September 22nd, 2005
Are the final open source skeptics coming around?
A very interesting little read came through my RSS feed this morning. (The image, by the way, is from Mark and Susan Andriani, who do business together as Cloudcat.)
It was a fairly balanced look at Linux, from a corporate perspective. It cited two main reasons to choose Linux, a "drastic reduction of hardware costs" and "fear of being locked into proprietary software." It did say Linux isn’t free, and called performance enhancements over Windows and Unix a myth, but it noted "many firms do realize significant cost reductions" when they switch, and that "Linux is the perfect service-oriented architecture."
There was nothing remarkable here except the byline — Laura DiDio.
As her Wikipedia biography notes, Ms. DiDio is one of the foremost open source skeptics in the analyst world. In mid-2003 she claimed SCO had a "psychological edge" in its legal battle against IBM. She was quoted slamming Linux "extremists" as recently as April.
If Laura DiDio really has come around on the advantages of Linux and open source, I thought, check for flying pigs. Maybe there really is such a thing as peace in our time, and we can all get back to work.
How are you other open source skeptics feeling?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/23/05
