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The Classic Myth

Any student of Mythology can recognize a "Classic Myth" when they see one. The story of David and Goliath is one of the most basic. The story line generally has a hero (David), and an evil enemy (Goliath). The hero is always a pure person, who due to circumstances finds himself required to perform an act of heroism against an evil force. Besides his purity, he generally has a single weapon, which he uses. David used a slingshot but in the early days it was quite frequently a sword, which was forged, in the hottest fire in the world (Remember the fires of Mordor, in the Lord of the Rings?). Later on, the sword became a Light Sword (Star Wars), and today it has become the "Kernel" of an operating system forged in the mind of our hero, Linus Torvalds.

Make no bones about it. Linus Torvalds is the "David" of today.

The Story of "Linus"

The story of Linus, starts with our hero, Linus Torvalds, a computer science student who couldn't afford to buy an operating system. Does that phase him? Does he make an illegal copy of NT or Unix, no, he designs one himself. Not only does he single-handedly design a wonderful kernel for an operating system, but it is in many ways superior to the kernel developed by Dave Cutler and the boys at Microsoft. Still it is only a kernel, not a full-blown operating system. Our hero then altruistically, gives the architecture of this kernel to the world for free, by placing it on the Internet.

Programmers, around the world start using the kernel, and add the peripheral programs and drivers for their particular needs. These programmers, also are altruistic, and start to share their efforts. Soon the operating system known as Linux, is born as a full-blown operating system, existing however in a virtual space known as the Internet.

Enter entrepreneurs, who realize, that they can exploit this, by putting it and the peripheral programs on a CD-ROM, or installed in a computer, and selling it. This is where we are today. Of course, the evil enemy, is represented by the multi-headed giant, Microsoft and its evil leader Bill Gates.

Will the hero destroy the evil Bill? This story is not over, but still enfolding.

What has this to do with Linux being overhyped?

Everything. The emotions and passions of man are always moved by a great myth. The myth here is:

The acceptance of this myth has caused people to believe that anything with the Linux name will ultimately succeed and triumph. That is the overhype. Today anything with the name Linux on it is magic. Some examples:

1. Linus Tovalds is voted the "Influencer of the Decade" in a Chipcenter poll. Torvalds gathers 37% of the vote with Bill Gates, second with 11% of the vote.

Hello? Is anybody home. Our hero is actually more like Tom Sawyer, than David. He has already left the fight. He is designing some new architecture in Silicon Valley. Heroes don't leave the fight, turning it over to amateurs, and whoever wants to capitalize on it. Anyone who thinks that Linus Torvalds did more in the last decade than Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs and Jim Clark has their head in the sand.

2. Linux software providers have gone public, and their market caps have reached heights, previously only reached by dot com stocks.

Take a look at Red Hat Software (RHAT), a provider of the "free" Linux system on a CD ROM ($29.00). The stock for this company is presently trading at $150 a share, giving it a market capitalization of about $10 Billion! Red Hat software lost $8.8 million on sales totaling $12.6 million in 1999.

To put this into perspective let us compare this value with a real company with a similar market cap. Circuit City has a market cap of $10 billion but it also has sales of $10 billion, and it makes a profit!

3. Companies that put Linux on PCs are also unbelievably overvalued.

The latest overblown IPO for a Linux company, was VA Linux (LNUX), an assembler of PCs with the Linux system already installed. VA Linux is presently trading at $179 a share, giving it a market cap of $6.6 billion! VA Linux lost $14.5 million on sales of $17 million in 1999.

Compare this with the bookseller, Barnes and Noble, which has a market cap of $1.6 billion, and sales in 1999 of $3 billion! Is VA Linux worth more than three times the value of Barnes and Noble? I don't think so, especially now that IBM is competition, and at any given time Dell and Compaq can enter the game.

Will the Myth survive?

The myth of Linus is not yet finished. My own observations however, show that even without Torvalds participating, Linux has a lot of supporters. Today IBM has announced that it will be putting Linux on servers. Add to this the support of Sun, giving out Star Office, and Corel adding Word Perfect Office to the heap, Linux can be a decent alternative to Windows.

Bill Gates must be worried. The truth however is that Linux will exist side by side with Windows. Personal home PCs will continue to run Windows as there is so much software available, such as games and other programs, that even a less than perfect operating system will prevail.

Another scenario is that Microsoft starts to market and support Linux! Wow what a problem that could be.

Overall Linux will be used in the "back office" applications where MIS people can install and support it. It probably will never find its way onto the desktops of America.

I have friends who feel otherwise and predict its ultimate win over Microsoft. I have also noticed, that these friends all use dual boot software, so that they can use their favorite Windows programs and interface with the rest of the world. I don't know any sole Linux users.

Summary

Linux is overhyped. Not because the system is a poor one, but because its acceptance will be limited to programmers and back office servers and systems. It should only be hyped, not overhyped.

Frank Greenhalgh
January 10, 2000

About the Author

Frank Greenhalgh has been working in power supplies and systems for 38 years. He has many impressive accomplishments and patents. Over the years he has made significant contributions to Trio Laboratories where he held the position of Chief Design Engineer and was then promoted to Vice President.