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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.
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?
Good lord man, that's not even funny in the Linux reality distortion field.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
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
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 ----
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?
--
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.
And they have for years.
IBM will sell you worldwide, 24x7x365 support for Linux.
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 ----
note also one should remember that when selling services to England, take the value you price at in dollars, remove the dollar sign, add a pound sign, leave the numbers alone, and you just added about a 33% mark on.
You never know...
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.
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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.
"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.
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.
I completely disagree. I went from Windows centric support to supporting Unix environments. That learning process included having to adjust to a new system. Heck, it was pretty much learning a new CULTURAL outlook. I now find Linux the simple to understand and configure system.
Setting up and running a Linux system is easy. Especially if you're performing a basic and very well defined task. But ease of use isn't the whole issue.
Even when you're dealing with a simple system, you need to understand whats going on. I've watched the trap unfold a number of times. We have a cadre of Windows (and even some Unix) admins with very basic understandings of the systems they admin. They're able to handle basic functions. But when things get squirely, it all falls back on a hand-full of very knowledgable individuals. Yes - they do exist in the Windows world too. Heaven forbid you ask these individuals to manage something that's a little beyond the standard task.
Support is important. It doesn't matter what systems you rely on. You either have the help in-house to do it, or you need to know where to go to rent it as-needed.