This is my personal opinion, I don't claim it is correct or complete.
For me, the year 2002 is the first year which marked the downfall of Microsoft and the upsurge of Open Source and in particular Linux. This is the first year in which Microsoft realized they are starting to lose customers because of the myriad of security bugs in their software. In 2002 Microsoft tried the marketing trick called “Trustworthy computing” which in my humble opinion failed the same year – just check the number of security bugs in Microsoft products and the way Microsoft tries to downplay bugs [1]. This year for the first time I saw an increased number of non-professionals who show keen interest in Open Source as an alternative.
This year self proclaimed experts claimed Open Source is more expensive than the lame thingie called Windows. On the other hand Open Source scored quite well. This is the first year in which Linux became full desktop solution. According to [2] 60.54% of all the web servers run Apache against 28.89% for IIS as of November 2002. I notice increased usage of Linux in Europe and I am glad Linux has the support of the German Government [3]
In social plan, I am somewhat concerned that governments try to use the “terrorism paranoia” to steal rights from the citizens.
FAQ about this short review:
Q: (by a businessman) Linux can't exists cause developers must have money.
A: Linux does exist. The easiest way to check it to try Knoppix – www.knopper.net/knoppix – no hard disk required.
For 2003 I expect even more upsurge for Linux and Open Source.
Here are some informal awards for 2002:
Major windows (aka windoze) players:
Liu Die Yu - http://clik.to/liudieyu [China vs. Microsoft :) ]
http-equiv http://www.malware.com/
Major loser of the year:
Microsoft
All the best in 2003! E-card
Georgi Guninski
[1] Notes on MS02-068, extensive downplaying of severity
http://lists.netsys.com/pipermail/full-disclosure/2002-December/003246.html
[2] http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
[3] German Government Commissions KDE Groupware System
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/13/149225