November 16, 2001

By Doc Searls

Last week I got an email from our publisher, Phil Hughes. "Looks like this needs to be addressed", he wrote, pointing to a URL. I saw nobody was cc'd on the note; so I took the hint, fired up the browser and followed the link to "Got Linux? Many companies say no", by Sergio G. Non, on CNET.

Phil was right. This thing was more of a mugging than a story.

The subhead read "News Analysis: Linux penguins are braying louder, but companies don't plan to adopt many of them in the near future".

The text began this way:

"Almost every large company has at least thought about Linux, and some of them are running pilot projects or even day-to-day (albeit nonessential) systems on the open-source operating system.

"And because the economy is still weak, many tech observers believe that Linux--and its price tag of "free"--will attract more businesses looking to cut costs.

"At least that's the theory. Practice indicates something else."

What are "nonessential" systems? Who are these "many tech observers"? And who's "braying"? The better verb would be "praying." As a species, pure-penguin businesses have thinned to the point where they're an endangered species. Maybe the author is talking about IBM, which has loudly declared its love for Linux; but Big Blue comes off more like a crooning suitor than a braying embodiment of "Tux". And what about Amazon, which recently reported huge cost savings by switching over to Linux?

We soon find that the "companies" cited in the headline are nothing more than 100 information technology executives who were recently asked by Goldman Sachs to name their highest and lowest "spending priorities".

It turns out that mainframes, supply chain management software and Linux servers ranked near the bottom with these hundred guys. Their top priorities were the new Windows OSes, security software and UNIX servers. What a surprise. You spend big for those.

Earth to CNET: Linux is free. It's a saving priority, not a spending one.

You have to read about halfway into the piece before you find any good news about Linux. But it turns out there's plenty of it.

The author starts by reminding us that Amazon in fact just "saved millions by switching to Linux from UNIX in many areas of its business." This is "evidence" that "suggests othersise" about the "theory" of Linux as a cost-saver? Hah?

He follows this with quotes from an IT consultant who says "Many of our clients consider Linux to be a very real option for cost savings," and "There's a definite ROI." Later the same consultant adds, "I would agree that many companies are scaling back forward-looking projects... However, the feedback we get from our clients is that they are very interested in Linux." More positive quotes follow.

When I got to the bottom I looked back and saw that the piece was really quite positive about Linux, on the whole. It's just that the writer front-loaded the bad stuff to work the dark headline and story angle. Which begs the question: Why?

Because it's easy to slam Linux these days. Outside of a few big hardware companies, Linux is has been mighty short on advocacy from Business. The dot-com taint is huge. Hundreds of "Linux Companies" were born in the dot-com boom and died of funding starvation when it was over. A few days ago I looked through the collection of business cards that have accumulated in my top desk drawer over the past several years. I threw out all but a few of them. Most of the cards came from companies now deceased, acquired or busy repositioning themselves as something else. Even VA Linux has filed to change its name to VA Software and jettison its LNUX stock name.

In its heyday on Wall Street, no fleece was more golden than Linux. Red Hat, Cobalt, Andover and VA Linux all had huge IPOs. VA's Day One was the biggest in history. Now the only one of those four companies that's still braying about Linux is Red Hat -- and my hat's off to them.

The problem with too many dot-com companies was that they were never companies. They were projects. Experiments in stock price speculation. They were like those banks and hotels in gold-rush towns that put up sheds and huts with big false fronts, so they looked from the street like serious businesses -- when everything in sight was a gamble.

Linux isn't a gamble. It also isn't a business. It's a free and open operating system that is mighty handy for building all kinds of things. It's I-beams and two-by-fours. That's why Amazon put it to such good use. Amazon knows that Linux isn't about spending priorities. It's about saving. It's a great way to cut costs without spending anything. Or to build a great product without worrying about patents, royalties and other complications and downstream costs.

As a subject, Linux is more popular than ever. IDC says Linux training revenues in 2001 are around $56 million. In 1999 they were 10.3 million. And they project as much as $310 million by 2004, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) or 86.9% Dan Kusnetzky, the IDC analyst who covers Linux, says the cost of Linux relative to UNIX for 1000 users tapping into a server is between 1/3 and 1/2. IDC isn't in the braying business, either.

Clearly Linux adoption is stronger than ever, and continues to increase, regardless of what happens to one company or another. In fact, there's no reason Linux shouldn't succeed on the strength of its own virtues. It's just too useful.

And from that perspective, you might say Linux is one of the least speculative technology investments you can make.

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A few words of appreciation.

I'm pleased to see that Compaq is now a sponsor for this newsletter. I shall neither bray nor pray for them. I'll just thank them for being smart enough to support the kind of thinking out loud that I like to do, and that Linux Journal has been doing since Phil started the magazine back in 1994. Hats off to him too.

Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal. His monthly column is Linux For Suits. He is also a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto.