Dennis Byron

U.S.

Analyst

You don't sound like one of the open-source fringe bloggers, Martin, but this article reads like you believe their blogoblather.

First, when you make such a claim you should name names. The reputable "analysts" (I assume you mean firms but it is true of the individual analysts I know as well) have been covering open source for decades.

Second, define "fail." Can you be more specific? It appears the analysts just don't say what you would like them to say?

You allege "The general reliance on vendor cash clearly leaves most open source software out in the cold" but it is the lack of market acceptance of those projects that pushes them to the bottom of analysts' inbox, not payoffs. And the same happens to hundreds of software products marketed with non-open-source Ts&Cs. For example, I am currently preparing an article on the fastest growing 100 software companies in the U.S. None are household names among analysts, and I haven't found any yet that use open source Ts&Cs (conclusion pending completion of the research).

However I agree with your complaint that analysts have left a gap in terms of too much feature/function analysis (and market share comparisons) and not enough emphasis on holistic case studies that look at the total software life cycle. But I don't think that is an open source issue; it is true in terms of analyzing the entire software market.