read on for those details and more.

Attribution where due. Frank Bajak, Technology Editor for The Associated Press, wrote with a correction to last week's post "CNN Talks WIth ACLU Tech Maven Barry Steinhardt," writing "CNN didn't speak to Steinhardt. We, The Associated Press, did. CNN merely posted our story." Thanks for pointing that out.

If it's an orb, it had better do some glowing! shakes writes "Since the recent outbreak of interest in the Ambient Orb, I took a moment to homebrew one using a PICchip. The source code is currently incomplete as it does not support serial communication, but that will come in the next day or so."

Please secure the locking safety mechanism, or call an attendant if you have trouble. BoomZilla writes "I was intrigued with the home made roller coaster report on Slashdot last year. Just the sort of thing I *need* for the kids. Problem was that I had neither the skill nor the time to build such a beast. I've recently become re-inspired by the Back Yard Roller Coaster site. It's short on details (just a few pictures and a video) - but long on firing up my enthusiasm. Straightforward design. Easy construction. Modest cost. All I need is a hill (check) and the patience and understanding of my wife (stand by for news on that...)"

Oooh, look at the pictures. The visually intriguing meta search engine Kartoo is now more accessable to flash-poor browsers (and lazy or stubborn flash-avoiding users). Alexandre Dos Santos writes "Kartoo now offers an alternative to the regular flash display. The html version is only in beta. It offers the same functionality as the flash version, i.e. you can add or subtract keywords. It's obviously an attempt at reaching out to users who are on machines without flash, or very slow connections.

The option to use html only had been there before, but now Kartoo seems to push this more to the front...and important point...Without sponsored links."

Keeping their options open, or closing doors? bigmase521 writes "LinuxWorld has an article with statements from the Minister of Information Technology and Communications of India stating that India is NOT going to support Open Source alternatives Government-Wide. However, different branches of the government are still considering open source as their primary computing solutions. So I guess unfortunately, it seems as if Mr. Gates' Bribe err 'heartfelt visit' may have worked after all."

Slashback with corrections and updates on backyard coasters, the Associated Press' (not CNN's) interview with Steinhardt, Open Source and Free software in India, the Kartoo visual search engine, how you too can assemble some pulsating glassy spheres. Read on for those details and more.

Attribution where due. Frank Bajak, Technology Editor for The Associated Press, wrote with a correction to last week's post "CNN Talks WIth ACLU Tech Maven Barry Steinhardt," writing "CNN didn't speak to Steinhardt. We, The Associated Press, did. CNN merely posted our story." Thanks for pointing that out.

If it's an orb, it had better do some glowing! shakes writes "Since the recent outbreak of interest in the Ambient Orb, I took a moment to homebrew one using a PICchip. The source code is currently incomplete as it does not support serial communication, but that will come in the next day or so."

Please secure the locking safety mechanism, or call an attendant if you have trouble. BoomZilla writes "I was intrigued with the home made roller coaster report on Slashdot last year. Just the sort of thing I *need* for the kids. Problem was that I had neither the skill nor the time to build such a beast. I've recently become re-inspired by the Back Yard Roller Coaster site. It's short on details (just a few pictures and a video) - but long on firing up my enthusiasm. Straightforward design. Easy construction. Modest cost. All I need is a hill (check) and the patience and understanding of my wife (stand by for news on that...)"

Oooh, look at the pictures. The visually intriguing meta search engine Kartoo is now more accessable to flash-poor browsers (and lazy or stubborn flash-avoiding users). Alexandre Dos Santos writes "Kartoo now offers an alternative to the regular flash display. The html version is only in beta. It offers the same functionality as the flash version, i.e. you can add or subtract keywords. It's obviously an attempt at reaching out to users who are on machines without flash, or very slow connections.

The option to use html only had been there before, but now Kartoo seems to push this more to the front...and important point...Without sponsored links."

Keeping their options open, or closing doors? bigmase521 writes "LinuxWorld has an article with statements from the Minister of Information Technology and Communications of India stating that India is NOT going to support Open Source alternatives Government-Wide. However, different branches of the government are still considering open source as their primary computing solutions. So I guess unfortunately, it seems as if Mr. Gates' Bribe err 'heartfelt visit' may have worked after all."

Joe Barr writes " As soon as I saw the news that BioWare released a beta of a Linux client for its popular and successful Neverwinter Nights title, I downloaded the beta (registration required) and went shopping for the prerequisite retail Windows version of the game. Before I proceed, let me offer this brief warning: Neverwinter Nights is the mother of all timesinks. Do not follow my path unless you have nothing important you want to get done for the next week or so."

Joe Barr writes " As soon as I saw the news that BioWare released a beta of a Linux client for its popular and successful Neverwinter Nights title, I downloaded the beta (registration required) and went shopping for the prerequisite retail Windows version of the game. Before I proceed, let me offer this brief warning: Neverwinter Nights is the mother of all timesinks. Do not follow my path unless you have nothing important you want to get done for the next week or so."

These are LinuxWorld columnist Nick Petreley's answers to your questions about the (somewhat controversial) Evans Data Survey he helped analyze that shows Linux is taking more market share from Windows than from Unix.

Nick:

Before I answer the questions, allow me to correct some misperceptions that I have seen with respect to my former article in LinuxWorld on this topic.

The myth that is debunked by the Evans Data survey is that Linux is taking more market share away from Unix than from Windows. The data is conclusive on this matter with respect to Linux developers from a wide variety of software development environments. More developers who focus primarily on Linux used to focus primarily on Windows than Unix. So there is a much greater shift from Windows to Linux among developers than from Unix to Linux. The attempts to explain it away that I've seen are usually based on one or more errors:

1. Most people still use Windows as a client OS.

Of course this is true, but it has nothing to do with the myth. Unix has practically no market share at all on the client, so it is mystifying that anyone would think that the myth is based on client market share. Why would anyone try to perpetuate a myth that Linux is taking away more market share from Unix than Windows on the client if there's virtually no Unix client market share to divert to Linux? It should be self-evident that the myth relates primarily (if not exclusively) to servers. As Linux gains client market share, it will be from Windows, and there will be no myth to debunk.

2. Evans surveyed only those companies that are involved in Linux development.

First, the purpose of the Evans report was to uncover trends, needs, desires, opinions, and decisions among developers who use Linux at least part of the time. One does not ask developers who never use Linux for this information. The fact that the data debunked the popular myth that Linux takes market share primarily from Unix is a fascinating side-benefit, but it was not the purpose of the survey.

However, the same logic on who to ask still applies to this side-conclusion. Here is the question answered by the data: Among those developers who now focus primarily on Linux, which did more of them have as their primary focus beforehand -- Windows or Unix? The only way to get an answer to this question is:

1. You must ask the question of people who now have Linux as their primary development host or target.

2. You must ask the question of that subset of Linux developers who switched from some other platform as their primary platform to Linux as their primary host or target.

This is precisely what Evans did. Evans asked those who switched to Linux as their primary host or target what platform they switched from. Does anyone honestly believe it makes more sense to ask those who use Windows or Unix as their primary platform what they used to use before they switched to Linux as their primary platform?

The only question is, were these developers honest? The fact that 50% of these developers still focus primarily on Windows as of this year should tell you that we're not talking about a survey of Linux fanatics. That isn't the only thing that supports their candor, however. These developers were brutally honest in their answers regarding Linux tools, distributions, etc. All of the answers reflected reality, not zealous Linux advocacy. With the permission of Evans, I may address some of these other results in a future article.

Now, on to the questions:

1) So that 40% number...
by Anonymous Coward

...the one where 40% of developers are writing mainly to Linux. Where does that stat come from, and what does "developers" mean? It sounds really nice, but if it were true I as a Linux user would expect to see a lot more apps. Does it come from Sourceforge numbers? Does it come from a poll at a website; maybe a Slashdot, Kuro5hin or Newsforge poll? Is it of *all* developers, or of *paid* developers, or of developers of open-source developers or in-house developers or developers of commercial software? Does it include platform-agnostic developers (ie. Java/ perl/ ASP/ PHP/ .NET)? If so, which side does it put them on? Also, what is the error margin of the poll?

I know a bit about statistics, and more about Linux, and something smells fishy. Linux is good, so I figure the numbers are bad.

Nick:

Evans Data sent out a survey to about 400 developers who are either known to have some involvement in Linux development, or work for companies that are involved in Linux development. The degree of involvement is not the critical issue, as is obvious from the results, since even now more of the developers they surveyed focus primarily on Windows than Linux. The developer responses indicate that ratio will reverse as of next year, but that was obviously unknown until they returned the survey, so it wasn't a qualifying factor. The survey included developers from all walks of life, but as far as I know, all of them are paid developers. There were many who work in very small companies (generally VARs and consultants), some who work at ISVs producing commercial software, some who work in IT departments and write custom applications for internal use, etc. The report is very detailed as to how this breaks down, and it even shows what kinds of decisions VARs tend to make as opposed to the kinds of decisions developers at ISVs tend to make.

Here's what you may have misunderstood. The 40% number does *not* mean that 40% of developers worldwide are focusing primarily on Linux, nor does Evans represent it that way. It means 40% of the developers Evans surveyed, and those developers were pre-selected by their use of Linux. This makes perfect sense, because the study was meant to discover information about the decisions, needs, and desires of developers who use Linux, whether they use it occasionally or all the time.

You may have been confused by some of my own pet theories as to why Linux market share growth is overlooked, but I offered that information as supplemental to the Evans data. One of my pet theories was confirmed by the data. But that was never intended as "proof" that Linux has 40% market share among *all* developers because that was not the conclusion of the survey. The 40% figure was part of several figures that refute the myth that Linux takes more share away from Unix than Windows.

The survey did not ask questions about languages such as PHP, Python and Perl, but the data suggests that a very large portion of developers use PHP, Perl or Python and other languages for web development since a very large number checked "other" in areas where those languages would apply. As far as I know, Evans plans to be specific about these languages and platforms in the next survey.

By the way, .Net is not platform-agnostic, but Mono and DotGNU promise to provide some of the .Net framework. About half the developers surveyed said they will adopt Mono or DotGNU if they are successful. Only a small portion of developers object to the idea of Mono and DotGNU enough to refuse to use it, so the vast majority do not have a strong philosophical objection to .Net (yet another confirmation that we're not talking about zealots). It is revealing, however, that only about 17% of the developers currently use .Net, and almost twice that amount use Sun ONE. This suggests they simply do not want to use .Net itself, or that it is not compelling enough to justify the price tag or to stick with Windows. There are other possible explanations, and perhaps Evans will uncover them in the next survey.

2) Differences
by The Bungi

What is the difference between you and the people who are demonized and flamed to no end because they quote seemingly unreliable and baseless statistics to support the idea that Windows is doing well in the market place? That Windows is better than Linux as a server OS?

It seems to me that for the past four or five years I've been seeing "statistics" and "studies" to the tune of "Linux is enterprise-ready" and "Linux will overtake the desktop" and "Linux rulez". What's different today?

Nick:

If you're talking about being demonized, there is no difference. To one extent or another, I have been demonized for practically everything I write. I've learned to live with it, though, since it is an occupational hazard.

Statistics are reliable as long as you collect them properly. To the best of my knowledge, these were collected properly. What is generally unreliable - in those cases where statistics are rendered unreliable - is the analysis of those statistics. Whether or not the analysis is intentionally flawed or simply poorly done is debatable, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes it is flawed simply because the analyst speculated but failed to communicate that the conclusions were based on spculation.

As far as this particular report is concerned, I did my best to analyze the statistics based on what could be gleaned from the actual data, and whenever I applied speculation, I made every effort to communicate that it was speculation.

Survey results are often dubbed "unreliable" or "baseless" because the results are either designed to confirm the conclusions of the company that commissions the survey, or because the results are misrepresented, or both. I could easily misrepresent the Evans Data if it were my intent to deceive. For example, the survey showed that the respondents have experienced virtually no security breaches or viruses on Linux (the number of experiences is so small as to be statistically insignificant). But each year, fewer respondents say the open source model is inherently more secure, despite the fact that their own experience contradicts this perception. If I wanted to spread fear about open source, I could quote what the respondents "feel" without revealing the hard data regarding what they actually experience. I'm afraid that's what some analysts or research companies may do, which is why they get a deservedly bad reputation. This study does not deserve that kind of reputation. As for what "rulez", my statement in my recent column that Linux is a better server platform than Windows is my own, although it is confirmed by several case studies. I would be surprised if these case studies haven't already appeared on slashdot.

3) IDC credibility
by Animats

IDC is always publishing those studies about future market share, but where are the studies comparing past IDC predictions with the actuals?

We can't even get solid Internet traffic statistics. Look at the mess Worldcom's inflated traffic numbers caused.

Nick:

First, anyone who has read my articles for long would know that I am one of the world's most severe critics of research organizations and their analysts. I am still very suspicious of most research reports and the analysts who help produce them. Exceptions include Dan Kuznetsky (IDC), who is quite good, and Esther Schindler (Evans), who is also extremely good. There are others, of course, but these come immediately to mind.

I agree that someone should keep a record of research company predictions and hold them accountable for their errors. I maintain that this is a good idea, and I have suggested it before.

Having said that, allow me to correct your perceptions on a few issues. First, the report is from Evans Data, not IDC. Second, while the data does make predictions, the primary issue I addressed was not a prediction, it concerned data regarding existing Linux developers. Of those developers who currently focus primarily on Linux, more used to focus primarily on Windows than Unix. If you want to add the prediction to that, here it is: Of ALL these developers (including those we surveyed who still focus primarily on Windows), more plan to focus primarily on Linux next year than Windows. As it is, more focus primarily on Windows today.

Before I correct one last possible misperception, it may help you to understand how the process worked.

They gave me the survey to review. I commented on the questions as best I could, given that this was my first project of this type and I wasn't sure what they were most interested in discovering from the data. (Remember that these reports have a dual-purpose. They exist to serve clients of Evans Data, and they also provide interesting results for the general public.) They made almost all of my suggested changes (some would have made the survey too long, which is a perfectly reasonable concern, so we condensed some questions to compensate).

By the way, do not read too much into that part about serving clients of Evans Data. Yes, I suspect that in some cases companies commission reports in order to get the results they want. That is one reason why I am so critical of research groups and their reports. But neither the survey nor the way Evans handled the process ever hinted at this kind of manipulation. As far as I can tell, the commercial purpose of the survey had nothing to do with whether or not developers are moving from Windows to Linux. It had more to do with what existing Linux developers want and need.

Anyway, some time later, I received the results, along with many standard cross-tabulations of the data. I had just over a week to produce the report, which was extremely difficult, but Evans was very responsive and cooperative. Sometimes the data suggested a conclusion or trend but didn't confirm it. In some cases, I was able to confirm my suspicions by requesting a cross-tabulation of data to isolate who was saying what. In other cases, the best I could say was something like, "the data suggests X, but there could be other explanations." But Evans ALWAYS responded to my questions about possible errors, ALWAYS produced the cross-tabulations I requested without even asking why, and NEVER suggested that I change my conclusions or approach to analysis. Evans even responded to requests for cross-tabulations when the answer I was looking to understand had little or nothing to do with its target audience.

In only one case did Evans ever suggest a trend I didn't see for myself, and they were very careful to say that I could toss out that conclusion if I didn't agree that the data suggested this trend. They pointed out that despite the increase in developers who make Linux their primary focus, there was also a big increase in those who develop on multiple platforms. That change was obviously valid, because the hard data confirmed it. The problem is that I was unable to explain from the data why this apparent paradox existed. We would have had to ask more questions to qualify it. Personally, I think the answer is obvious, but because we asked no questions to prove my analysis, I simply suggested it as a possibility in the report (along with at least one other possibility). In a strong economy, companies dedicate developers to projects full-time, and that produces more people who spend all their time on a single platform. A down economy tends to force companies to reduce the number of programmers who are dedicated to a project full time. More people work on several projects at once, some of which include platforms other than their primary platform, whether that is Windows, Linux, or something else.

Now, since I haven't seen the final version of the report, it is entirely possible that Evans edited what I finally submitted into something abominable. But given the way they handled the entire process from start to finish, I can't even begin to imagine why this would be the case. As far as any of their dealings with me and the data were concerned, I never even perceived a hint of integrity problems.

4) Linux Usage Growth
by Dios

Ok, this statement was thrown in my face a while back.

Its easy to go from 1 to 2 users or 2 to 4 and claim a fantastic growth rate, but what constitutes that magic number of users before its truly a desktop operating system being used daily by enough of a mass to catch the attention of large software development firms that will create/port applications to linux?

Is growth rate in terms of number of desktops conquered (eg growth rate of 1.5 million desktops a year) a better measuring stick than doubled/tripled/whatever the number of users in X years. What, in your opinion, is a good measuring tool in determining the growth rate/acceptance of linux in the market?

Nick:

I don't know of any good measure of growth rates. Your example is perfectly valid. One of the most amusing examples of error in this regard has to do with spin. I know of a magazine that quoted endlessly (years ago) that OS/2 was a dead-end operating system because it only had 2,000 native applications. Later, the same magazine published a story about how Windows NT was gaining good momentum, as evidenced by its 1,200 native applications.

And, as I said in my article, even accurate numbers about existing market share (not growth) can be deceiving. If one company uses 50 Linux servers to do the same job as 100 Windows servers used by another company, Windows appears to be the more popular platform because it has a greater market share. Yet the only reason Windows has a greater market share is because it takes more Windows boxes to do the same amount of work. Whether or not you agree with the assumption that Linux outperforms Windows, hopefully you can see that market share figures do not reflect important information.

5) Dear Nicholas Petreley (Score:5, Funny)
by slashuzer

You might be unaware of this fact, but the words Usage Statistics, IDC, study, etc trigger some deep emotions in the slashdot community.

So can you tell me, Is BSD dying?

Nick:

I have no idea if BSD is dying. I personally believe BSD is an excellent operating system, so I hope it does not die. Again, it was Evans, not IDC. The Evans study didn't ask much about BSD, but what it did ask revealed that the respondents consider it to be one of the most secure operating systems available (particularly OpenBSD).

6) Distros and numbers
by farrellj

Part of the problem in counting the number of Linux desktops/servers/etc. is that anyone can get it from any of a million different places (friends, ftp, subscriptions, etc.), but the industry tends only to count sales. I know for a fact that every CD I have of Linux I have installed it on at least 10 other systems...some are upgrades, others are new users, and still others moving over from another distro.

And this leads to the other problem...what are the *real* usage stats on distros? It's hard to tell. From talking to people, a lot of people use Slackware and Debian for servers, Red Hat, Suse and Mandrake for desktops...but how can we really count who is using what?

Nick:

This was a survey of developers who use Linux at least some of the time, so it had nothing to do with sales, friends, etc.

As I said in my LinuxWorld article, Red Hat was by far the most popular distribution. Debian was the most popular non-commercial distribution. You wouldn't find many surprises in the rest of the list. The survey didn't really identify what people use the most on servers vs. desktops. But they use Red Hat the most, period.

Interestingly, most respondents think the issue of commercial vs. non-commercial is irrelevant, although only by a slim margin over those who prefer a commercial version. Even more interesting was the dichotomy between those who prefer commercial distributions and those who prefer non-commercial. They seem to disagree the most about what constitutes the strength of a commercial or non-commercial distribution. One gets the impression they have not tried a distribution from the "other side".

7) Linux announcements from big companies...
by L0stb0Y

Do you see announcements from heavy hitters (like Dell, IBM, etc) helping sway more 'desktop users' to switching to Linux?

Nick:

This is only my opinion, not something from the report, but yes, I believe those announcements do help a lot. If anything from the survey supports this conclusion, it is that the respondents favor IBM by far over other hardware companies, and IBM has been the most vocal about Linux. On the other hand, Dell was highly rated, too, and there has been a lot of controversy over Dell support for Linux.

8) My question
by damu

Do you think statistics are nothing more of a marketing tool, and should the open source community use these numbers (usually squeued) to get some leverage when promoting open source alternatives to the higher ups?

Nick:

Statistics are what you make them. After that, assuming you tried to get the most objective and realistic statistics, their true value vs. manipulative value still depends on how you use the results.

As for what you make them, you can ask the same question hundreds of ways. Some forms of a question will get you the answer you "want". Other forms of the same question are more likely to get you an honest, objective and informative answer. There are techniques such as "distractors", etc., that can help, if honesty is what you want.

The problem is that honesty is not always what one wants. And even when the survey turns up honest answers, it is easy to distort the results if that is what you want to accomplish.

What the open source community does with statistics is up to the open source community and the conscience of the individuals within it. Personally, my religious convictions are the motivating force behind everything I do, so I am committed to the truth. If I stray from the truth, it is because I'm far from perfect, whether that imperfection surfaces as an imperfect attitude or simply a careless mistake. But I can't tell the open source community what should drive their motives. Each one should probaly act according to his own conscience.

9) At what point will Linux reach critical mass?
by molarmass192

At what level of penetration (% install base share) will Linux reach critical mass on the desktop? It's much less relevant from a server perspective since it appears that Linux already has reached critical mass on that front. Should we assume that when Linux supplants Apple as the number two platform (although this has already happened from what I have seen, nobody is stating it yet in the mass media), that we will see a proliferation of commercial Linux offerings and (more importantly) better OEM hardware support?

Nick:

I have no idea what point would be considered critical mass. I'm not even sure it is a good idea to measure critical mass in terms of installed base. This was a good measurement for commercial products, but Linux has an appeal that transcends commercial software. It is open source and free, and those two elements make it difficult if not impossible for any commercial software company to compete.

The Evans Data survey showed that developers choose Linux first because it is stable, second because it is open source, and third because of the low cost. Commercial software can be made stable, but it is not likely that some companies will ever open their source code (make it truly open, that is, not just let people have a supervised peek at it now and then). And, as the folks at what used to be Netscape know only too well, it is very difficult to compete with "free as in beer", no matter how much propaganda you spout about total cost of ownership. (Of course, bundling was an issue there, too, but the point about free is still hard to deny.)

Speaking strictly for myself, I would say the desktop is a unique market that will transform radically over the next several years. Personally, I think digital rights management (DRM), Palladium (or whatever it's called this week), and the evolution of media centers and game consoles pose a much more serious threat to Linux on the desktop than market share or OEM bundling.

10) Gathering data.
by CHK6

How is the data gathered and is the same techniques used for other OSes in comparison? Also do you consider coporate desktops or personal desktops? I ask this because many employees would rather use Linux as their primary desktop, but management strong arms Windows.

Nick:

See above for more details on how the data was gathered. The survey had little to do with desktop vs. server Linux use. It was focused on development and the needs of developers. Evans asked whether they were developing more for desktop or server applications. As it turns out, most of the developers work on server-side applications. Based on the data, a good deal of the development is dedicated to web-based applications. There is also significant and growing activity and interest in using Linux on 64-bit architectures and embedded systems.

I know of many people who are strong-armed into using Windows. But since these companies are making money by developing on Linux and for Linux, I would guess that it is doubtful they are being strong-armed to use Windows.

------------

Bio: Nicholas Petreley is a consultant and freelance writer based in Asheville, NC. He was founding editor of LinuxWorld, and hosts the non-profit weblog VarLinux.org. He can be reached at nicholas@petreley.com.

This Slashdot discusssion, about a story Nick wrote, is already going (and heated). I did a NewsForge interview with a SuSE rep who quotes an IDC study that says Linux desktop use will double by 2004. Sounds nice, but how reliable are all these statistics? Nick's been studying Linux use in depth lately, so let's ask him directly what all of these numbers mean, if anything, and how IDC, Evans Data, and other analysts get and massage them. We'll post Nick's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.

bc90021 writes "Nicholas Petreley has a great article over at LinuxWorld explaining why it seems that Windows has such a high market share when 40% of developers are focusing on Linux. From the summary: "There are dozens of reasons why people have underestimated how quickly Linux has been grabbing Windows' market share. Windows starts out with a false boost and maintains its illusory market share even as it gets replaced by Linux. In 2004, don't be surprised when Linux overtakes Windows to become the main focus for developers.""

bc90021 writes "Nicholas Petreley has a great article over at LinuxWorld explaining why it seems that Windows has such a high market share when 40% of developers are focusing on Linux. From the summary: "There are dozens of reasons why people have underestimated how quickly Linux has been grabbing Windows' market share. Windows starts out with a false boost and maintains its illusory market share even as it gets replaced by Linux. In 2004, don't be surprised when Linux overtakes Windows to become the main focus for developers.""

bc90021 writes "Nicholas Petreley has a great article over at LinuxWorld explaining why it seems that Windows has such a high market share when 40% of developers are focusing on Linux. From the summary: "There are dozens of reasons why people have underestimated how quickly Linux has been grabbing Windows' market share. Windows starts out with a false boost and maintains its illusory market share even as it gets replaced by Linux. In 2004, don't be surprised when Linux overtakes Windows to become the main focus for developers.""

icantblvitsnotbutter writes "An excellent -- and clear! -- article over at LinuxWorld.com has a multipoint analysis of SCO's 40-page complaint (this is a brief?!). For all those IANAL's out there, here's something to sink your teeth into. On the balance, the outlook seems positive for IBM. Still, the parallel invocation of a contractural clause potentially nixing AIX lends some credence to claims that this is a just way for SCO to coerce IBM into buying them out..." Some old documents from a similar lawsuit have surfaced, and naturally ESR has his own take on the case.

PizzaFace writes "Microsoft resuscitated Corel two and a half years ago, paying $135 million for a quarter of Corel's equity ownership. Corel talked then about bringing its products to .Net, and even hinted that it might use its Linux expertise to port .Net to Linux. Since then, Corel gave up on the Linux business and isn't talking anymore about .Net, but is instead riding its XML hobbyhorse. So Microsoft is selling its stake in Corel to a VC firm for $13 million, taking a 90% loss on the investment."

auferstehung writes "Nicholas Petreley (should that be KNicholas KPetreley) of LinuxWorld and VarLinux.org has taken his gloves off in the latest article in his KDE vs Gnome series. An unabashed KDE supporter, Petreley uses some choice fighting words in re-acronymizing GNOME as the Language Agnostic Morphable Environment (LAME) Franken-GUI. Despite the sensationalistic flamage throughout the article, several of his GNOME criticisms (Gconf, file selector, features) echo those already voiced within the GNOME community itself. A happy GNOME user myself, please someone...tell me it isn't so."

auferstehung writes "Nicholas Petreley (should that be KNicholas KPetreley) of LinuxWorld and VarLinux.org has taken his gloves off in the latest article in his KDE vs Gnome series. An unabashed KDE supporter, Petreley uses some choice fighting words in re-acronymizing GNOME as the Language Agnostic Morphable Environment (LAME) Franken-GUI. Despite the sensationalistic flamage throughout the article, several of his GNOME criticisms (Gconf, file selector, features) echo those already voiced within the GNOME community itself. A happy GNOME user myself, please someone...tell me it isn't so."

dubious9 writes "Linuxworld has another TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) comparison of Windows vs. Unix. Note that is it not a Linux comparison or a specific Unix comparison at all. The comparison here is the Windows client/server model vs. the terminal/server Unix model. It discusses the needs of a school/university and considers such facts as what the students will have to run at home. It's written by a self proclaimed Unix evangelist, so don't expect it to be unbiased, but he makes points that are hard to argue with. All in all, it is a refreshing TCO comparison."

dubious9 writes "Linuxworld has another TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) comparison of Windows vs. Unix. Note that is it not a Linux comparison or a specific Unix comparison at all. The comparison here is the Windows client/server model vs. the terminal/server Unix model. It discusses the needs of a school/university and considers such facts as what the students will have to run at home. It's written by a self proclaimed Unix evangelist, so don't expect it to be unbiased, but he makes points that are hard to argue with. All in all, it is a refreshing TCO comparison."

An anonymous reader writes "There are times when I want a lean, mean editor and times when I enjoy a good, bloated editor packed with wizards. We compare the programming editors Jext and J to Jedit and offer a revised opinion of the best Java for Linux."

Joe Barr writes " I found a wonderful "how-to" piece called "OpenOffice.org 1.0, ODBC and MySQL," by John McCreesh. In the introduction, McCreesh writes about OpenOffice.org 1.0's "best kept secret" -- that secret being the fact that hidden away inside, completely unknown to most OpenOffice users, is a user-friendly front end for databases that is "a Microsoft Access (and more) equivalent." That may be so, but there is a very good reason why it's a secret: it's too damn hard getting OpenOffice and ODBC wired up correctly."