127. It's that time again...

Linux is dead on the desktop, only 1%, barely a blip etc. etc.

Well, 1% is still a truck-load of people. In fact, it's quite a number of truck-loads, with it being in the 10s of millions of people.

Anyway, every time a website needs to boost their visitor numbers (Why? If no-one cared and there were no linux users, how could this possibly boost the number of visitors? Shouldn't it go the other way) you get one of those Linux + Desktop = dead/lost/flop stories.

I don't want to include links more than absolutely necessary.

Most of those types of stories are ill-informed -- someone discovers that Linux != Windows. Usually they include something along the lines of you needing to be a programmer to use linux (Why programmer? SysAdmin would make a lot more sense. I don't think linux is the preferred dev env for e.g. C#  or cocoa). But once in a while you come across something that is not just ill-informed, but ill-willed.

Like this:
https://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/043012-linux-desktop-258724.html?page=1

Yes, I really shouldn't link to it.

In this article which reminds me more of a thinly veiled press release, someone from this company is given the opportunity to belt out some remarkable statements. That company has a long history of doing lobbying on behalf of Microsoft. Why the 'journalist' at networkworld.com played along puzzles me though. Other people are interview too however, and it's not particularly impressive.

Some snippets:

A very minor one is

But, as the old saying goes, it's "free as in puppy, not free as in beer.

What about free as in speech? 

A very major one:

You have to switch to the new version of Linux every year," he says. "Microsoft supports each version of Windows for ten years."

Really? REALLY? And he then goes on to say that at least Microsoft supports free security fixes without you having to pay for support. 

This one gives a good idea of the purpose of the article
... is a myth, he adds, one of many myths surrounding Linux deployment.

Approaching a tautology:
Plus, most professionals tend to be familiar with the leading commercial software products for the work that they do

1. That something is 'leading' doesn't mean anything in terms of quality or it being the best tool for the job. 

2. The main drawback of e.g. Libreoffice vs Microsoft Office is the moving goal-post of file compatibility, and that is entirely artificial. The products are, as far as I can tell (I use latex), identical. But since more people use office (see the introduction of .docx as an example of microsoft breaking backward compatibility on purpose to get the upgrades going) it forces everyone else to use the same exact tool. Document standards and adherence to them (MS has a way of ignoring their own standards to prevent full compatibility) would erase this hurdle.

3. What's the real cost of training? It's always presumed to be high, but is it? This is of course something that will depend on a lot of factors, and I do not have an answer. But I suspect that in the case of Libreoffice vs MS Office it is negligible.

And more:

"The problem is that things like custom billing apps, SAP, desktop productivity apps from Adobe and industry-specific apps are developed solely for the Windows desktop,"

This is true. And it is why companies are waking up to find themselves locked in -- it's a great argument in favour of not repeating the same mistake, but to use open source tools instead.

This extrapolation I find very difficult to believe:

According to Gartner's Silver, a typical organization will have one application for every 10 users, and, today, about half of those applications require the Windows operating system.
"That percentage has been declining, but still, it's pretty high," Silver says. "So if I have 10,000 users, and 1,000 applications, 500 of those applications will need Windows to run."

Also, what about equivalent, rather than identical, pieces of software?

And then another stinker:

"A typical thing in a Windows setting is to establish some usage policies, and set up some limitations on the systems to keep them stable. Linux doesn't have those types of standards out of the box."

Really? Even the default file systems in linux have user management built in -- and on top of that you have group, group membership and incredibly fine-grained control over rights and device access. Windows is a PITA for this.

Well, at least they didn't use the word 'hobbyist' even once in the piece...