  I investigate the relationship between the gluon distribution obtained using
a dipole model fit to low-x data on F_2(x,Q^2) and standard gluons obtained
from global fits with the collinear factorization theorem at fixed order. I
stress the necessity to do fits of this type carefully, and in particular to
include the contribution from heavy flavours to the inclusive structure
function. I find that the dipole cross-section must be rather steeper than the
gluon distribution, which at least partially explains why dipole model fits
produce dipole cross-sections growing quite strongly at small x, while DGLAP
based fits have valence-like, or even negative, small-x gluons as inputs.
However, I also find that the gluon distributions obtained from the dipole fits
are much too small to match onto the conventional DGLAP gluons at high Q^2,
i.e. approx 50 GeV^2, where the two approaches should coincide. The main reason
for this discrepancy is found to be the large approximations made in converting
the dipole cross-sections into structure functions using formulae which are
designed only for asymptotically small x. The shortcomings in this step affect
the accuracy of the extracted dipole cross-sections in terms of size and shape,
and hence also in terms of interpretation, at all scales.
