Hot air won't make a polar bear from a Linux penguin

Graeme Philipson
I.T.

June 19, 2001

The human brain has an almost infinite capacity for self-delusion. Last week I was flamed by dozens of Linux users for simply reporting on the results of a recent Strategic Research survey of Australian IT managers.

The survey asked about current and future usage of different operating systems in Australian datacentres. The results indicated that usage of Windows 2000 is growing strongly, and that Unix is declining a little.

Pretty straightforward stuff. But the respondents to the survey also said they were not using Linux for vital applications, and did not intend to do so in the next few years.

That made the Linux bigots see red. I was the messenger, and I was shot at. Like many Apple users, Linux users often get religious about their operating system, and they don't like facts that are contrary to their prejudices.

Here are some samples from the emails I received: "... your dumb-ass article ... you friggin moron." " I have lost my patience for people who blatantly put Linux down in order to bolster Microsoft's status." "How much is Microsoft paying you?" "Hold on desperately to your delusions. At your age they're all you have left," "I am quite sick of having this sort of thing published and passed off as journalism." "Go and take another Microsoft pill." "So it must be hard to breathe, eh? All that sand in your nose and eyes and all."

You get the idea. Clever, aren't they? And just for reporting the results of a survey from which I did not myself draw any conclusions. The growing popularity of Microsoft Windows 2000 is obviously my fault.

One of the few well-mannered responses I got suggested the survey asked the wrong question of the wrong people. Another said that Linux would succeed because IBM had chosen it as a strategic operating system. My mind goes back to OS/2, and to the fact that I was once also flamed by users of that operating system for predicting its inevitable demise.

Like bigots everywhere, the Linux nuts love to cite figures that support their bigotry, while ignoring those that do not. They use statistics like a drunken man uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination. Their favourite source is IDC, which produces more hard data on software shipments than any other of the IT market research companies.

They often mention IDC data that shows how quickly Linux has grown in recent years. They conveniently ignore the fact that even IDC predicts that Linux's growth over the next five years will be less than that of Windows NT over the past five years. Linux's growth is starting to flatten out, as all products do after their initial growth phase, and it is not growing as quickly as Windows NT did.

If you look at all the data the picture is plain to see. Except, that is, by those blinded by the self-righteous light of religious fervour. Linux is a decent operating system that is doing quite well in some parts of the market (though not in large datacentres, as I reported). It is growing quickly in many areas, in some cases deservedly so.

But this growth is coming from a very small base, which means that Linux is easily able to sustain impressive percentage annual growth rates during these early stages of its growth, just as its rivals once did. It will grow in stature, and will probably eventually rival the commercial Unixes and Windows 2000 as a mainstream operating system, though most probably in less critical applications.

Linux is not inherently any better or worse than its competitors. The fact that it is "open source" and therefore philosophically opposed to Microsoft's Evil Empire may make many of its adherents feel good, even superior, but that alone is not enough to ensure its dominance, now or in the future.

I hold no brief for Microsoft, or for Sun, or for IBM, or for any other of the diminishing band of companies that continue with the thankless task of supplying us with operating systems for our computers. Operating systems are a necessary but boring evil, and the more they are insulated from end users the better. Indeed, the less we have to think about them the better.

I cannot deny the Linux nuts the obvious pleasure they derive from their faith and the strength they get from communing with others in their sect.

Since time immemorial religion has provided people with a rationale for their existence and meaning to lives that would otherwise comprise little more than the proverbial sham, misery and broken dreams.

And when their self-righteousness manifests itself as poorly expressed hate mail I am more amused than anything else. To my mind it merely indicates the mental state of those who pen such tripe, and rather proves my point about their personalities. You have to be a special sort of person to abuse someone because he points out that not everyone shares your love for a particular set of computer commands.

In the words of the poet, some of these people should get a life. Linux is, after all, just an operating system. There are many more important things in the world.