Seen in Information Week: “My impression is that [SCO’s claim] is credible,” says Laura DiDio, a Yankee Group analyst who was shown the evidence by SCO Group earlier this week.
Who is this chick?
Here’s her bio, from the ITF2003 speaker list.
Laura DiDio, Senior Analyst, The Yankee Group
Laura DiDio is a senior analyst for the Yankee Group’s Application Infrastructure & Software Platforms Planning Service, which is closely aligned with the Enterprise Computing & Networking Planning Service. In this capacity, Ms. DiDio focuses on desktop and server operating systems, with a particular emphasis on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Active Directory, and Novell, Inc.’s NetWare. Additional areas of coverage are Web services platforms and standards including Microsoft’s emerging .NET services and the rival J2EE. She also covers the directory services arena and interoperability and migration issues associated with Active Directory, eDirectory, and Sun’s iPlanet, as well as desktop and server operating system security, software distribution, and third-party performance monitoring and management tools.
Ms. DiDio has covered client and server operating systems, directory services, and OS and NOS security for 15 years as an analyst, reporter, and editor. Prior to joining Yankee Group, she spent three and a half years at Giga Information Group, where she held a similar position. Before that she held various reporting positions at a number of computer networking industry trade publications including: Computerworld, Network World, Communications Week, LAN Times, and Digital Review. Ms. DiDio also worked as an investigative reporter for various broadcasting and print outlets including CNN and Channel 5 News in New York. Her investigative reports have also appeared in The Village Voice and The Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Laura DiDio holds a B.A. in Communications and a minor in French from Fordham University.
So, she’s a journalist who changed careers into an industry pundit. OK, I can accept that. Seems like a reasonable career change. But that does not make her a credible judge of the similarity of two bodies of Unix source code. I mean, as far as I can tell, she’s never written a line of code in her life. I think understanding code would be an important qualification to passing judgment on the similarity of two passages of code.
There are lots of sound-bites from her on the net, which is what you’d expect from someone in her line of work. I have not yet done a comprehensive review of them, but she seems to have the most expertise in Windows 2000 issues.
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