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Linux Usage in the UK
pdajames writes "Techies don't seem to understand that businesses want to have a support contract with their usual supplier before they will buy Linux, even though the likelihood is that they may never need support. A survey in the UK showed that support concerns were the No. 1 factor keeping companies from investing in open source software."
Man:
Evening, squire!
Man with hat:
Good evening.
Man:
Is your...does your sysadmin support Linux?
Man with hat:
I-I...I beg your pardon?
Man:
Your...your sysadmin. Does he support Linux, eh? Does he support Linux, eh? Eh?
Man with hat:
Huh, sometimes he has to support Linux, yes.
Man:
I bet he does! I bet he does! Say no more! Say no more! Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge!
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Support? Who needs support when you have the LDP! :)
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
I can never see the problem, at my place the only support contract we have is for the AIX server. We have a liberal number of OpenBSD and linux boxes around the business, all running semi critical and critical systems, and we have no support contracts. All of it is handled inhouse by moi, we have redundant backup systems, and a good backup procedure. Any issues i get that i cant resolve, i can usually find a good answer from mailing lists, google or IRC. Seriously, how many of these same people have support contracts for their Windows systems?
"even though the likelihood is that they may never need support."
Nope. Businesses rarely use support. Nope. No-siree. Oh... wait...
Honestly I could never see anyone making any money from linux exept when selling support. Or hardware. Reason I guess why IBM loves it. Isn't that what Redhats buissness model is? Support and hardware?
Competition in America: If you can't beat 'em, Sue 'em!
Developer: I'd like to use Linux for this project.
Manager: I'll check with our suppliers to see if they support Linux.
Suppliers: hahahaha.
Manager: sorry, developer, company policy is clear: no support, no project.
Developer: COM+ gnash MTS splutter IIS damnation.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
It's just a case of time before everyone else gets in on it.
Of course there are still those companies that will always eat the dog food they're given, rushing to pull the money out of their pockets.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Almost every high level manager I've spoke too, that is their #1 concern.. ' If you are not around, who do I call when its broke?'.
They understand the stability, the lower cost ( notice I didn't say free. it does cost something to maintain ), and that it *can* replace functionality of the commercial alternative at this point, but being out on their own worries them. And rightfully so.
Even down to the techies that defend Microsoft, that is their one remaining argument,that they have the huge support team back in Redmond to call on. And scoff as you want about Microsoft support, if you are a big enough dealer they WILL help you, they do have actual competent engineers hiding somewhere.... and the managers know this..
Having somone like IBM sell support, or even produce their own 'commercial' distrobution + support would go a looooong way to get past this.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
From the article:
Yates gave the example of an installation of 50 DHCP servers running Linux, which was set up several years ago, and for which the technical support is tenuous. "The people who set them up have gone on to other projects," he said. "People are terrified about what the support would be like if something went wrong."
I think that pretty much sums it up. Too many people thing computer = Windows and don't know how to use anything else. So if the Linux server (God forbid) breaks, who will be around to fix it?
And no, whatever monkey was assigned to look after the box after the guys who were l33t enough to set the whole thing up is probably not going to research the problem. He was probably hired to look at the pretty light and call whatever vendor's tech support when the light went out.
That, and if something does go wrong, there's someone else to blame.
this is my sig
It's not so much about the actual amount of open-source tech support out there -- we know full well there's a hell of a lot of it -- but about about tech support identity.
Who do you call for trouble with Windows? Microsoft. Trouble with DB2? IBM. Trouble with Red Hat or SuSE Linux? Red Hat or SuSE. What if one of your critical machines happens to be Debian and the one guy that configured it isn't home? Is management going to endorse going to a mailing list or USENET for the solution? What if those sources are wrong?
Quite simply, the very nature of open-source development does not lend itself to the establishment of centralized technical support, which is exactly what corporations are looking for. Perhaps individual companies whose sole focus is tech support of open-source operating systems and applications could emerge as viable contractors.
The coolest voice ever.
the UK has computers now?
--
I'm wondering why in all the places I've worked we never called Microsoft for support. Maybe because support is asking a friends friend for complicated problems.
Is there really a need for supporters since everything can be answered in webforums or otherwise read?
SuSE offer support to those in the UK (and elsewhere) that want it. It is just more FUD that you do not get support with Linux, it is just an option to save your cash and not buy it if you do not want it.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I think the main reason British is such an 'open source third world country' is because of the techie environment here. In regular schools, all you learn about is Microsoft, Microsoft and Microsoft. Why? Because Microsoft supplies the schools and makes money from the schools.
I have a lot of friends who are techies who came through the 'proper' way. That is, they were educated at college, did courses, and got qualifications. They're good guys, but when it comes to solving something, IIS and VBScript are almost the only two solutions!
One friend of mine was whining that he needed to build a new server and migrate and mirror data over to it. I suggested using an NFS server. This isn't rocket science, but concepts like these are unknown to the millions of lower-end techies in the UK. Why? Because Microsoft is #1. I know a lot of people studying for MCSEs, yet they're barely computer literate. They can get around in Windows 2000 or XP, but throw them at any command prompt (even DOS) and they balk.
UNIX and its variants just aren't considered cool within the larger techie environment in the UK. Microsoft has very deep roots here, unlike in the US technical fraternity, and most UK techies are so stupid they won't leave what they know.
I can't really venture as to the exact reasons for this... but perhaps it's because the British are used to doing things one way. I mean, we only had a single national telecoms provider, a single national gas provider, and a single national postal service until ten years ago. Therefore, when schools only show that Microsoft is the way.. the average Brit will nod and use it.
Another problem is the lack of decent IT education in schools. There are very few 'computer clubs' in UK schools, and those that do exist are only there for allowing kids to perhaps do something in Pascal under Windows, or to do their regular homework in Microsoft Works.
UK schools need to be more open, like US schools. US schools often give budgets to their computer clubs.. I mean, look at the Ask Slashdot thread the other day.. they ponied up $4000 for the guy to build a server system and get some connectivity. What a learning curve his computer club will have!
In the UK, by comparison, everything is so bureaucratic and purchases are so decided 'by the local education authority' that any choice other than Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft is effectively vetoed.
Personally I think this is great, because people who DO know Linux, who DO understand Computer Science properly and who DON'T have MCSEs, get rewarded reasonably well in the UK! But.. the knowledge just isn't there, and while Microsoft gets rammed down the wanna-be British techie's throat, Microsoft will prevail.
Could many of the people who responded that they didn't have Linux because of lack of support just be uninformed types who haven't done their homework and wouldn't use linux anyway ?
And they have for years.
IBM will sell you worldwide, 24x7x365 support for Linux.
Well, as one who's had to use support contracts in the past (Cisco and Oracle specifically along with a couple of very poorly built proprietary apps), I've seen the value in this. Being an expert in something does NOT mean you know everything, and it's nice to have someone you can pick up the phone and talk to, getting your critical machines back up and running.
Even library projects have given me the fits both professionally and non. QT support helps in a LOT of cases where documentation is SEVERELY lacking, but in other cases (kernel issues I had), the support from the maintainer was "less than shining". And people constantly say "Don't expect anyone to get off their duff to fix YOUR problem unless you pay them." Well, that's kind of the line of the support contract. I'd rather my job not be in jepordy due to some individual who could care less about the past work he's done.
So, support contracts? Sure. Make them reasonably priced, and not read like stereo instructions. Simple pricing, simple support, and simple solutions. And don't expect M$ to give you much support as I've run into massive horror stories (usually related to Exchange). It's nice to have your problem solved, and not spend 3 hours "guessing" you have fixed it. Besides, having a second person to get ideas for solutions from is hardly a bad thing.
-What have you contributed lately?
Something like: "Your product doesn't have a guarentee on the box. Customers want that. Calling to them. Comforting them. 'Pick me, I won't let you down.'" The problem with that is, how great is the support at most places anyway? You end up with your "daughter knocked up" (aka a new problem) and the "change is missing from the dresser" (aka, to get it done right, you have to spend an extra arm and a leg). Just my two cents (since I have no sense ;-) )
I came, I saw, She conquered.
Start a business selling support for Linux. Sell it by seat, at perhaps $200 per seat per year (or something a bit lower than the business support agreement for Windows). Add a $400 per user install and one time training fee. Pay higher a former teacher to provide education at $30k per year. Word into the contract that additional one day training sessions are available for $500 per day per user.
Configure a basic user workstation and server set, with scripts to auto update bug fixes first copies to one or more servers (depending upon seat base size) with re-distribution down to the desktop. (i.e. nightly ftp mirrors from your favorite security mirror for the distribution(s) in use, and a update shortly after that to all workstations, use anacron or other cron deamon that will catch the fact an event should have happened while a workstation was powered down.)
Sell your services to businesses in England.
Profit.
-Rusty
p.s. yes I know its not quite that easy, it needs to be fleshed out a bit.
You never know...
even though the likelihood is that they may never need support.
Now, isn't that a bit presumptuous?
I don't care what OS you run on your desktops/servers, stuff is going to screw up. It's the techie's job to minimize the impact.
The coolest voice ever.
Of course you can get Linux support from Microsoft.
Call them and ask them to solve a sendmail problem for example (assuming you want to waste $$$ on the support call that is) and you can bet they'll answer something like "Hmm, I think you really do need IIS sir. Would you like to hear more about it ?".
So you see, they do give you advices to help you solve your Linux problems
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Maybe what Linux needs is a giant support clearing house. By that, I mean that most open source projects don't have the resources to have their own support department, but if one were to form a company or other institution with a handful of linux techies, companies could use OSS and rely upon the said support clearinghouse for their support needs, should they actually need help.
And in some ways, that might be better, because if you have a handful of people who understand the software itimately, you won't have to cut through 3 layers of workers before you get to the "Engineer" level.
In addition to that, the cost of support is taken away from the maintainers of the OSS projects, and placed in one company which could take the revenue and pay their own costs, and then distribute profit (if any) amongst open source projects, possibly, to help improve the OSS? I know that's idealistic, but hey, it could happen...
Anyways, just my thoughts on the issue.
Then few people out side the industry know about it.. even I was unaware they would.
Marketing that would help a LOT.
Even some of their techs and sales guys don't know this.. I've spoken to some at our place on occasion wile they are working on things, or working out costs for the next round of PC upgrades...... they had no clue either..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Techies don't seem to understand that businesses want to have a support contract with their usual supplier before they will buy Linux
Can you say "business opportunity"? I now only install and support only Linux solutions (I don't do Windows anymore - I have other "grunts" with MCSE's who do that for cheap). The sell is simply two points 1) Open Source products use Open Standards, which will interoperate with anything. 2) The business decision to keep, update or upgrade company software is back in the software buyer's hands. If you want to keep your software, or hire someone to [fix|add] features, or upgrade to the latest version - it's their choice.
The Redmond camp keeps hammering on the point that Linux doesn't have support. So hammer back on those two points: open standard interoperabilty, and the return of the business decision. It really shakes people up to realise they _do_ have a choice, and that Microsoft is not the safest choice anymore.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Never needing support?
With Linux?
Sure, maybe if you're Linus...
I just want to clarify. I'm not some anti-Microsoft zealot. I use Microsoft software, and I prefer to use Microsoft Windows 2000 rather than Linux as my desktop working environment.
I actually like a lot of Microsoft stuff, but my main complaint is that Microsoft is too often see as 'the only solution' here. Now that's screwed up. Microsoft is an okay company producing 'okay' products, but they're just one of a bucketful of vendors who should be considered.
According to the recently discussed Business Week article,
If anything, open source will lower support costs as you can get support from more sources at a wider range of price points.With a global support base of people with the same software, open source will rapidly lower support costs. Today people get far more information and many times higher quality information on problems via the net than they do from a manufacturer.
And beyond support, you can now directly hire people to work on the software changes you need to make your business work. That means you don't have to wait years for your vendor to listen to you. In today's hyper-competitive global business market, the time you save may be the difference between your business succeeding or failing.
All in all, open source is a giant win for business. Hopefully we can soon move past the incredible amount of FUD the closed source vendors are promulgating in the market.
One of the problems with linux in the uk is the l10n problem. They just think that because we speak english they can just dump "americanisations" (note the s in isation) on us. But were different. We use Metric now, we use A4 paper, we use DD/MM/YYYY we spell colour with a u, and so on.
XFree86 diidn't even support keyboards with euro keys (alt-gr 4) until recently and gnome still chokes on that. The same problems occur to other english speaking countries as well, but I'll just have to put up with 06/28/03 until gnome uses 28/06/03!
They also made the award winning Microsoft Services for Unix 3, that's right, Microsoft won a LinuxWorld award.
Surely technical support is also the no. 1 way for open source producing companies to make money? For example, Red Hat (while I know they didn't produce all of GNU/Linux...) supply Linux for free and charge for support.
Besides I wasn't aware that Microsoft offered good technical support anyway so what's the difference!
"Support" is just the name they give to their fear.
They are afraid to use Linux because Linux hasn't achieved the market dominance they feel comfortable with.
If Linux had 51% of the desktop market, they'd feel comfortable with the risk of having their current Linux support person/company becoming unavailable.
This is about fear. You cannot remove fear with facts.
But who cares? The businesses that have people who can evaluate the risks and benefits will make the jump first. And they will reap the rewards.
As each year passes, more companies will feel comfortable enough to switch.
Don't sweat the "support" issue. Support is readily available and easily found. But pointing that out will not end stories such as these.
This is about fear.
Everything you see here, much like the comment by Peter Cooper describes, is Microsoft. The difference is that England can afford it, and Israel can't (palestenian conflict wreaking havoc on our economy and all). Piracy here is outrageously high, but Microsoft doesn't really care - especially in the past few years: more pirated copies means better lock-in. And they've got a point: Anyone who knows anything about computers here, it's all Windows. True, we have some very skilled hackers here, and people are generally very computer-literate... but Linux's penetration is very weak, mainly due to the fact that bidi (right-to-left text) is extremely hard to implement, and has only recently become usable in Linux. People are working on various distributions - mostly Knoppix-like - for Israelis, the most notable one being Kinneret: a bootable distro geared towards Israeli students. Why? Becaue our teachers openly encourage us to copy our compilers and IDEs from friends. Still, for my 12th-grade C project, I won't be allowed to use any compiler and library but Borland's old DOS one. As for support - the issue is very apparent here. The few Israeli "big-chiefs" who have heard about Linux are extremely concerned with support. Hopefully, our goverment will do something smart about it, like the support they've been giving the OO.o team.
If it weren't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate.
AIX has available support.
What is required on a commercial OS is immediate support, not a week or month from "mailing lists" which might have the wrong solution aswell.
You probably won't believe this, but larger companies do not upgrade every 6 months. Any server put in today, needs to run up to 5 years. What holes will be uncovered in you version of Linux/FreeBSD, and who will provide commercial quality (i.e. vigorously tested) patches?
Its my signature, it's not related to the story in any fashion.
If you have to ask what it means, in the proper context, read my journal.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...I don't think the poster has any work experience as tech support.
even though the likelihood is that they may never need support.
1. If you make an idiot-proof system, the world will invent a new and better idiot (By who?)
2. There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupitidy. And I'm not sure about the former (Einstein)
Despite being a company, many companies don't have the qualifications in-house, or they simply don't want to spend time supporting their OS (it's not usually a "core competency"), so they want to have another company that specializes in that to do it. And I do think you can get that support if you want, but very few are aware that it exists.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
FFS - technology is a tool, not the business! There are plenty of people out that are Linux/*nix/*BSD proficient and lookig for work. If there company can't find the people to support their system, then it is more of a HR or business model problem. You recruit IT people who know how to solve a technical problem, not just one that can dial a bloomin phone.
>> ... the likelihood is that they may never need support.
Yeah, right. Linux is good, but it's not perfect. What happens when the boss comes back from the last roadtrip having bought a dozen steam-powered Twin Confabulators that she wants on every Linux server in the building?
Or, when the summer intern drops a coke on the billing server, doesn't tell anyone, and a week's worth of online purchases disappear?
Unless a business wants to commit to always maintaining an internal support staff regardless of cost, management has to know if the vendor is going to be there to provide support.
An equally reasonable reason to desire external support is that relying on in-house staff can eventually block forward movement. For example, if you're a Micorosoft house, with a veteran in-house support staff, you've got a subtantial amount of equity tied up in your commitment to Microsoft. The cost of replacing all those Microsoft techies with Linux techies can easily push a decision to stay with Microsoft.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Shouldn't that by "Wink, wink; nudge, nudge"?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
50 DHCP servers on one network ! Maybe they should talk to the router guys to open up DHCP relay and then cut down to 4 centralised servers.
Understand your problem completely. As soon as we have complete ownership of Linux, we pledge to give you 24/7 support for all your linux needs. If we feel like it. And if you pay us $1^9 per year. If you stop calling us bad names. After all, it's ours. It's all ours. We wrote it and Linus stole it. Support us and we will support you. But it will cost you. No more free as in beer. No more free. Pay us now and we won't shoot this dog. Ahhhhhhhh.......
It's good that the I.T. industry is in recession.
It's weeding out a lot of the complete numpties. It's also weeding out a lot of the companies who have absolutely no idea how to manage their I.T. costs effectively.
One of the companies I worked for were spending half a billion dollars a year on their I.T. systems with absolutely no idea why or what was happening to the money. They haven't been making a profit, obviously.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
My school is having major problems with their "firewall" right now. Namely, there's just too much traffic for the crappy hardware boxes they're using - so they bought a $10,000 Packeteer packet shaper. Anyway, I offered to retrofit one of their old servers as a Linux-based firewall. The sysadmin said no. The reason? "I've got nobody to blame when it breaks."
Sorry, but I don't think technical support is what "decision makers" really want. Technical support is what companies like Red Hat and Mandrake are selling and it's obvious they're still not very sucessful doing this.
What the "decision maker" wants is a nice salesman who makes a nice presentation, who regularly send a fruit basket or a bottle of wine and who give this great documentation which explain how great their product is (so the "decision maker" don't have to do any research). Now, if on top of that the salesman plays golf (but lose of course) you can bet after two or three years, no matter if the product is a total piece of shit, the "decision maker" will feel comfortable buying the product.
Another way to look at it is that this installation's been running for several years with no problems therefore no need for support...
British Empire
U.S. Empire
Microsoft Empire
All have one thing in common:
"controlled violence"
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I have become one of those people who writes a 'couple of hundred lines' here or there (gradually assembling a package of tools that I upload to servers whenever possible) but as I am painfully aware of the Dark Side of infinite customizability, I have gone out of my way to document my work.
- I write everything to Bourne shell, sed, awk, grep & Co., even though it might be easier to use perl or compile to binary. Even using a Korn shell is something I've avoided because I want my work to be understandable to as many people as possible.
- I make liberal use of comments within the scripts to explain what I'm doing and why.
- My scripts respond to -h,
--help, or anything remotely resembling either, with some, uh, help, which includes my work email address.
- I've set up a documentation web page on a server on our intranet so that if anyone has questions, they can see what's supposed to be happening here, why, and how.
- If you don't know that my utilities exist, or they haven't been installed on a site yet, you can get by without them. They in no way intrude upon the functioning of the system so as to be required (as your proxy is).
- I've tried to educate others in my department about how these tools can be used, how they fit together,
And, even though I have the support of at least two levels of management above me in the org chart, I'm STILL concerned that someone high enough up the food chain will some day declare my little skunkworks project officially Evil and ban it, if for no reason other than the notion that nobody but I understand it well enough to keep up with the changes that will inevitably be required. What happens if I get hit by the proverbial bus, or just take a better job somewhere else? There is plenty good reason to not want people to become dependent on my tools being in place, since there is no guarantee that we can make the institutional commitment to maintaining them, even though I have plenty of happy customers and support techs who love what I've empowered them to do. I can only hope that the Guys in the Ties will recognize that deriving this much value from my work demands that we make that commitment, rather than abandon it as 'unsupportable'.[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
From the article: "The attitude of a lot of managers is, if you use an off-the-shelf system, like (Microsoft's) Internet Information Server running on (Windows) NT, then when it fails, you've got a company to ring"
My God, who has that much time to spend on the phone?
If you have to LOOK for the ad, they are not properly marketing it.
If the public doesnt know about it, they are not marketing.
Simple as that. Marketing is all about perception.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"In other words, the barrier to adoption may be support, but if your stuff is simpler to use then the need for support is reduced. The *NIX crowds (Linux, BSD, etc) need to take note of how relatively simple it is to set up and run a Windows or Mac OS X system, and start realizing that ease-of-use and consistent graphic interfaces are something real people care about."
Now take the above and compare it to what's actually happening in the world. And ask yourself: Why is Microsoft having the problems they are, and why hasn't Apple taken over more of the server and enterprise market? After all, they do have all you listed. Don't they?
BTW If "real people" are as important as you say? Then why are all these "fake people" running our Unix infrastructure?
Plenty of companies provide support for Linux:
m /software/linux/support.html/ us/en/dhs/topics/linux_linuxho me.htm: //www.suse.de/de/business/services/support/: //www.hp.com/wwsolutions/linux/
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/
http://wwws.sun.co
http://www.dell.com
http://www.redhat.com/apps/support/
http
http
I mean... Fucking please...
There is so much fucking commercial support for Linux that it's funny. And that's 4 minutes googling.
The real problem is the quality of British middle management. Basically they are small minded, empire building sheep which act like lead weights on a company's competitiveness. You want to know why there are so few British world beating companies? It's the "can't do" attitude.
I think it's a feature of the culture of the English, one of the reasons they have to get Scots in at the very top.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Kid, it's called CYA. You'll find out about that when you get your first job, and yes, it's very real. Us grownups can't exactly call mom & dad when we get canned because we didn't do a CYA.
We should be ok if we have Script Kiddies support the OS. There'd be no need to worry about open source support.
You work at the British equivalent of a Fortune 500. Your mission-critical Linux database server has crashed overnight. At first you aren't sure what to do but finally you remember a post on Slashdot saying that all you would ever need in situations like these is something called LDP. You spend hours reading through all sorts of how-to's and man pages but alas, this supposed tome of all Linux knowledge provides no solution to your problems.
Meanwhile the company PBX has gone down as well - it could not take the load of the hundreds of panicking salesmen calling from your offices around the world to ask you why none of the high-priority orders they filed yesterday have been delivered yet. According to the guys down at storage they never received the orders.
Your boss calls you to his office. "A group consisting of the companies that didn't receive the mission-critical parts that they had ordered from us have gone together and sued us for negligence" he says. "They seek damages of more than 10 million pounds. On behalf of the board I am to inform you that, in the lack of a support contractor to blame, the company intend to hold you responsible for this whole affair. I hope you have a good insurance arrangement."
Back in your office you slowly open your top desk drawer. Underneath stacks of paper and old post-it notes you find what you are looking for. "Why didn't I just go with a platform with support" you ask youself, staring across your empty office. Finally you pull the trigger and everything blurs out, then goes black.
First of all, some background. SuSE Linux Desktop (SLD) is one of several SuSE distributions that could be considered end-user oriented: there's also SuSE Linux Office Desktop, aimed at small businesses, as well as the standard SuSE Linux Personal and Professional editions. The key difference with SLD is it uses the same code base as SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES): this is intended to fulfil the needs of large businesses, with an 18-month release schedule (instead of twice a year, like SuSE's other software) and five years of support. It is binary-compatible with SuSE Linux 8.1, meaning you should be able to install any application that's been packaged for that OS version with no problems.
So much for the "Linux commercial support not being available" argument.
I can't understand why anyone thinks software support is vital. I consider it a waste of money by managers who just want to cover their asses. In this economy, it's much more cost-effective to hire excellent staff on your own team than to pay premium prices for incompentent vendor support.
When the companies that fail to capitalize on the cost-savings Linux can offer start losing business to those that do so, they'll either log on to the clue server or they'll be history. Everybody (alright most people) here know that the "it's not supported" line is unfounded these days. Support isn't free, but it is most certainly available.
I've worked in the UK IT sector for 14 years and I can tell you it's about the management running scared. Not scared of OpenSource but fear of their peers and colleagues. The whole business world has very cut throat since the days of Thatcher, it's very dog eat dog, so lower management and above spend most of their time covering their arses. It's inevitable something will go bang at some point their main concern is to make sure they're not in the firing line. So from this culture of fear in the business community everyone needs SLAs, guarantees etc, basically someone lower on the food chain they can point to when the crapola hits the fan. To think that pundits wonder why British industry has been in decline for decades....ah well.
ftp software you wanted to use, and why didn't you contact that person for "support"? Seems like it would have been worth an ask. It's sorta how this whole open software deal could work better, actually shell out some cash now and then to the developers if you find their products useful.
The big fear for anybody working in a company is that their ass is on the line and they're going to get canned if they try something wacky and screw it up.
Myself, I don't have that fear because I run my own small business. So I use linux as I damn well please, and I save plenty of money in doing so. If something does go wrong, I fetch a cold clamato with lemon and cellery, and try to figure things out using the wide range of resources available.
Use that attitude with a CFO and see how far you get.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Linux distrobutions with anti-enduser reputations like debian even let you install in multiple languages these days. The woody release starts off at a prompt in Mandarin, Nihongo, etc that say 'Choose this language for install'.
I think you're confusing (pre)installed defaults with actuall language support. Even setting up east asian language support is pretty damn easy in linux compared to Windows XP. Just because a default preference is American english doesn't mean you can't change it. I've never had problems with recent GNOME 2.x installs and multilanguage support, so I can't say why you're having Euro problems unless you use the wrong codepage/encodings.
Techies don't seem to understand that businesses want to have a support contract with their usual supplier before they will buy Linux, even though the likelihood is that they may never need support
v & radio/PC/elevator/lighting/gas/electricity/automot ive tech's are not nearly as knowledge able about their chosen professions as those involved in the deployment of Linux or similar open source software.
:P.
Wow, I thought we had all grown up a little bit and stopped using this type of term. It seems some of us have not...
Simply refer to 'those who don't understand the requirements of a professional organisation' - rather than use the term 'techies', singaling out 'technical' staff in the given context is foolish and inflammatory. Just because you have a highly technical job doesn't mean you are a seperate species from the rest of the human race.
Get over this 'techie' mentality you have. It's a demeaning, unhelpful and misleading term used, IMO, by people who exhibit very little understanding of people in general (and who certainly find it easier to pigeon hole them firmly into distinct categories). If you must use an abbreviation, use the more widely paletable and existing term 'techs', not the infantile term 'techies'.
A technition in any other field is not nearly as likely to be as knowlegable about their field as a Unix or Networking professional. The comparison of an average technition with a Unix technition a very poor one. For example, few radiography/photocopier/air-con/security/camera/t
While certainly there are a few 'technical' roles (that is to say, roles where the employees are refered to explicitly as 'technitions') that are equally as complex, they are the exception by far. Before anyone counters back, note that a skilled employee with a given amount (n years) of Unix and/or Networking experience is far more valuable in the market place then any of the above descibed types of 'technition' with a similar amount of experience in their field (even when there is a surplus of Unix/Networking personnel).
Furthermore, any competant, valuable employee is aqutely aware of both technical and commercial responsibilites in their role. In any field.
It's about time people started demanding that, and that they stopped perpetuating the idea of 'techie's as some class of individuals that are not required to have a working knowledge of sensible buisness practice (or in this case, basic common sense). I wan't to name and shame those who DON'T think of issues like 'support contracts' on hardware and software they install or are responsible for suggesting.
Even if your employees are all baboon's: at some point you need to have a technical manager who is an officer of the company who is legally required to exhibit behavior that demonstraights an understanding of both these issues (or you may become open to legal action from such bodies as customers, share holders, government agencies, or consumer groups).
Balancing commercial and technical goals should be a pre-requiste of your job and taken-as-read as a requirement, not something you find difficult to grasp, or that you should need to be constantly reminded to factor in.
--
No apologies made for spelling or gammatical errors, it's 5 AM and I don't have a spell checker installed, if something is unclear, please ask me to clarify, otherwise keep shtum and don't waste bandwith whinging about it
If your software is free, support is 100% of the total cost, so I guess by your analysis closed source is better than open source. Or perhaps your 80% figure doesn't really prove anything.
When my wife's mother in Arizona heard I was English (when we first met), one of her first questions was, "Do they have furniture in England?".
;-)
So I'm trying to work out if the parent is meant to be a joke, or whether you're my wife's mother?
Own up!
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
I'm sure if you gave companies the option to save 20% of their software costs by simply switching to open source, they'd be interested.
However, the terms "open source" and "free software" are not synonymous. MySQL for example, is open source, but not strictly free software. Instead, MySQL supports dual licensing. Open source gets you the ability to see what is going on in the product you are using and communicate with others at a very detailed level, often getting right to the source of problems. And it gives you the ability to fix bugs on a timely basis at a more reasonable cost.
Many studies have shown that Linux is cheaper to support (and own) than Windows or proprietary UNIX. It won't be long before there is really good data showing all open source programs are cheaper to support than closed source.
The only reason that closed source advocates are so against open source is fear. They fear their code is going to get ripped off. And they fear the code they ripped off to build their product is going to get exposed.
The companies most dead set against open source are likely the ones who have the most ripped off code in their codebase.
Not only do I reply to your parent, but I also find out your local - until 3yrs ago I ran a web design business in Milnthorpe!
.02
;-)
"It's a small world - but I wouldn't want to have to paint it" - Steven Wright
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
x = % of cost due to support for open source
y = % of cost due to support for closed source
z = % of total cost savings of open source over closed source
You're claiming that x-y = z. You're subtracting apples from apples and getting oranges.
No, I am subtracting dollars/pounds/euros from dollars/pounds/euros, and getting a cost savings.
decomissioning AIX, Solaris and IRIX systems to deploy Linux instead of them. And i am talking BIG systems here. 60 AIX nodes, almost 200 Solaris nodes, and almost 50 IRIX nodes (these are round figures, please dont let me open the file with the actual numbers).
All of this is being layed down for the favor of 4 Linux clusters, which after testing proved to be faster(but not as stable, but we are working on it).
Ofcorse we have an inhouse Linux support team(I am one of them)
Now Linux support is needed, espically when migrating applications from UNIX to Linux, you are gonna go through a 24/7 live nightmare.(dont belive the crap "unix/linux migration is easy", cause its not)
Bottom line, support is needed, but not necessiraly contracted support, but all in all, if you dont have a trained team, you just simply cannot go on.
The lunatic is in my head
So what? You're saying Linux and C/C++ are one of the idiot choices, eh? Well are ya??
I'm at uni in (the original;)Plymouth atm doing Computing and there's very little emphasis on using MS tools to do the job. Although we learned Delphi in the first year...now there's Kylix, even that's not particularly MS-centic.
Most everything else has been Oracle PL/SQL/Java and I think nearly all of the computing department's machines dual-boot Linux. The uni switched from C/C++ to Java as the language of choice in the second year while we were in the first year, but I'm teaching myself that in my free time while I'm on an Industrial Placement.
Frankly I'm glad there are loads of MS paper-qualified people out there.
To get back on-topic, where I've been working this year(Technology wing of a Big Telecomms company), there's a lot of doubts raised about Free Software solutions, or as my manager calls it "Freeware/Shareware" Grrrr..
They'd rather pay £200 per licence across hundreds/thousands of boxen for a proprietary solution than pay for someone to adapt a free alternative. One of the issues raised by my manager was "well, if you download something from the web, it might have a virus in it.."
*sigh*...oh well...I don't think I'm going back there in a hurry after I graduate
There are plenty good people out there right now who don't have a job. Set up a company with a couple of other knowledgeable people (you don't want to man the 24x7 phone on your own) and start selling Linux support. It will solve your own problem and the Linux acceptance problem.
In good slashdot style:
1. Start a company selling Linux support.
2. ***ADVERTIZE, DAMNIT!***
3. Profit!
(Sorry for violating slashdot etiquette by filling in that second, elusive step but this is a serious post...)
or, like many ideas, has it already been implemented?
Back a while, the UK had some serious office automation. "A Computer Called LEO" is a nice book well-worth reading.
OTOH, have you ever tried to get support from MS?
Reformat the HD, and reinstall Windows - that will cure it
or from our corporate supplier of IT kit
After a while, Window wears out, and you have to install a new version
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
You are probably right, it will take a while before Microsoft goes out of business even it they don't make one sound business decision ever again..
The greatest risk would be if they get caught in some kind of illegal activity like Enron did. But even that would be unlikely, as they can afford to get the best judge money can buy.
But what do you do if MS decicedes to end the life of the product you are using? They will probably offer you some upgrade path, but that could involve large costs to your business as you may need to spend money to retrain your staff, or replace your hardware.
It could also mean that you will have to upgrade software from other vendors. Not all of them sit on a big pile of money. What if they are not around anymore, or even worse you may have in house developed software that could be extremly costly to replace if MS forces you to change your OS.
Not having access to the source code, introduces an element of uncertainty and limits the control of your business, its not paranoia to realize that.
A better word for it would be put your head in the sand. Most companies try to have multiple sources for mission critical supplies, why should this not apply to software.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
I spent about 10 years working on ICL VME mainframe computers in large companies, and even though they had support contracts, hardly ever needed to call.
Nearly every fault that I ever came across was down to my coding or someone else's within the company.
The OS software didn't fail me, the databases didn't fail me and the compilers didn't fail me.
The software generally was very helpful with what had happened when something went wrong, the database specification was well known (and so patching a database wasn't a problem). The command set was such that you had everything you needed to deliver business functionality and no trivia.
Translation:
"A survey in the UK showed that support concerns were the No. 1 opportunity to make money from open source software"
Techie has a ring to it: I agree. It's actually derogatory to the "techies" while implying a derogatory context "non-techies." I'm a highly skilled Unix System Administrator. Nobody calls me a "techie" to my face. That makes light of all the hard work I've put into learning the systems and subsystems, scraping away layer after layer of abstractions upon abstractions. My job is to bridge the needs of the users with the raw capabilities of machines. Every day I alleviate the suffering of thoughtless mechanically repetitive paperwork.
I think you struck a chord: "techie" implies that the technology is trivial like a toy, with marginal useful application. It also sounds like a title for a supplicant, hurrying around to serve the master's needs. In my world, computers are robots that serve humans. In my world, humans should have minimal responsibilities to the machines. A "techie" or "tech" or "technician" is only there because of the machines they service. I'm more of a master than a servant, and I make sure my machines meet a high standard of performance.
Maybe its the trivialization of technical problems that happens when you distribute the technology to personal desktops as in PCs. The central organization has less compulsion to immediately rectify any particular machine failure because each failure is most often confined to the business impact of one person. Now that I think about it, "techies" are usually expected to deal with routine technical problems. Routine problems indicate a problem with your routine. If those problems aren't worth solving in a long-term way, then why not just ignore them? On one hand people know that they can't just ignore these problems, but they refuse to invest in a long-term solution. Microsoft viruses, for example, are met with a frown and a shrug.
As I see it, the real issue here is responsibility. There is responsibility to the real-world problems that technology intends to solve, and there is responsibility for the incidental problems created in the attempt. Microsoft computing culture is an abdication of responsibility. Get a support contract so you can say you have one, even though the enumerated set of risks it alleviates is about the same or higher cost than the premiums you must pay to get it it.
First, I am not a techie, and then let's see what I understand:
What is this support contract supposed to cover? Why must a business prefer their "usual supplier?" Who are these businesses and who are their "usual suppliers?" Based on the questions I have recieved from businesses (small to medium business operators without a dedicated IT staff) about the viability of the WalMart $200-300 Lindows PCs tells me that a vendor who can undercut the up-front costs of a Microsoft PC using FREE software can get customers to ignore the question of medium to long term hidden costs. This price pressure will prevent Microsoft from implementing their subscription model, and when the numbers start to show in their stock price, the blanket confidence that the above quote alludes to will evaporate with Microsoft's economic dominance.--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Nevermind commercial support, can I pay for some?
A blog I run for the wealth
Home office: We are Microsoft and HP partners. We will not be using Linux.
Tell them that HP-UX is looking into an open grave, along with the PA-RISC architecture (Linux will 0wn Itanium). Tell them that migration is unevitable, and just a matter of timing. Tell them that Red Hat AS costs $1500, if they feel like paying money for support. And yes, you can buy the RHAS support from HP now, that's what my old company did.
Besides, HP is very serious about Linux - especially the people from Compaq side, which grok the "industry standard" thing. Some factions at HP will enthusiastically sell HP-UX to any moron that is buying, though. Wanna be one of those?
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
.... before I finally was offered enough money to accept it.
There are not enough UNIX people out there....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I am working / studying at an Australian Uni and it is quite different here. Although most of the general computer labs run Windows or OSX, if you are an IT/science/engineering student you can choose to use Linux or Solaris instead, and are encouraged to use them interchangeably (for Java / Perl development etc).
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Do not be confused by the name. "Open Forum" have a history of being a pro-patent/IP and anti-open-source as exposed by Bruce Perens a few months back. They are Masters of FUD who have in the past made false claims to speak for the open source community.