In the computer software industry, (and by extension, those which are connected with it) FUD is an abbreviation for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

Definition

FUD was first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products." (quoted in [1])

Eric S. Raymond speaks more about this in [1]:

"The idea, of course, was to persuade buyers to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. After 1991 the term has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon."

Opponents of certain large computer corporations state that the spreading of fear, uncertainty, and doubt is an unethical marketing technique that these corporations consciously employ.

By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well-known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its wares, regardless of the relative technical merits. This is a recognised phenomenon, epitomised by the traditional axiom of purchasing agents that "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" equipment. The result is that many companies' IT departments buy software which they know to be technically inferior because upper management is more likely to recognize the brand.

Recent developments

Although once it was usually attributed to IBM, in the 1990s and later the term became most often associated with industry giant Microsoft. The Halloween documents (leaked internal Microsoft documents whose authenticity was verified by the company) use the term FUD to describe a potential tactic, as in "OSS is long-term credible ... [therefore] FUD tactics can not be used to combat it." [2] More recently, Microsoft has issued statements about the "viral nature" of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which Open Source proponents purport to be FUD. Microsoft's statements are often directed at the GNU/Linux community in particular, to discourage widespread Linux adoption, which could hurt Microsoft's marketshare .

The SCO Group's 2003 lawsuit against IBM, claiming intellectual property infringements by the open source community, is also regarded by some as being an attempt at spreading FUD, especially about Linux. IBM directly alleged in its counterclaim to SCO's suit that SCO is spreading FUD [3].

FUD can be used to offhandedly 'smear' criticism or legitimate debate, even in cases where the allegations are without merit or are merely implied; this tactic is often used in cases where the initial publicity surrounding claims of FUD is likely to vastly overshadow any subequent retraction. Such an arbitrary usage is a general type of logical fallacy known as Ad hominem circumstantial.

Footnotes

1. Raymond, Eric S. The Jargon File: FUD. [1] (http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/FUD.html)
2. Open Source Initiative. Halloween I: Open Source Software (New?) Development Methodology [2] (http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.php#quote4)
3. The SCO Group v IBM - answer to amended complaint and counterclaims (Undecided, US District Court - Utah, Kimball J, filed 6 August 2004) Section E, paragraph 22 [3] (http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Doc-27.pdf)

External links and references

• FUD (http://www.cavcomp.demon.co.uk/halloween/fuddef.html) or the original page on the Internet Archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20020611090853/%68ttp://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hills/9267/fuddef.html)
• The FUD FAQ (http://fud-counter.nl.linux.org/fud-faq.html), particularly as applied to the Linux operating system and the modern-day open source software movement.
• This article or an earlier version of it came from the Jargon File.