A Clearinghouse for Linux Market Data?

avdi asks: "Every day we see stories on this site and others about how another movie studio is using Linux for production, another Fortune 500 company has switched to Linux to support their infrastructure, another local or national government has mandated use of Open Source technology, or another major vendor has begun marketing a Linux-based product line. Clearly Linux, Open Source, and Free Software has arrived, and in some areas is marching towards dominance. Yet deep in the beige-walled cubicles of the biggest corporations, where Nobody Ever Got Fired for Buying Microsoft (or Sun, or...) the people who make technology decisions have yet to hear of it. In the land of BigCo, Open Source technologies have an artificially low profile due to the insularity of the corporate culture, the marketing budgets of vendors, and are often viewed as risky, untested curiosities. Is anyone out there gathering all the success stories together in an up-to-date, management-readable format? Is anyone collecting hard data on the number of major companies which have trusted mission-critical systems to Linux, the number of vendors who have invested a significant amount in Open Source-based product lines, the amounts saved by various departments which have migrated from proprietary to Free software? Where does one go when researching data in order to sell management on Linux or some other Free Software solution?"

Comments

short and long answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Short: No.

Long: DIY.

For one...

[Otter]

Red Hat's inventory of case studies and whatnot

I'm sure all the other major Linux businesses have similar archives.

A problem for "smallcos" too - can you help?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a timely Ask Slash question. I'm on the board of my smallish local library (3 million USD budget, about 40 employees). When I ask about proprietary licenses and fees, I hear that they are expensive and "killing us" and there are all kinds of software stability problems. But when I suggest free software as an alternative, all I get back from the other board members/director are "does not compute" looks. They've never heard of it. Or if they have heard of it, it's too complex, new, etc. for them to even consider in their busy worlds. How does one get the un-linuxed to the knowledge land? Ask Redhat or somebody to come in and do a demo? (I'll probably do a destop distro demo for them myself pretty soon). But if anyone has any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate your insights. Thanks!

Re:A problem for "smallcos" too - can you help?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just inventory what their needs are, grab the stuff onto your demo system and then go in and show them everything.
Make it a special event so they know they're in for a show.
Give them handouts with screenshots so they can see each application.
Even give them an intro to Freshmeat & SourceForge.
Finally point out how Open Source (and its ilk) tends to be more standards compliant and evolutionary than MicroSoft.
And I guess you'd have to include a page to discuss OS licensing.

Just be careful as to whether or not you invite Stallman. That could be a deal killer.

Re:A problem for "smallcos" too - can you help?

[matthewyoung]

You might want to look at this library system that is GNU.
Koha

Re:A problem for "smallcos" too - can you help?

[PeterClark]

I would also encourage you to go to your local LUG (if you've got one) and ask for a couple of knowledgable people to volunteer their time. Bring them and a spare computer to the next board meeting and do a presentation. Make the point that you have both local (the LUG) and international support for free software that will save them a bundle, starting right now.
:Peter

Re:A problem for "smallcos" too - can you help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Peter, I'm the original poster. Thanks, I agree with your suggestion, but we have no local LUG in this community - the nearest one is probably 150 miles away. I'm going to have to start one myself.

Thanks to the others who posted also - I had lost track of that koha site - thanks...

I think your missing the big picture.

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

VB, vbscript, .net, InterDev, asp, SQL and IIS are all things that you have a ready surpus of cheaper workers. Not like JavaScript, php, mysql, Linux, Mono, etc..etc..

I can find 40 low to middle end developers at the drop of a hat, good or bad on the cheap and quick.

That is the #1 problem with open source, it has not reached critical mass for there to be a huge amount of cheap programers. Yes there are many out there, but in now means the numbers that microsoft has.

If you could hire 5 php/mysql/mono programmers and a project manager in less than a week and pay under 250k a year for all of them that is when you will get the corporate world to stand up and notice. Pluse keep in mind that the person looking for these people is going to need to understand what they hell he is trying to find. Until then, it is not cost effective or easy to do even if the OS and software is free.

Re:I think your missing the big picture.

[perlchild]

But then the commercial model for those who don't believe in "free-as-in-beer" software collapses...
The whole idea is to pay for what you use. Since most Open Source makes you pay for the knowledge, instead of for the "Right to use" those people SHOULD stay more expensive than the "per license" seat specialists...
In fact... it only makes sense, in a market economy, that if a customer has X money for a project, and you reduce costs, it ends up partly in the pockets of the people who help you save that money... Otherwise they'll go save money... for someone else...

--
Being a cheapskate does not pay
Not paying for more than you need/use does...
PHBs seldom seem to understand that

I had gathered all the success stories

[ReidMaynard]

then I got drunk and lost them...

That's pure FUD

[Gerry Gleason]

We heard the same thing in the '80s when UNIX vendors were virtually taking over the mid-range computing platforms and all the second tier players with proprietary OSs were dropping like flies. The skills are there if you need them, particularly in this down market. Further, there are lots of consulting firms that would jump at any new OS business.

Give me 8 people who can navigate a Linux distribution and have decent systems and programming skills, and I'll beat those 40 low to middle end developers that you hired at a drop of a hat. It is not unusual to find that productivity varies by a factor of 10 to 100 in typical group of programmers, so it means nothing to say that you can find N people with X skill.

Further, I claim that OS programming languages and environments are more standards compliant than all the crap MS is peddling, and any quality systems architect will put a big emphasis on designing with well established open standards. Investment in software systems is always a long term deal, and the only way to protect that investment is by sticking with standards that do not depend on the success of a particular vendor.

Re:That's pure FUD

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

I think you proved my point, and or I did not get my point across.

At no point did I say the 40 would be better than say your 8. What I did say it that you have people in the upper management that are making the picks and they see a big pool of cheap labor. Easy to find Labor and project managers that are use to working with Microsoft products.

You give me a unix project manager worth his salt, and 8 programers worth there salt and hell yea it is going to be better than low to mid level microsoft programers. No kidding....My point it they are harder to find and hire quickly. When all they corporation knows is microsoft, and all the managers know is microsoft you have a hard road to travel. Period.

Your not addressing my point which is that Microsoft is established up the food chain in US corps. Linux is not. Change is not greeted with open arms until you can prove before you do it that it will work, fast, and cheaper than what you have moving forward. This is not easy to do and you have servers already in place with everything they need on it already. To do a project like that you would need new servers, someone with the knowledge to do it etc..etc.. Why do that when I can leverage what I have, not hire more people or use people from a different project.

It is not all about dollars bud, it is about using what you have and trust in house already and change.

short story...they use what they have and know.

Had to fight that if you have not ground level working knowledge of something outside of the system admin and a couple of your star programmers asking for it.

Sorry your arguement is valid it jsut does not address my point.

Re:That's pure FUD

[Gerry Gleason]

So, your point is that the managers at most companies are stupid? I'll buy that to a point, but eventually people do wise up.

I also dispute your point about the position of MS on the 'food chain'. MS development environments and tools have never been all that significant when organizations plan and implement 'enterprise' class systems to their own specifications. Sure, if you are slapping something together to scratch an itch ..., but if you are really going to spend some bucks on a project that has to deliver value over a number of years, your going to worry about standards and protecting the investment.

I know that a lot of projects, particularly in small or mid-sized companies, just get thrown together and nobody ever thinks about the long-term, but these are time bombs for any organization that has them. Eventually somebody gets burned. If I had to guess, I would say this is as much a source of the growing anti-MS sentiment as the apparent low priority the MS puts on security related problems. Managers don't have to fully understand this the way I am explaining it to know that they have been screwed by using MS tools for critical systems.

WRT the question posed, I think it is just as important to build the database with negative cases where organizations are hurt because they didn't protect their future by using open standards. It is the only way to ensure you will have migration paths and good choices available down the road.

Re:That's pure FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a few datapoints, because I'm doing this.

+ With the market the way it is, it's easy to find good MS people that are cheap. Forget the 40 guys, and weed through resumes until you find the 8 you want.

+ Overall, the LAMP guys aren't any better than the VB/ASP/MSSQL guys. While the skillsets differ, the percentage of hacks is roughly the same in both groups. And trust me, there's plenty of not-so-good LAMP people on the market, and the 'best practices' among much of that crowd is woeful. Anyway, I could put a link in my slashdot sig and have 40 junior LAMP coders hired by next week.

So overall, I agree with your point, with the addition that there's not enough benefit from LAMP that you'd want to 'switch', unlike with, say, J2EE for certain apps.

Re:FP is for NINNLE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool dudes need NINNLE!

Three Letters....

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM
http://www.ibm.com/linux

where is your library?

[timothy]

150 miles from anywhere? :)

A couple of suggestions:

1) Triage :) -- that is, figure out exactly what software licenses are killing you that actually are disposable. If you're running a proprietary library-running application that you can't easily replace, that might have to stick around for a bit. But if you're using Microsoft Office for memos and printing out bulletin-board items, OpenOffice.org (even with the ever-present quirks) might be a chink where free software can save you money. In many (schools / companies / organizations of all kinds), there are *some* computers used for the hard-to-replace stuff, and some on which Windows (for instance) is only there because no one has thought that a computer could *not* have Windows on it.

If you have any net-browsing terminals in the library, for instance, what OS are they running? Granted, existing ones may be a sunk expense, but as the calendar pages turn, do you need to replace them with the Dells-running-Windows that my local library does?

2) Knoppix. Even if it doesn't lead to the higher-ups instantly dropping all current software and hardware, making pilgrimages to Lourdes, etc, demo-ing Knoppix is a great way to show that Yes, there are word-processing apps, spreadsheets, (very nice) web browsers, etc. If your library has any computers for kids to use, I suggest the version of Knoppix from OSEF (http://osef.org/) version -- it's the ISO mentioned which is (as of today) still high up on their front page.

timothy

And where should they go...

[Mojo Geek]

Where does one go when researching data in order to sell management on Linux or some other Free Software solution?

"The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source" by Martin Fink

Trying to make a success story

[Anonymous Coward]

One group where I work just purchased a pcAnywhere support contract for more than $20,000 (might have been $40,000) for remote administration of their ~100 servers.

I asked for a quote from realvnc.com for support of our 30 and they sent back a quote for $1,500 for up to 100 systems.

Besides my feelings against any software for remotely accessing the desktops of any PC in the place (and especially servers), and my feelings that pcAnywhere is an unstable train wreck waiting to be happen, I hope to prove a point that open source is a viable and affordable solution. Especially as compared to some of their closed source counterparts.

Success Stories

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www/localsurface.com is the tip of the iceberg.