Open Source More Expensive Says MS Report 465
doperative writes "Much conventional wisdom about programs written by volunteers is wrong. The authors took money for research from Microsoft, long the archenemy of the open-source movement — although they assure readers that the funds came with no strings attached. Free programs are not always cheaper. To be sure, the upfront cost of proprietary software is higher (although open-source programs are not always free). But companies that use such programs spend more on such things as learning to use them and making them work with other software"
My psychic prediction (Score:3, Insightful)
I predict that this report will be met with much skepticism on /.
I also predict that I will make the argument that open source really *isn't* always all it's cracked up to be--and be shouted down by many, many voices
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I will also predict that it'll be shown that Closed Source isn't much better in that regard...
Besides, anything that was bought and paid for by Microsoft has been shown to be stilted in their favor from start to finish. Special cases, that sort of thing. If you believe anything they've bankrolled as good information in your best interests you get what you deserve.
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Re:My psychic prediction (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago a large UK retailer upgraded their staff laptops to Windows XP. All the [laptop] staff went on "XP training". Changing to "what you know" doesn't necessarily mean no training costs; proves your point, and that was in use of WIndows itself - which I seem to always hear as touted as not needing any training when "upgrading".
Turning the table (Score:2)
Re:Turning the table (Score:5, Insightful)
And knowing open source also means that you know how to fix it when it breaks.
If Microsoft software breaks all you can do is pray and hope that it will be resolved in a future bug fix. A call to M$ support renders you a long wait on the phone where you can't do anything and finally a question if you have tried to reinstall, and if you have done it and have any kind of custom software in the vicinity then they can't help you.
So either you are putting in some hours to get in control or you give up control to Microsoft.
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Once you code a solution to your defect, the proposed fix still has to be submitted, and may not be accepted by the developers. This could continue on for months, or even years of never implementing your fix. The onus is on your org, then, to repeatedly merge in ch
And this is better than "no means to proceed" how? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, having found a problem, and then found a solution you have to maintain or share that solution. The horrors!
I non-open code you have the choice of paying potentially millions of dollars to get a fix from the vendor, and having paid that sum, you receive one fix once, with no promise that your fix will become part of the product line's subsequent release. So when that subsequent release is made and it _doesn't_ have your fix, you get to pay all that money _again_ even though they already know the problem and solution. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
With open source you don't have to "fork" just to retain the patch and reapply it, usually with virtually no effort since, if someone is working on the code you patched, they likely used your fix, something like your fix, or didn't touch the lines you patched in any meaningful way.
I have had a kernel patch to "smarten up" termios for years. I submitted it and it was rejected for reasons like "we are about to change that code anyway" and "someone might have written code that _uses_ the fact that you can end up blocking on a one-byte read, waiting for one byte to be received, despite the fact that there is more than one byte in the buffer".
With every subsequent release of the kernel I just apply the patch and move on. I didn't "fork the kernel" etc. Nothing ever so daunting.
It is an obvious truth that exploring an option and making use of an opportunity is _always_ more effort and "clear expense" then just throwing up ones hands and living with no choice in the matter.
The costs of surrender are always hidden, prorated, long term. [Ask the French, their defense against Germany was sabatoged, as it always was, by Belgium's habit of buckling like a belt when threatened no matter how much the promised to do their part as a key point in the defense of europe. Nobody blames Belgium for being the useless twits they always are, but to this day France takes a load of shit for their surrender once their entire north flank went for strudel.]
Agree with Microsoft? I suggest you read up on "Plays4Sure"... and every single "microsoft preferred partner" in history.
Re:Turning the table (Score:5, Insightful)
And knowing open source also means that you know how to fix it when it breaks.
First off, I am a professional software developer/entrepreneur and a big supporter of open source software and freedom. But the argument you bring here is the worst argument *for* open source. I work with Evolution in my professional life and it crashes on me quite often. (Not often enough to replace it, so I will continue using it.) Even that I am a programmer, I do not know how to fix it. Getting to know a moderately complex piece of software takes a lot of time and effort (and thus money), that I rather spend on working for my customers. They actually pay me for my work.
Otoh, I also purchased Novell Groupwise, combined with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (I thought it was a viable commercial Linux solution), and it is a lot worse than any do-it-yourself packages, so I guess closed source sucks too. Just in a different way.
Re:Turning the table (Score:5, Informative)
Even that I am a programmer, I do not know how to fix it.
I too spend much of my working life programming. It's really not that hard.
1) Download the source.
2) Compile with all debugging symbols and perhaps -fmudflaps
3) Run the program (with valgrind or mudflaps)
4) Go to the line number of the first error, and have a look.
Most of the crash causing errors are simple things, like uninitialised pointers. Some require some digging. But I have successfully fixed bugs and added fearures to a few projects and it's often not as hard as you might expect.
The modern tools available on any decent linux system are feally fantastic. Evil, nasty bugs like subtle memory corruption can be caught much, much more easily than before and therefore require much less in-depth knowledge to fix.
But for some reason, a number of high profile distributions don't have a package with the mudflaps helper files, even though they enable it in gcc.
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I am sure I would be able to figure it out. And I have made some additions and tips on open source projects. But, in general, fixing bugs that you encounter, while you are at work is not an option. It takes way too much time to figure things out and fix things.
The quote that the previous poster said, to wait for Microsoft to fix bugs, is just as true for open source projects. I am waiting for a bug to be fixed in Firefox, that is there since 2001 (!). I did try a shot on fixing it myself, but it would need
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As long as "all your other stuff" is also Microsoft junk.
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument is valid for certain cases. That said, the large majority of work I do has the same operational cost regardless of where we get the software. We still have to learn how it works, and integrate it into the system we're deploying.
A proprietary solution has merit if you don't have technical people and you depend on an external company. Take whatever solution they provide.
But out in the technology world proper, these things cost more upfront and probably take just as much work to integrate.
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if monetary costs are equal, F/OSS stuff may be a better business decision for the community.
Example - A college can pay $75k per year for an Angel or Blackboard license, and host it locally (or contract the hosting out to Angel/BB). Or, they can adopt a F/OSS solution like Sakai, and instead of paying $75k/yr to a corporation outside of the area they can pay $75k/yr for a programmer to maintain and enhance Sakai for their needs. Dollar costs are the same. However, by hiring the programmer, that improves the local economy and keeps that money local, as opposed to sending it out of area/out of state/etc.
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One of the reasons my former CIO is my former CIO (I left, he's still trashing the place) was a conversation about ESBs.
He said we wouldn't look at Mule because it was OSS and "you know you can't get any support for open source."
Some people may never get it.
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It's not about support, it's about blame.
He isn't asking "who can I get OSS support from" he is really asking "who do I blame if OSS goes wrong".
My psychic prediction is that you've instantaneously found the same problem I did, or as a discussion with an CFO in an old company went:
CFO: But who do we sue of it goes wrong?
ME: Who do we sue when Microsoft products go wrong?
CFO: Microsoft.
ME:
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No, because you're not breaking anything just so you can pay to fix it - it's money that's going to be spent either way, and when you spend it "locally," you get the advantage of the software being tailored to meet your needs at no extra cost (assuming, in the example, you're paying $75k either way).
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Also, it helps to know if the programmer you wish to breed is hot.
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A hot programmer
Now there is a fallacy...
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A proprietary solution has merit if you don't have technical people and you depend on an external company.
If all other factors are the same, then an open source solution means that multiple companies can compete on an equal footing to provide you this service, without your being locked in, so is cheaper in the long run. In the real world, all other things are not equal, so any general claim about open or proprietary solutions is likely to be wrong in your specific case.
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A proprietary solution does not necessarily have merit if you depend on an external company, it depends on the skills provided by that external company. The problem is that external company will have their own interests at heart, and that will mean providing you whatever setup brings them the most profit rather than the one that best suits your needs.
However if you are a company that provides support to others in this way, it makes a LOT of sense for you to start moving towards open source... If all your do
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's look at this from a different viewpoint: If you are already using open source and have already put in place all the systems, scripts, custom software, etc. to run your business, how much more expensive would it be to switch to a Microsoft solution with all the same functionality?
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:5, Funny)
I predict that this report will be met with much skepticism on /.
I also predict that I will make the argument that open source really *isn't* always all it's cracked up to be--and be shouted down by many, many voices
You'd have to, you know, actually make such an argument first. We don't always have time for shouting down non-existent arguments, only bad ones. The world awaits.
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So what you're saying is that instead of making that good argument that you imply you have, you're just going to jump right to being a self-stylized martyr for truth. I predict you won't be the last to do this (which is cheating - this behavior always shows up in any OSS TCO thread).
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"For anyone who thought the open source movement was a passing fancy, this is the book to read. Written by two experts in innovation and patent policy, it presents important evidence on the scope and complexity of how firms and public authorit
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Well I would say you are mostly correct, however I will say that I agree with this premise of this report and therefore will reply to your comment :)
I do not have much experience in the field, so people may argue the finer points, but for many large scale implementations of software at a corporate level, free is not always better. This is not an example of where I worked, but lets take a company like Siemens, who provides the Teamcenter software. Now pair that with Boeing... (to my knowledge) they use thi
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I predict that this report will be met with much skepticism on /.
Of course it will. And it should be. Microsoft has a long history of animosity towards open source software. That doesn't mean that they can't fund a genuinely objective study... But there's a good chance that things are going to be biased.
I also predict that I will make the argument that open source really *isn't* always all it's cracked up to be
Software is a tool. Nothing more or less. You need to use the right tool for the job. Sometimes the best tool is open source, sometimes it isn't.
and be shouted down by many, many voices
Probably. Slashdot has a long history of animosity towards closed source software, and Microsoft in specific.
Article is probably accurate. (Score:2)
Thus, the article acknowledges that the use of open source is cheaper in some circumstances -- but what proportion? The article doesn't elaborate. It could be 1%, it could be 99%.
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Nah, you're entitled to your opinion. I'll agree that OSS isn't what most people herald it to be, its just software. Unless you plan on Forking it or adding onto it yourself, the open source part of it makes no difference in how it really operates. The OS community hasn't been any better or worse for customer support, in my experience.
I have tried using Blender for 3D modelling, after using some Autodesk products.
I like the price, but I can't actually do anything that I want to do with it, and its not a mat
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there some particular reason you trust any statement on open source that comes from Microsoft, considering it's long track record of animosity?
At any rate, it depends on the software in question, much like proprietary closed source software. In some cases with some products one side has an advantage, and in some cases the other side has an advantage. Working in a world where I deal with both closed source software (Windows+AD+Exchange) and open source software (LAMP servers, Samba) I have to say that there are aspects of both that cause me grief, and aspects of both that work well. At the end of the day, my level of competence is sufficient that issues of long-term licensing costs, particularly as far as upgrading to new versions goes, that in some areas open source clearly wins the day. However, in other regards, Active Directory, particular as far as Group Policies goes, does indeed have a clear management advantage that cannot easily be duplicated in open source. So I'd say, at the end of the day, large generalized statements like "open source more expensive" is clearly an invalid statement.
And I'll return to the fact that Microsoft paid for this. Microsoft's long history in regards to open source means I pretty much ignore anything Redmond or its mouthpieces have to say on it. I wouldn't ask a Microsoft rep or anyone given a nickel by Microsoft about the costs of software.
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Is there some particular reason you trust any statement on open source that comes from Microsoft, considering it's long track record of animosity?
While the argument they present is not without merit -- who among us has not wasted time that could have been saved if some FOSS project or other had decent documentation? -- I have to wonder why anyone bothers publishing any study funded by a party that has a vested interest in the results. Even if the researchers are scrupulously honest and the research itself is done with extraordinary care and rigor, no one will trust the results.
Knowing this, as they must if they are not completely clueless, one has to
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Let's put it this way. I don't know a lot of out-and-out FOSS fanatics. There are some who will paper over the difficulties, but most folks admit open source isn't the be-all and end-all.
At the same time, Microsoft's history against open source, with all manner of dirty tricks, is sufficiently well known that I don't think it's unfair to say that if they fund a study, that study by its very definition is tainted. Any academic who takes money from Redmond is, unfortunately, going to be questioned over the
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I think the general climate of
Of course Microsoft cannot be trusted to present a fair comparison between the t
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:4, Interesting)
I've heard it said that Open Source is only free if your time has no value.
It has been quite painful to get Ubuntu working on my netbook. Same with kub and mint; they're just not playing nice at all.
Out of the box, the Fn keys don't work and jam the keyboard. That's a relatively easy fix though, just editing a few files. The problem is that the OS doesn't send the release signal to the Fn key combo for some reason.
I have to use the .27 kernel if I want the wireless to work because some idiot thought that putting random values in the driver would work. I don't know, did that get tested? I can't see how. I can also rmmod and modprobe the ath9k driver and that fixes it.
Screen brightness control doesn't work. At least not with the .27 kernel, so I have to choose between being not able to use my computer because I can't see the screen or being not able to use the computer because I can't connect to the Internet.
The kernel doesn't recognize the new line of synaptics touchpads, and because one guy said there was a workaround (which doesn't work) there's no more work being done on the bug. It's a multi-touch side and bottom scrolling pad that identifies as a generic PS/2 mouse.
All of those things worked flawlessly on Win7.
Re:My psychic prediction (Score:4, Interesting)
If you assume that you will spend more time getting OSS to work than POS, you might have a point.
Last time I tried to use Windows 7, I ended up with my 6 month old laptop tied up for hours doing "updates" that Linux or MacOS could have done in the background while I was doing other stuff.
My time is worth quite a bit, I refuse to pay companies to waste it.
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Other than possibly the support part, none of what you said really has to do with open source.
Actually, that fits Microsoft far more than open source. One of my pet peeves with Microsoft is that every software upgrade requires some amount of retraining, and has been LOTS of retraining.
Back in the late '90s we went from Corel to Microsoft. I had to use spreadsheets quite a bit, so the move to MS naturally meant I needed training in Lotus. No sooner had my employer paid for training they upgraded to the newe
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For graphic or web designers or whatever, it's probably closer to 10% of the time they could use Linux, because the tools aren't there, and most people know this. (And hence people will argue against a strawman 'GIMP is nowhere near photoshop'...we know that.)
Then what you "know" is wrong. GIMP is perfectly adequate for any kind of graphics that ever crosses HTTP protocol. It's not our (open source developers') problem that most "web designers" are ignorant, and never heard anything about any software that is not either a marketing brochure or readme file for a keygen.
Yeah...suuuurrrrre.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The authors took money for research from Microsoft, long the arch- enemy of the open-source movement-- although they assure readers that the funds came with no strings attached
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! THERE IS ONLY ZUUL!
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Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! THERE IS ONLY ZUUL!
Lucky for us there's only one Zune too ;-)
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In a similar report sponsored by Boris Badenov, it has been reported that Baden is Gooden now. Additionally, one of the more effective ways to save money is to kill moose and squirrel.
Don't forget to RTFA. (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA is even worse than that with their usage of weasel-words.
Pay particular attention to the "not always" in that statement. If only ONE "open-source" app is more expensive than a SINGLE closed source app then their statement is true.
Useless, but true.
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And we can all be absolutely certain that all future research contracts this group will get from Microsoft will also come with no strings attached and will be entirely unrelated to the results of the current contract. Yessir!
Company says products are a good deal and useful! (Score:2)
I'm shocked! SHOCKED I SAY!
"Took money from Microsoft" = FAIL (Score:2)
Right out of the gate.
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Indeed.
I love the supposition that closed source stuff is all "easier to learn" which isn't the case any more than open source stuff is all the opposite.
Re:"Took money from Microsoft" = FAIL (Score:4, Interesting)
They assume that you've already invested in training employees to use MS products. On top of that MS saves a lot of money when interfacing with other systems and software as you pay them to do all that for you instead of you having to figure out how to do it on your own. All have to do is pay for all your licenses and support instead of having to install free software and hire people that have brains to set it up for you. Using their figures this save you tens of thousands of dollars.
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Generally the company doesn't have to invest in training employees though, because most people are taught MS systems in school, and some even at University. I purposely didn't take "IT" classes in high school because they were just "how to use MS Office". Then I ended up being required to do basically the same course at University as part of my CS degree. It was pretty disappointing.
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Oh, no...they have to CONSTANTLY train people on Windows stuff, contrary to popular belief to the otherwise. MS changes up their stuff regularly enough to keep people that might draw a bead on their stuff at bay and to give reasons for people to "upgrade" to the newest stuff (If you think the ribbon interface to things is "easier", didn't need training, was needed to improve their products, etc. I have some nice swampland to sell you...). It amazes me to no end that people keep believing that it's "easy"
making them work with other software (Score:5, Insightful)
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They mean that everything in Windows uses the Microsoft Word .doc format, spreadsheets format, and the clipboard to get everything to exchange data. From that viewpoint, trying to not use those formats is just trying to make life difficult for yourself.
TCO Fud (Score:4, Insightful)
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Papal TCO _is_ much higher than supporting Bill Gates.
Well, duh. (Score:2)
One of the reasons to get something with source code is that you need to customize it, because there is no off-the-shelf solution that does what you want. So instead of writing your own completely from scratch, you start with something at least reasonably close to what you want.
If you're using commercial software, it's because the commercial software did what you needed out of the box; if it didn't, you couldn't use it, because you can't make it do what you need it to do.
This is not surprising.
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Right.
You only have three options when there isn't a ready made solution for your requirements.
Conform your requirements to the available proprietary software, develop it from scratch, or build on the work of an existing near solution.
One of these things is not like the others.
One of these things is not the same.
One of these things means you don't meet your original requirements and you have to deliver something that is less than what is asked wanted.
disingenuous? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Out of context (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Out of context (Score:5, Insightful)
To be perfectly fair, almost no one is going to read the article for a topic like this, and the editors know it. They can just pick any study that MS had any financial input in, and that favors them (in any degree), publish a link, make sweeping claims, so they are simply feeding the fanboys and trolls. These types of articles are never insightful anyway, and most users here have better information about this topic than the authors of the articles. No one on the planet has ever switched platforms because of the contents of these types of articles.
Before we jump over this (Score:2)
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When corporations make bulk purchases of hardware for new projects, they would have to factor in the following:
Purchase of new equipment + software
Installation of add-ons like E-mail and word-processing apps
Integration into the existing system network
Development and porting of existing in-house applications
Administration staff + training courses
Users + (re)training courses
Workflow performance
Power consumption
You could be a start-up company with half-price hardware, but if you tried to make a profit from exp
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Regardless of what he said. It is reasonable to assume that not all open source software are cheaper to run on the long run than their propriety equivalent.
Sure. But this is hardly revolutionary or worthy of yet another book. We know that everything has costs and the overall cost of something is not always represented in an up-front price tag - software is no different. Where this conversation tends to get misleading is that not every cost is always considered and individuals with an axe to grind tend to limit the conversation to "free" being about licensing costs. This is old ground that's been trodden many times before.
Microsoft is high ... on my "Screw You!" list (Score:3, Interesting)
{sarcasm}Yeah, having a company around that maintains and tests their products for compatibility is always better than having to do it yourself.{/sarcasm}
I do software development for a small company, we have a mix of tools in our environment.
Recently, my development workstation was upgraded from an old Windows XP desktop to a late model Windows 7 desktop.
Microsoft Visual Studio versions from a few years ago complain of compatibility issues and some need to be run in "XP compatibility" mode to function. "Would you like to check for compatibility updates online?" - Yes, I would. Fancy that, there aren't any.
ActiveState Perl and Python development environments and my HTML editor-of-choice VIM all function with no oddness at all.
THIS is why the first paragraph gets sarcasm tags.
Learning to use and making it work (Score:5, Funny)
It's a good thing Microsoft places so much value on keeping the user experience the same across its various upgrades. Certainly a user of Microsoft Office didn't have to change their mannerisms when they switched from Office 2003 to Office 2007's "ribbon".
Certainly, all of my XP habits still apply to Windows 7's Aero. None of the functionality has moved around in the slightest.
And it's also a good thing Microsoft places a lot of value on interoperability. Certainly they have never seen an incompatibility that prevents Active Directory from working with other LDAP solutions. Or certain Windows code that creates spurious error messages when run on a competitor's version of DOS.
I give Microsoft all the credit it deserves for making reports like the possible.
--Joe
Re:Learning to use and making it work (Score:4, Interesting)
Certainly a user of Microsoft Office didn't have to change their mannerisms when they switched from Office 2003 to Office 2007's "ribbon".
Heh, hit a nerve there. My company is switching from 2003 to 2010 and we all sort of sit around Googling all day to unwind the ribbon. It's not that the ribbon is so bad, but the built-in help is horrendous. How hard would it have been to have a help section geared towards showing you how the old way translates into the new way? Maybe something as simple as a mock-up of the old interface, where when you select something it shows you how to do it the new way?
Or favorite Ribbon fuck-up so far: to copy-as-picture in Excel, you select the sub-menu on the PASTE button, then select "As Picture", and then "Copy". Yes, that's right... in their fancy new interface they make you Copy by clicking on Paste! I would PAY to talk to an engineer that had to sit through the conclusion of that meeting :)
Farm report just in (Score:5, Funny)
Chickens taste better, say panel of cows.
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Chickens don't taste like anything. And so if tasting like "nothing and everything" is "better" then ... yeah you're right.
Learning to use them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny. My wife's office recently upgraded from Office 2003 to a more recent release.
How do I know?
The first day it was on her computer, the conversation at home went something like this:
Her: "What the FUCK! The fuckheads in IT gave some new bullshit version of Word on my fucking computer and it is completely fucking different. I spent like a fucking hour trying to find how to do "X". Where the fuck are my fucking toolbars? There is this new bullshit toolbar that is completely useless." ... continue 15 minute profanity laced tirade...
Me: "It's called the 'ribbon'."
Her: "Whatever the fuck it is called it is fucking stupid. And what the fuck is this 'docx' bullshit?"
Companies spend more money on learning how to use open source? The three-year quota on profanity that my wife used up in a day says otherwise.
Re:Learning to use them? (Score:4, Informative)
The Office 2003 upgrade issue is something I'm dealing with with a few of my clients. Some employees have a newer version at home and are OK with the thought of upgrading but the owners are dead set against learning "the ribbon thing".
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Thank you for the chuckle. I went through the exact same issue several months ago when IT "upgraded" me to Office 07. Suddenly, I couldn't find all the stuff that I needed, and I had deadlines to meet. Simple things like "Freeze Panes", moved for no apparent reason. Now that I've used it for a few months, I do like some of the newer features, but it seems that MS changed so many things for no reason other than to change them.
Bad Headline (Score:2)
The closest the article comes to saying this is "that free programs are not always cheaper". Headlining it as "Open Source More Expensive Says MS" is pretty disingenuous.
*sigh* (Score:3)
One of my favorite quotes of all time summed it up nicely. I forgot it exactly and I can't find it now, but it was something along the lines of
If they're going to put scare quotes around "free" they should do the same for commercial software because you don't really "own" it.
Raving OS opponents report: OS more expensive.... (Score:2)
Not even Houdini.... (Score:2)
The real trick to software uptake is usability. If you can take a complex solution and make it a breeze to use you've got a win. The problem with a lot of the free software out there is the focus on "making it work" instead of "making it pretty"
If you have an application that takes a bit of configuration to get it right, grandma would rather press some buttons and fill in some text areas. Hiding options in config files or cli switches is not the way to go. Unfortunately, theres plenty of software out there
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The problem with a lot of the free software out there is the focus on "making it work" instead of "making it pretty"
True. But that's a problem if you are trying to sell your app to the PHB instead of the users and/or support staff. CLI or file configuration is preferred by many administrators, who just write shell scripts or push out files to multiple installations. Grandma is a different market and one that Microsoft can have.
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Usability differs for different tasks. For some tasks, I WANT a program that utilizes "cli switches" so that I can use a script to automate it. Likewise, storing configuration information in a "config file" allows me to easily back up that configuration as well as inspect it if something goes wrong. I make a backup copy of important config files before I edit them so I can get back to a working configuration by overwriting the config file with its backup if^H^H when I screw something up.
You can't say any
Yeah, closed source is waaayy better (Score:4, Informative)
Users given new software need training, shock! (Score:3)
In related news... (Score:2)
Inaccurate summary? (Score:2)
This is merely one writer's take on the book, 'The Comingled Code'. I would recommend instead to read the book before we get all uppity. It's true they received funding from Microsoft, but I would like to know who else funded them. From the book's homepage, it seems quite a few people are happy with their work, including this guy from Google:
“Unlike much of the writing on open source versus proprietary software, this book offers factual evidence, careful analysis, and evenhanded discussion, while avoiding unsupported opinions, hyperbole, and exaggeration. Everyone who is concerned with open source will want to read this book.”
—Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google
The writer at the Economist seems to have a bone to pick with Open Source, regardless:
"Yet the finding that open-source advocates will like least is that free programs are not always cheaper. To be sure, the upfront cost of proprietary software is higher (although open-source programs are not always free). But companies that use such programs spend more on such things as learning to use them and making them work with other software."
Anyone experienced an implementation of new software, Open Source or not, where th
News? (Score:2)
I agree (Score:3)
As a Windows/Linux/Mac/Unix sysadmin... (Score:2)
Red Herring (Score:2)
Of course you still need IT staff to manage it, pay for a computer to install it upon, and all the other fun stuff. Just because it's Open Source doesn't mean Joe Sixpack can suddenly administer a server - duh.
Having said that, experience has shown th
Why fuel the Microsoft pandering... (Score:2)
Why fuel the Microsoft pandering by "legitimizing" the said "report" with anti arguments?
Microsoft does not matter and they haven't for a very long time and the sooner we stop affix relevance to them the better.
and oh... think about it before you mod and/or reply.
Seriously not a flame bait... hoping more of an anti flame bait.
piracy and externalizing costs (Score:2)
here are some hints... (Score:2)
But companies that use such programs spend more on such things as learning to use them
That's sometimes the case; in the long run, training and learning costs are almost always lower than for equivalent Microsoft software however. Microsoft keeps changing its interfaces so that marketing and sales can squeeze out a new version, and that gets really expensive in the long run. Many companies have been refusing to upgrade Windows and Office because of that, only to be forced to do so eventually.
and making the
Strings attached or no. . . (Score:2)
Would we be hearing about this report if it hadn't come out with a conclusion favorable to its funders? Doubtful.
TFS vs ... (Score:3)
Not sure (Score:3)
I'm not sure why this keeps coming up. In some cases proprietary software is better. In other cases open source software might be better. You can site a hundred cases for each that involve the initial environment, costs, goals, etc. Each company should look at open source to see if it can meet their needs. Sometimes it's better to pay Microsoft than it is to hire a contract programmer to fire-and-forget customize your product. Perhaps you have some great in-house talent already and they can customize and maintain your projects.
Anyway, to say one is cheaper than the other doesn't mean anything as a blanket statement.
discounting the roll-over effect (Score:3)
On a real IT planet, you have a problem, you solve the problem, you deploy the solution, tweak it until it works forever, and then you move to the next cycle. File servers are yesterday's news. Should there be any cost there over and above electricity and depreciation? Yes, I know I'm exaggerating a bit, there also has to be a massive restructuring of middle management every time disk drive technology breaks through another BIOS barrier. On a real IT planet, BIOS barriers are not revisited in living memory.
In economics, there is this problem about the reference basket for measuring the inflation rate. Sometimes you have to update the reference basket.
I think Microsoft is partly pulling off the funny math by ignoring the fact that if you stick with open source, your reference basket updates more quickly as things you used to pay for become to cheap to meter.
For the high churn technology that isn't yet too cheap to meter (and Microsoft dearly hopes this day never arrives) the cost of integration within an open source culture is non trivial, but it comes along with the agenda of eliminating the problem forever, not just persisting with the bleed and weep status quo, turning it over with one low low low small-bite-out-of-your-ass monthly payment until the end of time.
With the basket of goods thing, an idiot can mount a persuasive case that the cost of living in 2010 exceeds the cost of living in real terms in 1970, by placing zero value on any of the goods that couldn't be bought back then for any price. This would be done by focusing on the cost of energy which has gone up (maybe back date this to 1968), rather than what you can now do with the same unit of energy (talk on the phone to Asia for a whole tank of gas, and not owe the phone company a kilo of coke).
Holding Small Businesses (Score:3)
I'll say it again (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The lingering saying about open source (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet the same applies to many of Microsoft's products. I have yet to do a major upgrade in server software without some pretty big hangups and issues, uninstalling certain software just to make sure the upgrade succeeds. These problems do not go away just because you paid $1000 for the base software and $5000 in CALs.
The problem I so often have with these claims is they seem to mistake ease of installation with the actual maintenance of the software. You betcha that Exchange is a lot easier to install than any potential open source solution. But maintenance over time? I've had more issues over the last five years with my Exchange server than I've had with the Postfix server I run, which only really gets kicked when I need to do upgrades. The thing just keeps humming, chewing up significantly less resources, thus requiring less expensive hardware, licensing-wise being much much much much much much cheaper, so I'd say that while I had my upsets getting Postfix going, if we're going on man hours, it's been far cheaper than Exchange.
Another good example is VPN. I reviewed a number of VPN solutions; Cisco, 3Com, Microsoft, and had assorted issues from stability to cost, and at the end of the day picked OpenVPN, which is secure, rock solid, and all in all pretty damned easy to configure. The people who, I suspect, would have problems with something like OpenVPN would be admins who sit completely within the Microsoft ecology, taking the courses, getting their MCSEs (or whatever its called these days), and thus having avoided as much as possible notions like text editors and command line tools, having drunken the kool-aid on "ease of use" to the point where the ease makes them almost useless at working on other platforms.
I'm not saying that things don't have their places. I'm fully cognizant of the fact that there are are areas where Microsoft is superior, certainly other groupware solutions, both closed and open source, are not the equal of Exchange+Outlook, though to be honest that's more a user ease-of-use issue than an admins. I think one needs to be pragmatic, but saying "open source is inferior" is just plain inaccurate. It certainly is true in some cases, but not in all. The worst part of living in a Microsoft world to my mind is that they've produced a legion of intellectually crippled sysadmins, who view competing products like Unix with either derision or fear, often times not realizing how inferior Microsoft is in some areas. This is clearly Microsoft's intent, to control the kinds of admins that get into any shop.
Re: (Score:3)
The worst part of living in a Microsoft world to my mind is that they've produced a legion of intellectually crippled sysadmins, who view competing products like Unix with either derision or fear, often times not realizing how inferior Microsoft is in some areas.
Indeed, i have to deal with people like this every day... The problem is that smart competent people will evaluate multiple options and pick the one that best suits their needs, but people doing this would result in lost business for MS. So they would rather have an army of clueless drones that will accept what they're given and not try to think for themselves.
The problem I so often have with these claims is they seem to mistake ease of installation with the actual maintenance of the software.
Indeed, and monkey can get a windows based network up and basically hobbling along, and this is what their marketing concentrates on...
In many cases,