SysAdmin Paper from Yankee Group Ignorable

This report states that:

"Corporations that use proprietary software, such as Microsoft Volume Licenses, Apple Macintosh and the various flavors of UNIX (e.g., Sun Microsystems Solaris), have indemnification protection, i.e. protection against loss or liability. Organizations that opt for free Linux and open source software either get limited indemnification- subject to specific terms, conditions and caps on liability- or they get no indemnification at all."

The report's premise begins with an inaccuracy and aims to promulgate FEAR. UNCERTAINTY and DOUBT.

FUD was first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products."



Eric S. Raymond speaks more about this:



"The idea, of course, was to persuade buyers to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. After 1991 the term has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon."

Realists consider Linux adoption remarkable. The word on the street and in the foxholes of the IT community has created a swell of adoption from small businesses to the entire Fortune 500. The marketing of Linux by HP, IBM, Sun, Dell, Oracle, and Novell demonstrates the commitment of industry to Linux. With all the agreement in the market, most observers do not give SCO much of a chance of winning its cases.

Now, here's the facts and you can get them or not: GNU/Linux, a free software operating system built originally by volunteers has become a sensation. Laggards continue to use Windows. Linux has become the leading operating system. Why? Because it gives people what they want.

Yankee Go Home!