[Sussex] Wild Claims

[Geoff Teale]

CHaps,

I hear a lot (and often justly) about Linux people making wild claims about 
Linux and "dissing" Windows without foundation.  In particular I have heard 
it said that you can disregard 90% of Slashdot's content as ill-conceived 
propaganda.

What I hear less about these days is more "official" news organisation 
spouting crap for less noble reasons.   This morning I am reminded why of a 
reason why so many open source advocates find it hard to be objective.

WinFormat yesterday started reporting that the Munich deal was a big sham 
because 80% of the machines involved will be using VMWare to use Linux.

Now then.. here's a superficial objections to start with -

This is a _very_ negative interpretation of the situation.  The use of VMWare 
is a common stepping stone in system migration.  No large scale organisation 
can switch over 100% on day one - replacing legacy apps takes time and money.  
Give that there is a large cost (and risk) involved in running VMWare and 
eventually redeveloping legacy apps, and that Microsoft offered the city a 
deal that would have cost them _millions_ _of_ _dollars_ less than IBM's deal 
then you start to think that Munich must have seen a pretty strong case for 
not tying itself to Windows in the long term.  The most important part of 
this deal as far as Munich is concerned is not what it does this year, or 
next year, but the fact that it doesn't have to subscribe to a Microsoft's 
current licensing scheme and incur a massive expense _every_ year in return 
for no guaranteed year-on-year benefit.  

.. but dig a little deeper and you'll find something more important to get 
angry about....

Where'd the 80% figure come from?  It certainly isn't mentioned by either IBM 
or the city of Munich in their press releases.  Well apparantly the marketing 
department of certain "Microsoft" are using this figure.  So where did they 
get it from?  Well they point to a Gartner report (unsuprisingly commisioned 
by Microsoft) that states that _some_ of the machines will have to run VMWare 
to support it's _assumed_ business model.  

OK, so let me get this straight.  Gartner has an "assumed business model" for 
this deal (which is not based on any actual information coming from the two 
organisations that have done the deal) that says _some_ of the machines will 
have to run VMWare (not necessarily a bad assumption as detailed above).   
Somewhere between Gartner, Microsoft and WinFormat this figure mutates into 
the figure of "80%" and is reported as fact and is touted as a key reason why 
the rest of the trade press reporting this as a "massive and obvious victory 
for Linux over Windows" is being its usual pro-linux, anti-microsoft self.

Now since when has the mainstream media been pro-linux and anti-microsoft?

WinFormat has a history of making that claim.  It apprantly thinks it upset 
the "status-quo" when it reported that "50% of all security problems" in a 
given period of time were Linux specific and that "Propietary UNIX suffered 
the same amount".  Now quite apart from the obvious - "If Linux has 50% of 
all security problems, and proprieatry UNIX has 50% of all security problems, 
and 50% + 50% = 100% then all other OS's must be completely secure!" - 
WinFormat seem intent on portraying as Window 's as an anti-establishment OS 
struggling against the evil-yoke of mainstream press and the pro-linux 
status-quo that is the establishment.  I haven't laughed so much since last 
time I saw Tottenham.. :)

All I have to ask is this - since when has Alistair Campbell been allowed to 
work for Microsoft on the side?

-- 
GJT
Free Software Foundation
tealeg at member.fsf.org