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.'"

Comments

Needs to be said

[TubeSteak]

OSS != Linux
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"?

The report shows that 50% of organisations using open source software are paying for support and cite that as one of the main challenges for implementation.

Higgins says some software developers use open source as a professional services Trojan horse.

Sounds like it's 3x more than NA, not 3x less....

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

'Ay, Digger!

[Philip K Dickhead]

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?

How about internet connections/speeds?

[phorm]

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.

The Aussie mindset (and conditioning)

[Meetch]

Explanation by example:

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...

Needs to be tested.

[jd]

I'm not convinced. We've seen similar remarks from the Gartner Group for the US, despite all evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, it is still common enough practice in large companies for admins to install something stable (like Linux, a *BSD, or whatever) in place of a Windows server, but not to tell their bosses. So long as nothing goes wrong, everyone's happy - the system will crash less often and handle more users, so CEOs and the like are not going to make any enquiries as to what is being used.

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