From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: E-Commerce Times: Breaking News
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 00:47:00 -0700
Positive projections on Linux and Open Source from Ecommerce Times ...
John
BTW, here is the way the numbers spin out. That Linux, (at least as
far as valuations go,) would be down now is not new-in February, there
was a 70.7% chance that it would fall down within the next 4.3 months,
or so, (I can't remember the exact date I did that-the document is in
the old john.opensourcegroup.com machine.) However, what that means is
that there is a 70.7% chance that it will start to rise in no more
than 4.3 months. It will then have a 70.7% chance of being "up" for
4.3 months. So, multiplying the two together, there is a 50/50 chance
that it will be up 8.6 months from now, or about the first of the
year, or so.
Bear in mind that these are probabilities, and a 71% chance is not a
certainty.
Additionally, a 50/50 chance is a bad bet, (one can't make money
iterating a tossed coin game.) In this case, time is the enemy-waiting
longer than 4 months, and the risk of a sour market escalates.
Caveat: There are certain things that entropic theory does not include
into the consideration of such things-structural issues being the most
important. Early autumn is when crops come in, and futures in Chicago
can push, or pull money in the equity markets. (That is why, for more
than a millennia, most recessions occur in October-about 90% of them
since about 1100AD, or so-depending on who is telling the story, or
course.) At any rate, high entropy systems tend to be only marginally
stable, and tend to have a very pronounced sensitivity to such things,
(the technical name is phase locking.) On the other hand, the NLDS
folks that study such things claim that the earliest a significant
downturn could happen is late 2001, (and if not then, 2002,) and it
would be, (if it happens,) a contagion through the western industrial
countries, (they are basing this on "chaotic" phenomena, i.e.., phase
portraits.) A caveat for all kinds of worrying.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles2000/000502-1.shtml
--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/