Slashdot Mirror
Charity Shuns Open Source Code
brown-eyed slug writes, "The BBC has an article explaining Christian Aid's decision to use Microsoft software in preference to Linux. It re-opens the classic debate about the total cost of ownership, highlighting the wider availability of Microsoft skills, as well as the beneficial pricing policy of the Seattle giant. From the article: '...one of the things that we find is that Microsoft is viewed as the big, bad organization — but they've actually got some good corporate social responsibility. If you're a charity or an educational institution, you pay pence in the pound for the license, compared to what a major bank might pay.'" While the Christian Aid spokesman makes some good points, he seems to miss totally the idea of open code — confusing code with data.
We support a lot of networks for non-profit organizations. We usually go through techsoup for licensing and software. Microsoft always makes their stuff available, whereas companies like Intuit and Macromedia are usually out of stock. Too be fair Symantec usually has stuff available. And look at these MS prices:
g _name=TechSoupMain&category_name=Office+Tools+MS&P age=1&Cat1=Microsoft&CatCount=1 g _name=TechSoupMain&category_name=Servers+MS&Page=1 &Cat1=Microsoft&CatCount=1
http://www.techsoup.org/stock/category.asp?catalo
http://www.techsoup.org/stock/category.asp?catalo
"If you're a charity or an educational institution, you pay pence in the pound for the license, compared to what a major bank might pay"
Suuuure.. as if major customers don't get huge volume discounts and other incentives to remain MS shops. The people who end up having to pay full price are the home and small business types who can't get volume discounts- they are the ones that get raked over the coals. It is from screwing the endless little customers over that MS gets fat and rich, then gives back a tiny percentage to charity to get all the glory for having "social responsibility".
Like most people, they don't care about open source code, because they don't code.
It's not like people are going to suddenly develop a love of programming en masse. The ability to modify the operating system, or anything else for that matter, is about as important to most people as the color of the motherboard.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The article quotes the charity as saying: So its easier and less expensive for them to find both volunteers and employees who already know how to use MS software as opposed to having to go through the time and expense of training them anew on something different. That is a valid concern if they are trying to operate on a shoe-string budget. The noted that the licensing cost for the charity is "pay pence in the pound for the licence" (i.e. cents on the dollar). So the training and support become major expenses.
I'm the IT manager for a small charitable organisation (but in such a position that it needs someone like me)
.exe file. Windows.
:)
If I tried to put Linux on the desktops, erm I'd probably be sacked.
There are sooo many little 'bits and pieces' we use in this organisation which simply wouldn't work in Linux. Funders often provide their own software, for example, that we are expected to use in order to capture data and return facts and figures. Sometimes it's written in Access, sometimes VB or something else - but 99 times out of 100 it's for Windows.
Just recently we had to roll out some health and safety training software for our young trainees who we get paid good money for. Interestingly it's mostly written in Shockwave which is available for Linux I believe, but it's all wrapped in a
OpenOffice isn't quite there yet either - we did try it a few years ago (to be fair it'll have improved since), and aside from the staff saying "I'm not using this because I'm not used to it, put Office back on please" there were often so many little formatting/translation issues that didn't work properly when people took work home to their MS Office based computers.
Digital cameras are a big part of our work, for collecting training evidence. Unfortunately the departments were 'let loose' in buying their own digital cameras from those above me and so inevitably we ended up with a bunch that have a proprietary USB interface (as opposed to mass storage) and are not supported in Linux.
With the diversity of our projects, the project leaders just so often need a piece of custom software. Until Linux becomes more widely adopted, or WINE something resembling useful (sorry but it *still* doesn't run most of the software I throw at it) it is simply not viable. As much as we'd love to save the money, it turns out that the money is actually worth spending.
Unfortunately, although there is a religious crusade behind the basic existence of our charity, it's the one called Christianity - not the one called Linusanity
At my university the bookstore sells XP Pro for $10. You can download Office Pro off of the website for free.
Do you think MS is doing that to support higher education? I doubt it. I'm more certain that they see it as a cheap way of indoctrinating people to use MS products so that when they get out of college they are so used to using MS, that they don't even stop to think of anything else existing.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
It re-opens the classic debate about the total cost of ownership
sczimme said: I must have missed something: when was this debate closed?
Oh man, you did NOT miss that thread!!! we resolved the TCO debate, Mac v Linux, Security models, and even Emacs vs Vi.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
I don't really care how much money private businesses pump into Microsoft for software but I'd really like to think that any government department that's financed by my taxes or any charity are doing their utmost to cut costs on any sort of infrastructure spending when cheaper ot free alternatives are available.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.