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