OStatic

by Richard Chapman on Nov. 03, 2011

I read his short piece. It was totally clueless. Boy, did he get hammered in the comments. Unfortunately some of the comments were rude and insulting (not that he didn't deserve it). There were equally many comments that were eloquently stated and logically carried out. Gualtieri barely gave an inch. It was the "Dead Parrot" routine in spades.

It's amazing that anyone would dare try to get away with such a daring, clueless, 1998 style Linux FUD piece in 2011. But someone did. Amazing, truly amazing.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 03, 2011

This is what I wrote on my blog when i read the little article by Douglas Perry referring to the Forrester's analyst Mr. Guatieri. This is just my personal view and may be slightly incorrect:

http://raymond-tengen.xanga.com/756134478/random-rant-20111027-1225-its-...

by matteo on Nov. 04, 2011

maybe Mr. Guatieri is just a comedian. don't know. here this seems the only logical explanation ;-)

by an anonymous user on Nov. 04, 2011

Open source is not disruptive? Is like fishes asking "what water?". Internet itself is open source, most of its core, its beginings, and most of what popularized it is open source. And internet looks like something disruptive.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 04, 2011

MacOS X would not exist without Open Source. Apple even bought CUPS and still keeps it open-source. So does also with WebKit, a fork of KDE's KHTML used by *ALL* non-Microsoft smartphone industry: Blackberry, Nokia, Apple and Google.

While my examples are not innovation by itself (browsers and drivers existed before, both open and closed source) they *ALLOWED* all these companies to *COMPETE* by innovating!

Just look at how much Microsoft is struggling to compete in the smartphone and tablet market and teel me how would it be possible without Open-Source!

by Elf M. Sternberg on Nov. 04, 2011

"Open source never seems to be the innovator. Instead it seems to disrupt pricing power for established technologies."

Even if this were the only thing that Linux did, it would still be an invaluable service to the computing community; it highlights that most of the knowledge out there about programming and computation is commodity knowledge, and should be priced accordingly. The only things that are really important in computation aren't algorithms and programming, they're higher-level issues like design, assembly, execution and sales.

That sentence basically bemoans the fact that Open Source programmers reveal that much of what Microsoft and Oracle and every other boutique software developer does is no better than what Oz did for his subjects. Ripping away the curtain to show the little man with little knowledge behind it is an essential part of any commodity transaction.

by Edmundo Carmona on Nov. 04, 2011

Can you imagine the frustration of these people that come out to say how linux (along with everything else that resembles FLOSS) is headed to doom when they look around and see it's about everywhere? Priceless. I have a friend like that. He is pro Microsoft/Oracle/Apple on their attempt to disrupt Andriod, Pro Sony on the subject of how Sony messed up on its customers a few months back (himself being one of the customers affected by the shutdown). Unbelievable. We used to debate a lot about these subjects. I stopped. As I said I can only imagine his frustration seeing how FLOSS is taking over everything. I was taught it's not ok to laugh at people in the middle of their defeat.

by Jon on Nov. 05, 2011

While while not totally spot on, I still maintain Linux, and many open source projects primary obstacle, which to me it will never overcome, is how splintered the world of Linux and opensource is.

Distributions need to come together, not splitting apart and forking into other distros. There needs to be a SINGLE linux distributions so that everyone can focus on usability, compatibility and bug fixes and so application developers can focus efforts on ensuring their app as a single platform to operate PROPERLY on.

Linux still remains a geek only land, and is unfortunately viewed as "free" by uninformed business leaders that do not understand the actual cost for implementing these "free" operating systems and applications.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 05, 2011

Possibilities:

1-Gualtieri is dumb.

2-Gualtieri is acting dumb.

3-Gualtieri doesn't want to acknowledge reality. He doesn't like reality as it stands, like he's seeing his "team" losing. Trying to rescue whatever goodwill for Microsoft that he can.

4- He wants to pi__ people off. He's trying to lash out at the ones (the community) who are making his "team" lose, making him look bad.

5-A desperate, lame attempt at fooling the public. Misinformation.

My guess: a mix of the last four.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 05, 2011

No such thing as one-size-fits-all in software.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 05, 2011

Because they are focused on competition, businesses try to get us, the public, to operate by their rules. Such constructs as "brand name", "profit" and others along the same theme are only important to businesses.