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Penguin Not Taking Flight Down Under
Bill Bennett writes "New Zealand Reseller News reports that Linux adoption down under is three times lower than North America. From the article: 'Adoption of open source software is slow in the Australasian region according to a report from analyst firm Forrester. Only 18% of the businesses in Australia and New Zealand surveyed for the report were using Linux, while 11% were considering its use. Analyst Sam Higgins says the low rate - three times lower than North America - is because open source is caught between two worlds. He says customers have been conditioned to buy software from vendors and their approved partners.'"
Isn't that a bit high, even for North America? What am I not understanding here?
Lower Linux adoption rates. That's the beautiful thing about choice.
He says customers have been conditioned to buy software from vendors and their approved partners.
Who would have thought there'd be sheep in New Zealand?
Seriously, if they want to waste their money, I guess it's good for me. Less competition.
If you take two separate monkey clans and observe their behavior, you will find that once a certain number of one clan starts doing something specific (like washing food in a stream before consumption), that the second group, without any contact with the first group will also start doing the same thing automatically. It is called critical mass, and it explains why it takes a long time for something to initially occur, but once a certain number of monkeys start doing it that it automatically spreads to other unrelated monkey clans (of the same species).
Sounds like my dick.
Linux is a subset of OSS
The article pretty much uses OSS & Linux interchangeably, which isn't the case.
Anyways, with that in mind, what exactly does the author mean by "Trojan Horse"?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That's because in Australia organisations that do surveys do so in a way that doesn't represent the demographics. I know of 5 companies that were not surveyed which use Linux for various purposes.
Over 50% of companies in North America are using Linux? Does this count companies that have someone who checks Slashdot once a day as 'using Linux?' Can anyone substantiate this rather surprising claim?
North America's adoption rate is three times higher than 11-18%?
33-54%??
Really?
If that's true, that's pretty good!
Can somebody confirm?
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
Maybe sh**ty download links from Bigpond Telestra - during the peak open source adoption phase - had something to do with it?
Try and download an ISO without local mirrors in Sydney?
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
According to wikipedia it seems that this isn't exactly a recent problem, penguins have been flightless for over 40 million years...
18%.... Who are they surveying?
If they're surveying a random selection of businesses that use computers linux adoptions is going to be very very veeeeery small.
However, if they only survey large enterprises, you're going to find a substantially higher rate of linux adoption. The operating system is applicable to those environments, and at a large scale you're saving millions of dollars. Small businesses would probably end up paying more to utilize linux since it requires someone more knowledgeable then the kid next door who's good with networking and installing services packs.
Moreover, if they are surveying large enterprises (which I imagine they are), one needs to remember that the enterprise business environment in the states is different the then it is down under. The shear size and number of big evil mustachioed corporations is on another scale in the states.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Surly when people have the choice, they make the correct decision, right?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I have found that the adoption of Open Source software directly ties into the amount of money that a SMB is likely to make. For example in the UK, adoption is probably among the highest. However, SMB's are wortha bout 25% of their counterparts across the pond. In Austrailia the same holds true, SMB's are typically of higher value. Therefore, adoption of Open Source software is less. I know that there are exceptions to this rule, and some very wealthy companies use Open Source software, but 80% will follow this rule.
If it's anything like it is in South Africa, there will be a strong perception that "Windows is for serious professionals on the cutting edge, other OSes are for everybody else."
Notwithstanding that Ubuntu (the word, the concept and the distro) originates in South Africa.
Nevermind....
"I'm a snake if we disagree"-Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle
I forgot to mention, *most* companies I've worked for use nagios! and perhaps a 30%-50% use Apache.
When I was in Australia a few years ago, I found that internet penetration simply wasn't as good as Canada. Sure, the major cities were well connected, but many of the smaller ones suffered from absolute shitty service, connectios, availability, prices, or any combination thereof. Even in the cities the prices weren't all that great. Hell, dialing a local number by landline still costs per call (which really sucks for dialup especially when crappy connection=random disconnects).
Open-soure in my mind often tends to depend a lot on a decent connection to the 'net. Downloading CD ISO images, installing packages/updates from apt/etc, downloading packages or source files, reading online documentation, etc.
It could be that "down under" is simply being hindered by a case of lacking resources, mainly comparatively crappy internet service.
A guy I used to know developed a product in Australia, and could not sell the product or the business to anyone.
So he moved his family and business to America. Some 3 years later the product was being sold by his American company to Australians, amongst others, and his business was purchased by one of the bigger companies for $US 20 million.
Then he and his family moved back to Australia.
It seems for some stupid reason that Australian businesses want to buy products from overseas companies, America being a popular choice. It also seems that obviously they don't want "free" stuff, because there's "no such thing as a free lunch" down-under. As a culture, we are wary of gotchas, too much for our own good. I believe it to be nothing more than an over-cautious approach to new things without obviously proven major backing.
I'm interested in hearing other peoples' takes on this...
Compared to USA and EU, Aussies also have less iSeries (AS/400) and less DB2.
The "critical mass" thing probably factoring into all these areas..
-- All your bass are below two Hz
Higgins says some software developers use open source as a professional services Trojan horse. It is crazy, we install this OSS solution and our services appear to be more professional, instantly!
If the monkey clans don't have any contact, how is it explained that the second group seems to be copying the first group ? Is it behaviour that would just be expected to evolve independantly by each group just due to monkey psychology ?
Or more likely that there is contact (visual of the stream at least), it's just that the researchers didn't see it....
They're a bunch of criminals down there, they probably just use pirated copies of Windows and other copyrighted material.
Now excuse me while i go watch my newly downloaded Stargate Atlantis episode.
I am not a manual I am a human being! - The distress call of the TechSupport Badger
According to wikipedia it seems that this isn't exactly a recent problem, penguins have been flightless for over 40 million years...
That was my reaction, too, when I saw the headline. "Flight of the penguin? I thought they swam...."
For sale: one sig space, gently used. Inquire for details.
New Zealand has a very large number of very small companies. It's much more common for companies to "outsource" things like email, webhosting etc. and, generally speaking, not bother with servers at all. Of course 90% of the people that provide these services do it on Linux boxes but, of course, they don't show up in the stats.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Good:
Australia Pushes Geothermal Energy
Australia To Legalize VCR Recording and CD Ripping
Australian Linux Trademark Holds Water
Australia Says No To Spyware
Australia Gets 8Mbit/s Broadband now, 20Mbit Soon
Crocodile's Immune System Kills HIV
Bad:
Internet Censorship in Australia?
San Andreas Banned In Australia
Kazaa Owners Risk Jail
Tougher Copyright Laws for Australia
AU Regulations on LAN Cabling?
Australian Man Found Guilty for Hyperlinking
Linux Trademark Rejected in Australia (?)
Aus. Gov't Considers Fines for Online Suicide Info
Aussie Speed Cameras in Doubt Because of MD5
Australia's 'e-tax' Windows Only
im not trying to hate on australia, it just seems like there are many stories about some australian politicians doing wacky stuff. anyone else notice that?
"Me and God - we'd be mates!"
it's just an operating system.
. jpg
and kernel rebuilds make it hard for an enterprises to accept.
screen shot of a linux kernel panic:
http://static.flickr.com/38/79844669_3368c9d8a5_s
I don't care who does what with who. As long as they make a backup copy, I fine with it.
Most people on the desktop will still slave away under Windows - finance refused to let me have a Mac.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
I work for a largish reseller/supplier/hosting and support services IT
company in Australia.
The slow roll out of Linux in Australia I believe is directly
attributable to two things:
1) IT staff are not trained to support this "new" beast in the market,
and if not trained can not offer support.
2) the sales guys all think it's a load of "hippie love" and can't
understand how there can be any money made from it. Those that do
understand are very few and far between, but don't care anyway because
the proprietary software sellers are offering larger bonus's for
selling their gear.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I am seriously not surprised, everything is slow down here in Australia. The only environment I have seen OSS used widely is in university (UNSW).
I tried to convert my current workgroup from using Photoshop to GIMP, because seriously, we DON'T NEED Photoshop to adjust colour levels and crop images, but I was told that, no, we WILL use Photoshop because all softwares used at work require proper licenses. At which point I simply gave up trying to explain. Same with converting from IE to Firefox, although I have been more successful there, thanks to the unpatched IE flaws and nifty features in Firefox. The boss is still using Avant browser though, not believing me when I told him that the Avant browser is only as secure as IE.
Other trends down under:
Computers using AMD processors are still rare in major IT retailers, see www.ht.com.au and www.csw.com.au. Not so long ago, a colleague was looking at getting a PC and he was convinced that a 3 GHz Celeron must be better than an A64 3000+, since the latter only runs at 1.8/2.0 GHz!
Gadgets that have been out for months or even years overseas sometimes never even make it to Australia. I remember when I had to get a Shuttle XPC from overseas when the nForce2 version came out, because most shops have never even heard of Shuttle or SFF then. Of course, now they are pretty popular... but I am still crossing my fingers and hoping that Nokia 770 will make it down here soon.
Lastly, I think most Australian still don't realise that no WMD were found in Iraq, while the rest don't even realise we participated in the war...
From my experience the reason that Australian companies are less eager to use open source is because of support. In the US and Europe support for OSS products is readily available. Whereas in AU the support is just not there for these products and using the US support companies just isn't a viable solution. Having said that, personally I don't think that having someone to blame/sue when something goes wrong should drive the ultimate decision on whether to use OSS or not.
Australia is small in comparison to the US and Europe - stating the obvious I know... But very relevant.
I work in IT for a Medium sized company - by Medium I mean 500 staff. I have 4 citrix servers, 1 file and print server and 1 database server and 1 exchange server. WIndows 2000 AD. I have an ISA server on the edge and a couple of PC's with server OS installed on it doing various little "things" inside the network.
We just got VMWARE ESX to try and get rid of the PC's.
The 3 main applications we use are Windows based... There is no alternative for 1 of them... we would have to write our own. We have no Linux skills internally - we would have to hire in or skillup. We have no money to spend on a large scale development project to give us the software we need to change over. We can't afford the duplicate hardware to allow the parallel running required to make the change over a smooth as possible.
Granted all this can be staggered BUT... I recently asked the owners of the company to give me $200 000 to put in a complete DR solution and they said no - without even considering it. Imagine asking for a million dollars to change the whole network over.... and they ask WHY? - and I say: Linux is a better philosophy for running a computer network, and we'll save money - HOW much? I don't know, but we will. HOW long will it take to see the savings? Years and years.
Somebody up the back is now mentioning the savings on license costs... Sure - if you were building a network for a brand new company this would be considerable - for an already establised MS shop, these costs are annoying yet manageable.
I am very impressed with Linux (the VMWARE ESX version anyway). I have played with Linux before and I knew there were things about it that were better than MS - but it's not until it's in production on enterprise level hardware that you really appreciate it's simplicity and robustness. And it doesn't crash - ever.
It's simple really - there are probably 200 companies in Australia that have 3000 staff or more (not counting government departments), of those 200 companies maybe half of them are doing something with Linux because they can AFFORD to - they have the budget and the staff.
All the rest of us struggle on with what we've got - and if what you've got works - and your $100 million a year in turn over company keeps making money - how do you justify the change?
A penguin taking flight? Penguins aren't supposed to 'take flight' -- They're, um, flightless birds. Penguins NOT taking flight is normal, natural, fully expected and probably for the best. Better analogies anyone?
Maybe Australian Fairy Penguins are the problem in the battle for mindshare. What hard-hitting business-person can seriously urge their adoption in a competitive market?
I've never let go of MSSQL, however, since the existing software was always dependant on it. (I'm not saying there isn't a way out, just we've always been very happy with MSSQL, one of the few outstanding Microsoft products).
Linux appears to be as popular with home users here too. Before 2000 I worked for IHUG, which became NZ's most successful ISP though the boom, who used almost exclusively Linux.
The most interesting deployment has been Asterisk. While not a smooth ride, we've now got a reasonably reliable software PABX with two GSM lines and four BRI, and it's already providing a cost-saving without even touching VOIP. Sure, the companies may have paid me in wages what they would have otherwise spent, but they get to keep the skills (I'm very loyal to all those who employed me, and continue relationships with them), and they're feeding my family, not a greedy corporation.
Its quite easy. Read the article and read especially the fact that people want to buy. So first step is stopping to offer downloads for free and offer Linux in a box.
Next step is to look at whom you are targeting. The people in New Zealand have hardly ever seen a penguin in their life. So replace that Tux with a friendly looking Kiwi bird and you'll get much more attention from the people there.
I guess those 2 small steps will double the impact of Linux in New Zealand.
You have turned this thread into a discussion about the merits of your analogy rather than about the story presented. Even your stated premise, that it takes a critical mass of users to reach widespread acceptance of the Linux platform, is drowned out because of the bad analogy.
Bravo. It's almost inspiring.
Maybe it's just that your average 'down under' IT person whose company uses FOSS has a pretty low opinion of the marketing research types who tend to conduct these surveys, and the journalist types who tend to publish these sorts of things, and thus doesn't partake in such crap.
I know when someone calls to 'survey' me, I almost always tell them to get lost. I have better things to do with my time than help the afore-mentioned maintain their job security.
As for all the sheep jokes, well, BAAAAAAAAAA!
-Richard
Hey Advocadus Diaboli, what are you on about? where in the world are you located? I, a New Zealander, or "Kiwi" if you will, we are VERY familiar with penguins here! From what I see/hear about americans, you guys have a "thing" for monkeys! "The people in New Zealand have hardly ever seen a penguin in their life" "Mate", all major New Zealand areas have at least a reasonably close cove for penguins, around Otago is the most common place to see penguins. "Kiwi Bird" We hate when people say "kiwi bird". Its a bird, its a kiwi!!! we get it! You dont say "Terrier dog" , "computer nerd male", "Ford car" etc. So why "Kiwi Bird"? LOL. Hmm, I have seen quite a lot of people who like linux. Get this, for some strange reason, in a population of 4 million, FOUR MILLION, there are less people using a given item. AMAZING! Its a bit of a strange article really, if you ask me. Whats next, OSX ?
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Formatting has not caught on down here. Guess thats because we are so gosh darn stupid...
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I am Australian, and me and most of the Australians I know hate our government too. Somewhere there must be some massive demographic that actually voted them in, but I don't have any contact with them. (also, crocodile dundee is an idiot)
This is so true. I know of a nz high school student who knows more about his school network/computers in general than the admins seem to... Perhaps it's a problem of computer literacy, rather than simply non-availability or whatever.
"Women are just like ninjas; They lie even when it is more convenient to tell the truth." ~ Unknown
United States of America: 24797 registered users, 86.73 users/Mpop
Australia: 2338 registered users, 120.90 users/Mpop
New Zealand: 687 registered users, 177.06 users/Mpop
A lot more Linux users per capita Down Under than Out West.
The Linux Counter has more.
My rule of thumb is that perhaps 1 out of 200 Linux users register with the counter - but there doesn't seem to be a reason for Australians to register in larger droves than the Americans.
Guess they just don't tell their bosses about it....
Get Counted!
If you look at the USA, they have RedHat, among others.(Commercial, Well Supported)
...
If you look at Europe, they have Novell(SuSE), among others.(Commercial, Very User-friendly)
If you look at New Zealand, they have Yoper? (Seems to be non-commercial, with nothing new or unique to really add?)
If you look at Australia,
Hopefully you get my point?
"Women are just like ninjas; They lie even when it is more convenient to tell the truth." ~ Unknown
For all we know, 100% of all companies in Australia and New Zealand are using Linux and/or a *BSD for their web server, mail server, ftp server, print server(s), DNS/DHCP server, etc. The only ones of those you can test are the ones with a public interface, and I'll bet you anything you like that these market researchers don't have a copy of nmap handy, even to test those.
It is very hard to determine actual uptake of Linux, until it reaches a critical threshold of acceptability in a region, because it is so easy for it to stay under the radar.
For smaller companies, the bosses may well know about Linux installs but not want to admit to them, fearing looking bad or being perceived as cheap. Again, that's not going to change until Linux is deened acceptable enough. No sane boss is ever going to say something that puts their end-of-year bonus at risk.
Finally, on the results aspect, it also depends on how the question was asked. It is easy for studies to ask questions in a way that forces the response. If you answer a particular way three times in a row, you're likely to answer the same way on the fourth question without thinking about it. Studies are extremely difficult to do well. This is especially significant when someone with a vested interest in a result pays for the study, as it is (by the nature of the beast) extremely easy to ensure the results match what the sponsor wants to see.
(I don't believe a single study on the dangers of smoking, sponsored by a tobacco company, ever established even the remotest possibility of there being a connection between product and result. I've even seen surveys showing sugar isn't a factor in tooth decay... sponsored by sugar companies.)
The bit about trojan horses is indicative that there's something more to this than meets the eye. The implication is that people have been "gifting" companies with Open Source, only to slam them with high service charges, perhaps for maintenance or administration. (eg: a company might provide Linux servers and not pass on the license fee, but charge double for all technical support calls.) Either that OR the reader is supposed to believe that is the case.
The "trojan horse" is really just a play on Microsoft's "Total Cost of Ownership" attack on Linux, where Redmond accused the Penguin of being more expensive when all costs were factored in over time. I can't see Microsoft themselves going after a market that they'd barely notice even if it did switch overnight, but I'd be willing to bet that those sponsoring and/or running this study have read Microsoft's claims and phrased questions accordingly.
Sadly, I know of no country where manipulating market research constitutes conspiring to defraud. If anything, most countries seem to encourage deceptive use of market research to the point where it is simply not possible to trust any results that are produced, even though it is hazardous (in that you're not listening to the user's requirements) to not have such information. However, because it is statistical, such studies can always produce results anywhere in the distribution function, including the extreme tail end. The sample size is generally very small and the confidence limits are usually not stated, so there is nothing anyone can do to really fight the claims. All that can be done is to find a group with greater influence and get them to falsify - err, produce - a counter-claim.
Either that, or conduct a real, in-depth, self-vali
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The publically available summary of the research doesn't give much information on whom was surveyed. Perhaps the survey group was primarily composed of small businesses, which make up the largest number of enterprises here. Those businesses would likely not be using servers, which is where you'd expect to find more Linux users (cf. the desktop).
The survey aside, there are lots of companies using Linux in New Zealand (including yours truly). In a week's time we are hosting one of the three biggest Linux conferences right here in Dunedin. And even companies like Microsoft are making the most of Linux down here.
The end is perhaps not quite nigh.
--
One of those rare antipodean companies using Linux
11%, 18%, jillions, even. Riiiiight, commie comrade. In mother Russia, we eat people like you
That's funny since I was expecting a screen shot and instead I get that. Talk about getting royaly screwed, emporer has no clothes, and yoda-yoda.
is hosted where???
Oh well, what the hell...
Australia has the unfortunate tendency to blindly accept these imports - software being a significant and costly example. The so-called "Free Trade Agreement" codifies and enforces this disastrous situation (thankyou Mr Howard), right down to "fixing" our patent system and making our continent safe for US multinationals. The inevitable, if unmentionable, corollary is that local interests (such as the independent developer you mentioned) are completely compromised, as everyone knew they would be (hence the widespread protests).
Yet there are many talented Australians doing great work in Open Source. Thanks perhaps to its proximity to high-tech government and defense users, Canberra has produced many of the best known names in Linux and other free software projects - including Andrew Tridgell, Nick Piggin, and many others - and remains a hotbed of hardcore kernel hackers. In Victoria there are active Open Source representative groups and many intelligent supporters. However none of this has influenced public policy as much as one might hope.
Yes, much more activism and lobbying is going to be required to eject Microjunk from the default purchasing roster, and from the IT mindset. But I am not sure things are so much better in the US - perhaps the mindless M$-centric view has simply been all-too-successfully exported. Just one more indignity ensuing from a decade of Conservative rule. The destruction wrought by the Howard Government was a major factor in my belief that the country was hopelessly regressing, and my decision to leave Australia for a more progressive and much less US-centric society. If they ever get rid of that government, and restore egalitarian policies, maybe I'll go back.
you had me at #!
What is meant by "three times lower"?
It doesn't make any grammatical or mathematical sense, because there's no value higher than 18% to multiply by 3 that results in 18%. These figures are meaningless as the article presents them.
This isn't exactly important in the context of this story, but it's a lazy and ambiguous form of writing that seems to be coming up a lot in what might be expected to be reliable sources. It's sad that slashdot editors don't pick up on this sort of thing, but it's even sadder that the journalists and editors of the articles don't write clearly in the first place.
To help put the story in perspective, New Zealand's population is 4 million, 0.067% of the population of the world.
Australia's population is 20 million, 0.33% of the population of the world.
Australian management is very slow to respond to anything new. Unless it has proven fiscal success in America and/or Europe (preferably both!), they are just not interested.
Critical mass has a lot to do with this. Australian business simply can not afford to take economic risks for a marginal success. Seeing what works and what doesn't in larger population bases gives at least a basic idea about what should happen here.
Interest in technology or design/engineering concepts that are yet to be proven only seems to arrive because of a managerial import from America or Europe (CEO/CTO).
Lastly, on the point of OSS; I can't think of a single medium (or larger) business that I have been involved with that didn't use some sort of OSS. Chances are that most of the IT Managers in this survey are not aware of the open source nature of all of their applications or they surveyed many small business owners.
That being said, *nix on the desktop (even corporate desktop) is almost a joke in this country. Even if a business makes a economic decision to move to *nix, the reality of the situation here will quickly move them back into reality.
Microsoft is practically ubiquitous in homes around the country; even Apple is very rare. This has a direct effect on the expense on transitioning your workforce to a new operating system, chances are nobody you employ (other than your IT staff) have any experience with *nix.
A smaller, but longer term problem comes to human resources. People become more expensive to hire (you need to train them) and thus more costly to loose. This leads to a secondary effect of keeping people who are woeful to your business, simply because they know the system. It is a sorry state.
It will change, probably 5-10 years after the US/Euro, but then we will be behind somewhere else ...
I don't think the artical is stating that 50% of NA businesses only use linux. The artical interchanges OSS and Linux, which leads me (and many others) to believe that they really mean OSS. So, if your application developers us Eclipse to develop on, then your business uses OSS in some regard.
are sheep jokes modded as funny. They're not funny!
Linux is for poor people
This is just as true as to say that Windows is for dumb people who do not know any better.
In my opinion, Linux is for security conscious, knowledgeable IT professionals who want to save money by choosing a better and less expensive product.
It depends on how deeply they look at the company and who they asked. From the outside my company (50-100 people) is a Microsoft partner, and uses Windows exclusively on the desktop.
But taking a closer look, we use a lot of open source software internally, every machine has Firefox, Eclipse, Ant & Tomcat installed. We have a few Linux servers: proxy, bugzilla and our main file server but not everyone knows (or cares) what OS those servers run.
On the matter of OSS and Australia, Things are happening to make (F)OSS adoption a bit easier for those new to the area. The Australian Service for Knowledge of Open Source Software ASK-OSS is a government funded grant thingy (they call it an "initiative") aimed to provide a knowledge gateway specifically for the Australian higher education sector.
The website's just gone live so information's a bit thin on the ground, but there is definitely movement down here!
Broadband is utter crap here (in Australia) so that might make it harder to get a distro... that said, I did once download a Debian ISO on 56k.
"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
errr is that only happening in Austrailia and New Zealand then?
So whats all this advertising AOL, BT, Microsoft, Google etc etc are doing everywhere else then? Guess it can't be advertising, must just be the nice companies telling us that they exist. Ahhh bless
Smile, it confuses people
Well, nothing has changed there. In Toronto I have 5 Mbit/sec (can get faster if I want) for CAD$50/month, unlimited data. During recent weeks in Australia, depending on location, the fastest available was 19.2kbps (country Victoria), 128kbps over ISDN (Hobart commuting distance), and the fastest connection I used was Melbourne CBD at 512kbps.
The latter service is a 'business' plan at A$170/month, but 512kbps ADSL is now available for as little as $29.95 per month but includes only 400MB of data! A realistic plan (12GB) would be $59.95, or corrected for speed, about twelve times the price of ADSL in Toronto.
you had me at #!
Oh right, I'm the only one who watches Fox News. Someone must have seen it.
I don't know why everyone is saying Linux is not successful people mustn't trust Open Source. They're not equal
last I checked FireFox adoption was higher in Australia than in all other continents barring Europe
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
people seem to forget the fact that Linux is eating up Unix market share and not Windows. MS Windows desktop/server market share did not shrink or anything. the fact to the matter is Linux is eating away Unix market share and simply use to replace existing Unix with cheap Intel/AMD hardware. Did MS Windows shipment (pc/server) expereince any slowdown? heck no! There are too much hype on Linux "adpoation" (marketshare) that people simply over look this little fact and who say Apache own the most market share? share host or domain parking doesn't really count for market share.
The company I work for (in Australia) would take Linux a lot further if the majority of software producers would support Linux. We run Linux on most of our routers and servers however, we would probably take it as far as the desktop in the office network if the 3rd party software we use would run on Linux. I'm not talking about e-mail, or word processing software I'm talking about online banking interfaces etc. Every few months or so we install another piece of software somewhere that only runs on Windows. At least our own software engineers build the majority of our proprietry software to run on Linux.
Without buying the Forrester report, it's hard to know what exactly the article is commenting on. On the other hand there are some real reasons why Linux is going to continue to find it difficult to obtain more acceptance in Australasia.. although I guess the problems will be more Australian then New Zealand.
- Bundling of Microsoft Operating System with new PC Hardware.
It is not possible for the public to by a PC (including laptops) from any of the mainline retail outlets without Microsoft Windows on it. Individuals can buy parts and assemble their own PC without paying the 'Microsoft Tax' but don't expect any system support. I have used Intel Celeron systems that have been sold as 'working systems' which appear to operate fine under Microsoft XP, but systematically lock up under Linux when stress tested. (This makes Linux look bad.)
- Microsoft Licensing in Education Sector (Schools etc.)
In some places in Australia, it is rumoured that the Windows licensing arrangements for an educational institutions is done on a per PC bases, whether that PC is running Windows, Mac OSX, BSD or Linux. (I'm happy to be proved wrong...) This means that there is no monetory advantage to Schools installing anything else other than Microsoft Networks. These licensing arrangements are negotiated state-by-state, rather than school-by-school.
- System Administrators in Schools
These are typically teachers who have (off their own back) taken on this role. They do what they know. The installation and configuration of computers is given to the lowest bidding service provider, and the typical installation today is Microsoft XP and Ghost.
There are exceptions though, but it needs support from the Education adminstrators to remove barriers (see previous point).
- Business Solution Providers
These people are generally not interested in providing anything that would company specific. Australian providers (business services, telecommunications) are generally lazy and will generally on-sell a foriegn solution then invest in a local product. There are, as always, exceptions, but these companies have to work particular hard to prosper.
- Lack of local promotion of OSS and Linux Solutions
There are no brand name companies in Australia who have gotten behind Linux in any meaningful way to Mr and Ms Jo Bloggs on the street. At no time are they given a choise, or presented with an alternative to the status quo, and the media is happy to promote the next round of anti-viral and anti-spyware products, when one option is to use a system that doesn't require these 'fixes'.
(There are possibly a lot more reasons..)
All this means that there is a huge gap between those that use, develop and understand FLOSS software in the community, and the business, education and public decision makers. Hopefully the Gardiner report had something to say about this as well.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Excuse me "Penguin Not Taking Flight Down Under"? What happened with us agreeing with usability experts that news titles in the Internet should be self-descriptive and less abstract?
How am I to guess the article was about OSS adoption in New Zealand being low..? It could be about pengiuns having problem swimming for all stuff I've read on Slashdot.
I spent some years in an investment bank in the UK. They are pretty ope source minded. They have good technical skills and like the control and integration possibilities.
I wish with UK government, which wastes billions every year on failed projects from EDS, Accenture etc. would listen a little harder to this simple message!
On y va, qui mal y pense!
There seems an overall very differnt adoption rate in GNU/Linux and FOSS arround the world.
;-)
For example at least following my recognation (worked for a UK company) the UK lacks adoption and is still a M$ Stronghold in Europe. Does anyone can explain this further?
The Sony Rootkit Map may also show difference in Linux addoption.
* USA
* Europe
* Japan
Here in Australia, and I'd have to guess that it's similar in New Zealand, there is a certain mindset of most people that reflects the greater consumerism ideal around the world of,
"Why should I know how to use this? It should just do what it's supposed to do."
This leads to several problems which are continuously and vigorously pounded upon by anyone who both has a clue and is making money out of the current status quo.
It's hard to put into precise words but basically, most people here are sheep - no pun intended - or, if you wanted a slightly noisier example, cattle.
They want their television shows to watch, cars to work, dinner on the table at a certain time, and computers to function enough so that email can be read and letters written.
When it comes to how a computer works, some people will become almost violent in their protests of "I don't need to know that!", despite the fact that they want to know why they just paid money for someone to clean up their spyware encrusted hard drive, and heaven help the poor soul who suggests that the ignorant user try something else.
"This is how I've always done it", "I can't learn something new", "Free is crap", "Well how come Microsoft is so popular", "I'm sure that the government would say something about that", "What's the catch", "Why does hosting cost so much here then if it's so easy", "I'd never use that", "Why is my computer so slow", "How come you can't make this go faster? It's better than the old one right?"
IT in Australia is in a fucked up state because the majority of people who don't use computers don't know, or care, how computers indirectly influence their lives, and the majority of those that do use computers don't want to know anything more than what they need to do to send an email, play a game, or balance their taxes.
If a virus hits, "Oh well, the salesman said this virus program thing would keep me safe there" - an unpatched copy of Norton's Anti-Virus from 2001.
If their dial-up is dropping out - while trying to send or recieve a multi-megabyte email that you've told isn't going to work - because they've got a shitty internal windows driver-run modem then it's the ISP's fault because, "I only just bought this last week. Why are you kicking me off-line all the time? I want to talk to your manager. You guaranteed unlimited internet."
If they've got DSL - which is 256/64 "for the kids and their games" and the little snot's bitchin' to them and ultimately to me because it's "laggy" - and there's a problem at the exchange, it's the job of the guy in the call centre to physically go out and hand wire them back into the net because "it's really critical I get this email to my friend!"
Some of these examples may sound familiar to some of you. I deal with this crap often, working in IT as a tech support guy and having family and relatives that own various sorts of computers. My Dad got a computer fairly recently. I forced him to get an iMac, predominantly because he knows absolutely fuck-all about how a computer works and I am fed up supporting every little fucking glitch on everyone else's Windows-running PC.
I use Linux. I have it set up to be simple for someone who's used a computer to simply load a browser and surf the net, while I'm fixing their piece of crap.
"This is nice." they say.
"I can show you how to use this on your computer if you like. I'll set it up, and it can be almost exactly like what you used before. There's none of those viruses to worry about that you hear on the news, and look, it's got that card game you like." I reply.
"Oh, uh, no, I don't know how to use this."
"You don't know how to use Windows either."
"Yeah but, Bob gives me a hand sometimes, and a reboot sometimes fixes things, and I can take this to the shop to get fixed too."
Fucking cattle. If there isn't money involved then they don't have a yard stick to measure what's happening. I hear so many peopl
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Anyone using the internet is likely using linux. Think of the routers, mail and google.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
is a nonsense phrase. I'm not certain, but I think they mean "one third of".
Most people don't even think inside the box.
I've been an iPrimus ADSL residential and business customer since their first ADSL product - which was 1.5Mbit, unlimited data, for something around A$120/month - an absolute bargain at the time (2001). They soon realised that unlimited data was an unsupportable offer and drastically restricted it (along with all other ISPs).
Anyway, the plans cited above are competitive with other major ISPs: Netspace's comparable plan is $69.95, though quotas rise to 50GB (split between peak and off-peak). Bigpond offers a 512kbps 'unlimited' (really 10GB, after that, it slows to 64kbps) also from $69.95. Their 20GB/1.5Mbps plan starts from $129.95, or more than 8 times the service in Toronto (and it's still not unlimited). Internode's 40GB/512kbps is exactly the same price.
As for 'ii', do you have that service installed? Is it generally available like the other ADSL providers? Are you trying to compare apples and oranges? I'm discussing products available today, not ADSL2 and other exotics that might be available in the future.
you had me at #!
Sure, it's three times more in North America, but when you're dealing with percentages as large as these, that is misleading. If one were 1% and the other were 3%, that would be ok. But when Australia's figure is 18%, and North America's (not stated in the article) is presumably about 54%, it's the difference between a majority and a small minority, which is far more significant than "three times more" would suggest.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I see Chinese, US and UK English, Spanish, Korean, etc. but no Aussie selection when I install. .cp
I bet that if a company has even one Linux e-mail, file, or Web server, they are "using Linux." And I would bet that most companies do as the vast majority of Web servers are Linux or UNIX running Apache. However, when most of us here read the "50% are using Linux" we think that it means that the company uses almost all Linux machines and few Windows machines. This is another case where the statistics are a little misleading.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
Can we have a story about how australia is better than the rest of the world? :)
Your beers are bigger than ours
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
But Windows markets in Australia. Does Red Hat / SuSe / etc? If not, then it is relevant, cause there is no local distro marketing and no outsiders making a move. I don't know, I hail from the USA.
I am a satisfied iinet customer, on their 40GB/month (peak/offpeak split) plan. The plan itself is AU$69.95 a month, but the trap with iinet is that to be able to get 2+, you have to have a landline with them, which is $33/month, and line rental can be had for as little at $17/month elsewhere. So in reality its more like $80/month.
But the service is fast, the local mirrors have a good range of content, and the upload speed rocks.
You'd think they could string a second T1 line to the continent by now.
if it weren't for the fact that the market is still growing. That a bunch of hippie techno-blitzers can cause the replacement of Unix and also keep pace with a growing market, all the while creating all manner of replacements to the single most dominant player in the market is to me an indicator that perhaps there may come a backlash against Microsoft once people become comfortable enough with their computers to dare venture down promising paths.
Or something like that.
Here in the US, it is very rare for public schools to have competent network administrators. They don't have the money to attract people who know what they are doing, and the schools are slow to adapt to change. In rural areas it is not uncommon for the main tech support guy to be one of the teachers, who does it all in his spare time. Usually they don't have any training in IT administration, and never had any intention of doing that kind of work, but are stuck with the job because if they don't do it no one else will.
Another common thing to see in rural areas is a single administrator for a entire district, which can contain a dozen schools spread out over a 1-5 thousand square mile area. Needless to say, they don't see the admin as often as they would like, and given local politics, it is often someone's relative who is not necisarrily the best person for the job.
Of course that's not always the case. One of our family friends is a teacher in in Las Vegas, NV and they have a full time IT administration team that is well-paid and competent. They also recognise the need for periodic upgrades and plan for it in their budget. Then again they are one of the more better funded school systems in the states.
Almost everyone I met in college had stories about how they knew more about computers than the people running them at their high school - it is the rule not the execption.
Sky not falling
Area man not getting any younger
President not telling truth
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
He's already gutted the senior management and installed his amigos.
The copper network is on the block to Ericsson (isn't that one bit of infrastructure that common sense would keep Australian owned??)
And in best crooked Republican style he's cutting brazen insider deals with his cronies such as the American Brightstar no-public-tender-process-for-us boondoggle, cutting out local supplier Australia Post but shipping his American pals huge profit margins.
Who's paying? You work it out.
you had me at #!
A dingo ate my penguin....
There is no reset button in life; however, there are bonus levels.
... what the hell does 'three times less' mean?
/. editors use it too?
So if I have 20 of something, and somebody else has 'three times less' than me, then he has:
20 - (20 * 3) = -40 of them?
I see this all of the time in advertising bullshit and now the
What kind of fucking stupid people come up with this shit?
Well Linux take up might be bad in Australia/New Zealand but I was under the impression that we hold one of the three premier linux conferences in the world. ( Blatent plug for LCA 2006 which starts next Monday in Dunedin, New Zealand. :-) ).
Enough of the plug.
In some respects the article is correct! Trying to convince people that Linux is a viable alternative is hard. Within an organisation someone in MIS/IT (whatever) department does need to be a champion. I'm currently working in an organisation where Linux was being pushed over Windows. The main IT guy left and now things have swung back the other way. Considering our products are based on Linux the lack of support is high.
It really is a matter of trying to find ways of bringing Linux to the attention of "just people". I'm currently trying to set up a course through our local community college. From their I'm going to work on the local secondary schools.
And then world!! Bwahhh haaa haaa haaa
It's kind of hard to be cheery while helping people who ignore everything you say. I'm getting more and more to the point where I have to struggle to get through the "why you shouldn't use internet explorer" talk. Sometimes I tell people that, no, I can't FIX it if they insist on using AOL, I can only make it work again briefly.
My favorite cases are the WinXP-AOL-Norton Internet Security trifectas. I have had two computers NOT RECOVER FROM NIS UNINSTALLATION. This is supposed to keep your (Windows) computer safe? Bah!
By the way, excellent passive spyware protection for Windows XP that works better than any pay app I've encountered:
Firefox
sun JRE (rather than MS JVM)
iespyads
spywareblaster with all protection enabled
spybot search & destroy with all immunization enabled and hosts list added
And please use NOD32 or Kaspersky as an antivirus.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
The admins at my school in England are terrible. We're running M$ Windoze XP, and they've managed to finely tune the security policies to the point where they make it ridiculously hard to do anything, but the PCs are wide open to attacks if anyone knows how to attack them.
We used to have filtered internet access that could by bypassed with one password that alternated between the name of the school and the name of the assistant head.
We couldn't read the CD drives or use USB sticks unless we copied the files over using a program that uses the common dialog control.
I'm pretty sure I could run a network better than our current admins. And I'm only 14.
Let's try a few OSS titles: Linux Firefox Thunderbird OpenOffice Apache I'm now in my fourth IT job, and every one I've worked in uses OSS.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Once more I managed to forget to tag/format a post. Grr.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
in new zealand there is a monopoly over broadband with only one provider that charges crazy prices for real broadband.
the best consumer plan you can get offers 2Mbit download with 128k upload for US$40 per month with a 10 gig cap.
If you want real broadband at 8Mbits with 2Mbit upload then you'll need to write a cheque for US$616 a month for 10 gig, or US$1645 a month for a 30 gig plan.
When there is only one provider of broadband in the country, businesses can simply not afford to download open source software.
This is a penguin!
I really want to know.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
Wikipaedia says the name "kiwifruit" was officially adopted in 1974, which about agrees with my memory of when I first heard it. It was in occasional use earlier.
I got very confused once by an American asking me whether we ate a lot of kiwis in NZ.
The only penguins I've seen in the wild are little blue penguins (the smallest, smaller than a duck.) But there's lots in zoos and at Kelly Tarlton's in Auckland.
I'm doing some data analysis on Adelie penguin DNA right now, however.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Australia is a complex society. I'm an American who lived there for 20 years and I still would not say I fully understand what goes on in the Australian psyche. Australians (and New Zealanders) are brilliant, funny, wonderful people, but by god, they come to some very strange decisions sometimes.
At the risk of seeming to generalize too much, nonetheless, I have learned a great deal about Australian business culture. Australian management is extremely risk averse, far more than is really reasonable. They are never happier than when they have eliminated all form of risk. Hence their great love of bricks and mortar investment, exclusive deals, monopolies, patents, cartels, and oligarchical forms of administration. These are of course all anti-entreprenuerial tendencies, which goes a long way toward explaining the lack of substantial venture capital activity in Australia, low-levels of private investment in technology, and the poor quality of broadband offerings to mention only a few of the systemic problems in Australian Technology.
Paradoxically, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of brilliant, highly entreprenuerial Australians who create and invent absolutely incredible world-beating products. They do this against all odds, with very little government support, and in a commercial environment where it is almost impossible to raise money outside the clutches of the banks or the established corporations. Given the incredibly small population of Australia, Australians are IMHO over-represented in the ranks of great inventors and innovators despite all this.
I have personaly presented and represented new technologies and technologists to management of large and small Australian companies more times than I can count, and I have to honestly say, the level of reticence and fear amongst Australian line managers is staggering.
"Fear" is the word perhaps that sums it up best - fear of failure. The chief difference I have noted between the US and Australia is that in the US, failure is regarded as an inevitable part of the process. You simply must accept that on the road to success, you will fail many many times before you finally arrive.
However, in Australia, failure is emphatically not regarded as part of the process. Severe consequences can be attached to failure. Business failure translates to criminality in the mind of most Australians. "Entreprenuer" is actually a derogatory term in Australia. Failed entreprenuers are frequently hunted down like dogs as a form of public spectacle.
In such a culture, no Australian middle manager can afford to make a mistake by selecting the wrong software or OS for a particularly significant job, because to do so will put an indelible blot on your permanent record, and that will be the end of you. It is far safer to go through a formal evaluation process of products sold by blue ribbon vendors, M$ of course being the biggest. The evaluation process is designed to distribute the weight of responsibility and blame as widely as possible. This "no guts and no glory" strategy will not make you famous, but it will at least ensure you get to keep your house for another year.
While FOSS has (in spite of the above) made terrific inroads into Australian IT (I think the report under-reports) Australian managers will not get up on their war horses and lead the charge for it, unlike many far-seeing leaders in places like the United States. No one should expect Australians to be like Americans in this regard. It is not how things are done in Australia.
FOSS will make its way eventually. But if you wanted per se to accelerate the process in Australasia, here is what I would recommend;
* Make an iron-clad case for why FOSS is in fact the SAFE choice.
* Stop making technological irrelevancies into deal-breaking issues - sell benefits, not technology. Bundle tools into opaque offerings and "service packages" that do valuable work regardless of how. Forget ideological point-scoring or "territorial gain" objectives.
Sorry lu3h, no such thing as Tunafruit! Where did you hear of this tunafruit? New Zealand, like all decent countries, calls the fruit "kiwifruit" but of course, Chinese Gooseberries are also acceptable.
---
you had me at #!
Being a Pom who's been in Australia for 3 years I have to say that managers are very much at fault. There seems to be a huge gap in management practice here compared to other parts of the world. About a 20 year gap to be precise. Its truly is a great place but it seems to me that there is an arrogance in Australian management that beggars belief when it comes to OSS and modern management practice in general - "bullying" for want of a better word is rife and is not only applied in the workplace, it is accepted as a norm. I thought Aussies were "hard" people who gave as good as they got but are actually decidedly sheepish and would seem to lack "moral courage". These are meant to be educated people but many of them have got degrees and still can't manage to reason their way out of a wet paper bag. Sophistry is the order of the day when management are asked to reply to any mention of OSS as a serious option for the business. They play it safe "no-one ever got fired for buying MS IBM etc etc blah blah". As someone said on a previous thread Telstra are also to blame wholesale for their practices - not just with regard to the downloading of ISOs but the whole business model is out of date and Australia will suffer.