Linux In 2009 — Recession vs. GNU

RealityThreek sends this excerpt from an article at IT Management:"Pundits and business executives alike are predicting gloomy economic times for 2009. But when the talk turns to free and open source software (FOSS), suddenly the mood brightens. Whether their concern is the business opportunities in open source or the promotion of free software idealism, experts see FOSS as starting from a strong base and actually benefiting from the hard times expected next year. ... [Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation] sees Linux and the FOSS ecosystem surrounding it as having insurmountable advantages in any market over its main competitor Windows — advantages that an economic downturn only intensifies. At a time when a search for the lowest possible price point is happening in such areas as notebooks, FOSS is available at no cost. It is easy to rebrand and customize in a way that Windows Isn't, and is also technically more efficient."

Comments

FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[alain94040]

In a recent study of the top 140 corporations in America, 12 were using OpenOffice. That's not exactly much. With the coming recession, I can see quite a few companies deciding to cut their costs and switch to OpenOffice. It beats upgrading to Office 2007, that's for sure.

We only need another 4 companies in that sample to get a 50% market share increase!

Linux also will strenghten its dominant position in servers. Sun is going out of business, just like SGI a few years back. Sun is the only one that doesn't know it yet.

Wait, but if Sun is going out business, who will pay all these engineers who contribute to Open Source projects today? "Houston, we have a problem."

So this pending recession has some good for FOSS, and some not so good. By the way, don't listen to the pundits that tell you the recession will last years. Those same pundits four months ago were saying life is great. They don't have a clue, they just echo the popular opinion of the time.

--
Software Bill Of Rights: transparency, open management, equal rights and revenue sharing

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[larry bagina]

The savings from switching to OpenOffice are no better than the savings from keeping Office 2003.

PS: 4/12 is not 50%.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[RichardJenkins]

Amazing. It's like they're saying 2009 some special YEAR OF SOMETHING, oh, I dunno, how best to put it?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[faragon]

Sun can support also Linux, much in the same way as IBM supports Linux and mainframes. There is no excuse, and there are reasons that make Sun as a viable company in the near future: services and engine for the 21th century Open Source!

In my opinion we are in the transition to a change in the business model, similar to the musicians that make money with concerts (services) but not with CDs, in the software arena I expect something somewhat similar: software will be free and open source, and the bucks will be in parallel services (adaptation, support, etc.).

Economy is getting terrible where I live, Spain (Europe), in case of losing my job during 2009 (crossed fingers), in the worse case, I would have plenty time for open source projects (I have savings for 2-3 years, if after deflation don't come hiperinflation, I expect to survive without major problems).

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[thetoadwarrior]

My company is doing a mix between keeping Office 2k3 and very slowly attempting to get people using Lotus Symphony which isn't OOo but it uses the Open Document format. That is all we really need.. Imo, this isn't necessarily about OOo beating Office but getting people using something that allows you to use anything so there is no risk of losing access to your data.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[AlphaZeta]

The main reason people sticked to proprietary software during economic boom time is that that is something that they have gotten used to and there was no reason to look anywhere else. Now it is a totally different story. May be people will start looking at open source software. Sure, while certain functions people got used to in MS office are not present in OpenOffice, but all this is just superficial and when dollars matter, I think the decision is clear and people will get used to working with open source applications. It might be a slow process, but once people start to realize that open source software can do what proprietary software offered them they will not look back...

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Minozake]

You must have a good money and living plan to live on savings alone for 2-3 years.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

OpenOffice will not take much more corporate share until two things happen:

1: A workable replacement for Outlook, Exchange, and its calendar service is released. Too many office personnel use it, and it's not a bad calendar service.

2: Word document compatibility improves quite a lot. Swapping back and forth between OpenOffice and Word still causes nasty layout and compatibility problems, especially for graphics intensive documents and templates made by Microsoft Office users.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Shados]

but all this is just superficial

Far from it. In many companies, MS Office is used as a client, data consumer, for the company's server side processes and databases. MS Word or Excel as part of workflows, Excel as a client for datawarehouses, Outlook integrated with customer's systems, ----SHAREPOINT---- development (thats a big one), etc.

When you're at home using Office to type out a quick document, you may as well be using anything else, doesn't matter much. When Office is an integral part of your processes, you tend to use features that are more..."unique" to it. Its then harder to replace (usually companies that go that route, do so with the idea that the license price of Office is minimal compared to the time saving of using it as a RAD client...). Added to the fact that Office's volume licensing makes it much cheaper than what you'll see if you poke Amazon.com, and in time of recession, its the LAST suite of apps that will be switched over...

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Tubal-Cain]

My company is ... using Lotus Symphony...

no risk of losing access to your data.

Does not compute

(I kid, I kid)

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Darkness404]

When Office is an integral part of your processes, you tend to use features that are more..."unique" to it. Its then harder to replace (usually companies that go that route, do so with the idea that the license price of Office is minimal compared to the time saving of using it as a RAD client...)

Yes, but you assume also that during 2009 both Office along with OOo (and other open source office suites) will remain stagnant. Try convincing a person who already is afraid of their computer that Office 2007 is better when they have to relearn half the program. And who knows what Windows 7 will bring, it may be that in the final release they remove all compatibility with Office below 2007 in which case showing people that they might not have to be retrained with the (IMO) horrid "ribbon" interface of Office 2007 but a more familiar one of OOo might be enough to convince your boss to go with the free app even if it might take more admin work to make it work.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[faragon]

I was aware of the economic downturn since 2004, not because of the global crisis, but because of the local housing bubble. That's because I've been cautious, saving a bit, when possible (I have not automobile, and I live in a small apartment).

I forgot to mention that where I live (Spain), there is a unemployment insurance, that would allow me to get almost 1000 euro/month during two years in case of being fired (after 8 or more continuous worked years -we pay huge taxes here-, the 1000 €/month is the maximum you can get, it depends on your previous salary and paid taxes). In extremis, I think that with savings it could be possible to survive for 4 years with no other additional income (unemployment insurance + savings). Life is very expensive here, despite of the currency exchange, I'm sure you can get more for 1000 USD in the US than in Spain with 1000 euro.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Tubal-Cain]

They are saying Open Source will gain marketshare, so it must be the YEAR OF BSD ON THE DESKTOP.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Tubal-Cain]

It's called retirement. Unfortunately, when he starts working again he'll have to continue working for the rest of his life.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[GryMor]

Really? I managed 2 years from a single years entry level (SDE) employment. As things stand after another ~5 years of employment, I could probably stretch things out to 10-15 years (barring hyper inflation) without dipping into unemployment insurance or the 401k.

Requirements:
Single (with no dependents)
Debt phobic
Ruthless culling of expenses

This was/is in Seattle, so it should be possible in most places. We aren't exactly known for cheap housing.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[drsmithy]

And who knows what Windows 7 will bring, it may be that in the final release they remove all compatibility with Office below 2007 in which case showing people that they might not have to be retrained with the (IMO) horrid "ribbon" interface of Office 2007 but a more familiar one of OOo might be enough to convince your boss to go with the free app even if it might take more admin work to make it work.

It's always hilarious to hear the various paranoid rants about how Microsoft is going to deliberately break $OLDPROGRAM so everyone has to upgrade, despite them having one of the best records for legacy support in the industry.

A better example of FUD, it is difficult to think of.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[theguyfromsaturn]

This recession will not last years because pundits say so. Unlike other recessions, this one was predicted decades ago. (have a look at the book "Limits to growth" and the neat time line for peak global industrial output peak. The timing match is quite scary actually). It is not a coincidence that the banking system collapsed on the heels of 140$ a barrel for oil. There is no other currency than energy. Without energy (including food to keep people going), there is no economic "activity". Food production has peaked too, on a global scale. What will happen now, is that as soon as the economy starts moving again, demand of fuel will increase until we reach a level somewhat lower than the peak 85 million barrels a day or so, at which point, due the limited oil production, prices will skyrocket again, and a fragile economy will go right back into recession. The only way out, is reducing quickly energy consumption. And increasing alternatitve energy sources.. However, there is 150 years of infrastructure in oil, and even more in coal.... you can't replace that in a couple of years. It takes decades during which global population will continue to grow, and food production decrease (at an accelerated rate with the decreased availability of natural gas and gasoline). It's not the pundits that predict a long recession. It's mother nature.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Darinbob]

In a recent study of the top 140 corporations in America, 12 were using OpenOffice. That's not exactly much.

No, that's a lot. You're seeing the cup as half empty, but it wasn't long ago that the cup was completely empty. 12 companies out of the "top" 140 corporations is a big deal. Every single one of those 12 corporations is a big respected company envied by the lesser N-140 corporations. They're the trendsetters, the ones that others watch closely.

If they're successful with OpenOffice (or other non-Microsoft software) then this will encourage other companies to do the same. Since these are large corporations, that means a large number of users are being exposed to Microsoft alternatives

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[drolli]

Sun going out of business? I have heard that before, regularly. One difference to SGI however is that SGI had a single market which borke away. Sun quite diverse products, which fit together. And lets face it: If i want a trouble-free file server, i probably would buy Solaris. So i would guess that they will find some investor in case they run out of cash.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Tubal-Cain]

Does Sun's ODF plugin have the same layout issues?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[SanityInAnarchy]

A workable replacement for Outlook, Exchange, and its calendar service is released.

What do you consider "unworkable" about the alternatives? Off the top of my head, there's Gmail + Google Calendar. There's also at least two open source alternatives that I can think of -- either a full stack, or with Outlook as a client.

Swapping back and forth between OpenOffice and Word still causes nasty layout and compatibility problems

From what I've seen, these are exaggerated. Yes, there are problems, but they don't affect most cases. For each worker, there's the question of whether they would actually gain anything from Office, and if so, whether it is worth spending hundreds of dollars on a personal copy for them.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Shados]

You really missed it. Its not more "admin work". Office has integration features that are either not found in other suites, or are vastly different... By integration features, read: "Using Office as a development platform". Programming.

Sure, maybe the UI of OOo will be slightly closer to Office 2003...but the app that you'd have to build around OOo will be a heck of a lot more different, and the totally different skillset required to develop for it (Office's API sucks, OOo's API is Lord of Sith level of evil...), you won't just have to retrain some people, you'll have to reorganise the IT and development department, switch third party products, change the enterprise portal... No fun.

For companies that just use Office to read documents and write a few, then yes, you're totally right.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[rabbit994]

Gmail and Google Calendar are not replacements for several reasons.

First being despite how responsive and AJAX, it's still a web client and still slower to work then Outlook.
Second, many companies are not willing to turn over their email to outside party that they cannot control what they do with it.

Zimbra is a nightmare and there is no reason to use Outlook as client but not use Exchange as backend. It might be cheaper but I've never seen anything that plugins to Outlook work as well as native Exchange.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[CAIMLAS]

And yet, there are those of us who have been saying for as much as a decade that we're headed for some rough times brought on foolish policy after foolish economic policy. We are about to reap the whirlwind of 50 years of low inflation and interest and wanton consumer debt/lending. We can not pay the piper.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[martin-boundary]

Personally, I'm hoping it's going to be the YEAR OF THE XTERM. If we can only get a few of the hardware companies to supply better drivers, the Tektronix 4014 emulation will finally rock!

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[mortonda]

(I have savings for 2-3 years, if after deflation don't come hiperinflation, I expect to survive without major problems).

I just have to say, congrats on making wise choices and saving that money up. if more people and companies would have that foresight, we all might weather hard times a lot better.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[rmcd]

Here are two honest questions:

1. Why did Microsoft make the equation editor in Word 2007 incompatible with that in Word 2003? (And yes, I know that they shipped the old equation as part of powerpoint 2007 and you could discover this with enough effort. But in my setting a few people upgraded and everyone else had to upgrade to be able to edit the new documents. No, the docx update for 2003 did not permit editing of the new equation format.)

2. Why did Microsoft ship Excel 2007 in such a form that it couldn't read old macros (circa Excel 95). In fact they have a simple fix for this, but it's not available unless you contact MS tech support.

I can see two reasons for these omission: 1) stunning incompetence or 2) a deliberate attempt to drive upgrades. I have a hard time believing it's not #2, but I have no evidence.

Just because it's FUD doesn't mean the F, U, and D are not justified.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[andreyvul]

Year of OpenBSD on the desktop?
LMFAO.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[upuv]

People use Symphony?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

I've admittedly not worked with Google's calendar. But the alleged 'drop-in replacements' for Exchange aren't, or at least not yet: they just don't work well with real Outlook clients. Replacing the tight integration of Outlook with its calendar tools is very difficult. All of the Exchange replacements seem to require an unstable and unreliable 'Connector' to inter-operate with Outlook, and it costs a lot more to support in IT resources and wasted user time than simply buying an Exchange server.

A mail client that uses an open source calendar source, and integrates it well with email, would be a great Outlook replacement, but I've not seen this either. Evolution, for example, behaves very poorly with its Exchange service, at least the last time I tried it. And don't even think of suggesting 'Horde': I spent a lot of time trying to get it integrated and working in a production kenvironment, and it was awful.

Replaceing both Outlook and Exchange together is theoretically possible, but it would have to have very tight, effective calendar and email integration. Is Gmail and Google Calendar working well? Even if it is, it raises the problem that your calendar and email are off-site and you are vulnerable to data theft and loss of services if your external connection is cut.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Klaus_1250]

using Lotus Symphony which isn't OOo but it uses the Open Document format.

Doesn't Lotus Symphony use forked code from an older release of OpenOffice?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[NoobixCube]

Even if Sun goes out of business, there are two other potential maintainers who could fill the OpenOffice shoes. Novell are trying their best to hijack OpenOffice now, in a subtle open source way, not a hostile corporate way. They could probably do a much better job than Sun ever did. Alternatively, IBM's revival of Lotus uses OpenOffice at it's core. At present, it's using an old version, but I think I remember reading on the Lotus site that the old version was just a stepping stone to overcome Sun's licensing restrictions. Soon enough, it will probably incorporate OpenOffice 3 code into it.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

How many Solaris file servers have you run? I've had noticeable issues with them, most often fixed by buying twice as many Linux servers for the same price and gaining reedundancy.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[wassabison]

In my opinion we are in the transition to a change in the business model, similar to the musicians that make money with concerts (services) but not with CDs, in the software arena I expect something somewhat similar: software will be free and open source, and the bucks will be in parallel services (adaptation, support, etc.).

I do not understand this business model. Free software and selling support. The primary developer would have to subsidize their development costs with the services, while another company could support the product without the cost of development, undercutting the primary in price and quality. Also, how does the sale go? Our software is great and free, you should use it. Meanwhile you are trying to selling them support; implying, that they may have trouble with the software? Obviously some businesses will want expert support for critical products, but that is very niche.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pembo13]

Or maybe people will start using PDFs more... that would be even better.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Percy_Blakeney]

Added to the fact that Office's volume licensing makes it much cheaper than what you'll see if you poke Amazon.com, and in time of recession, its the LAST suite of apps that will be switched over...

You're mostly right, but OpenOffice can be used in two different ways: as an office suite and as a weapon in negotiations. Most large companies will do exactly what you say they will -- they'll stick with Office no matter what -- but there will be some that tell Microsoft to lower their price or else, even if they have no real intention of switching.

It's that gradual erosion of Office prices that truly threatens Microsoft over the next 5-7 years, not sudden large defections to OpenOffice. The huge margin that Microsoft has on Office is one of the two financial pillars of the company, and anything that jeopardizes that is a major threat to the company.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[dkleinsc]

That's absolutely 100% impossible, because Netcraft confirms that BSD is dying.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[linhares]

Beautiful. I wish I had mod points

HERE ARE SOME SLIDES FROM LIMITS TO GROWTH that I've uploaded. They concern only scenario#2, which is but one of the scenarios developed in the model (and the one I think is turning out eerily close to reality).

Slides 11 and 12 are particular sinister to me.

Obviously, I'm placing them here totally out of context, but when you read the book you see that they do make sense, and how these global variables feedback into each other. (Note. Other slides loosely related)

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Rakishi]

No you simply need to live within your means and consider savings to be the most important thing there is. Most people don't care about savings and spend money as soon as they get it. I lived for the first couple of years out of college absurdly below my means because I wanted to have money in the bank first. In life shit happens and if you don't save money for those occasions then you're an idiot.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[427_ci_505]

Enlighten me, please. Office as a development platform?

Do you mean integrating freshly written programs with Office through some API, or using Office as an IDE?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

No, that's a lot. You're seeing the cup as half empty

You can tell they cherry-picked the "top 140" number, seems obvious that #140 was an Open Office user, else they would have picked a more round number like top 150 or top 200. But even if we stick with the "top 140" - that's still 91.5% empty, not just half-empty.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[MBGMorden]

The savings from switching to OpenOffice are no better than the savings from keeping Office 2003.

For existing installs, it is indeed probably better to keep an older version of Office. For new purchases however, it might be worth looking into OO.o. We've entertained the idea in the past, but so far have continued to stick with MS Office. It just wasn't worth the extra effort of supporting two platforms. Still though, we're facing some definate budget issues. The state recently cut our budget back 3% across the board, and we're looking at further cuts next budget cycle. Just to get us through the current cycle we've already implemented a hiring freeze and have scheduled 3 unpaid holidays over the next 6 months.

The call has basically come from the higher ups that if we can find a way to save a little here and there, to by all means bring those ideas to them. I'm thinking that I might bring up the OpenOffice option again soon. I'd love to push Linux as a desktop option to really save on the OS licenses, but we just have too many existing proprietary applications to look at it at the moment.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[drolli]

I was referring to solaris as an OS. I am aware that the quality of hardware which SUN delivers in certain segments of the market offers - contradicting nostalic memories - no advantage over your approach. I am also aware that SUNs hardware was not as good as the lore of the bearded guys sometimes says (e.g. we had a lot of pizza-boxes which died strange hardware deaths and the monitors where crap). I would agree to say that if you want good hardware for and good price, you will have an easier time with not buying SUN and buying two times as much. If the purpos of this machine would be *only* file-serving, i would consider solaris as os.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[MBGMorden]

The idea is that the company that actually did the development is most familiar with the product and therefore will be able to provide the highest quality support for it. Afterall paying a bunch of guys who are merely familiar with the product for support probably isn't getting you much better than your own staff that admins the product already knows about it.

Obviously some businesses will want expert support for critical products, but that is very niche.

Not really. A huge number of business won't touch a product (free or otherwise) that they can't buy support for with a 10 foot pole. Lately virtually every open source product I've suggested at work that's been more important that a 1 time data conversion or the like has had to include a company from which they could purchase support from.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Dan541]

Like they say every year?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

Unfortunately, that's only for printout. There's still not a good open source PDF editor, and Word documents and their ilk are useful for editing and adjusting.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

No, SUN is not going out of business.

Before a unix vendor goes under they will always try to leverage their once strong name into selling(very) low-quality PCs preloaded with windows under their own, once strong, name.

So, until you see low-quality PCs, preloaded with windows and labeled "SUN Microsystem", they wont go under. Its kind of a law of nature.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

Why? For the same overall reliability as Sun, you can buy a modest Linux box and install twice as much cheap disk on it for double the capacity. It won't be as fast without some of the complex file systems, but it's quite enough for personal and most industrial use.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Dan541]

What do you consider "unworkable" about the alternatives? Off the top of my head, there's Gmail + Google Calendar.

How are those to even a possible replacement for exchange?

The reason companies supply email to their users is to keep all the data in house, otherwise their employees could just use their own email addresses.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Dan541]

But until open office gets a built in spell checker it can never ever succeed. Users don't like jumping through hoops and solving cryptic puzzles just to enable a spell checker.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[techno-vampire]

In Soviet Russia, BSD confirms that Netcraft is dying.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[billstewart]

Yeah, I know you said /humor here, but I'm currently facing that situation :-) I've been at my company long enough to officially be "retired" when they lay me off this month, though I'd expected to need to work at least another decade before I could actually retire. My defined-benefit pension got replaced with a cash-balance "equivalent" some years ago, which looked a lot better when I could make 10% interest than now when I'll be lucky to get 2% on it and my 401K. At least I get my medical covered, which is a good thing if the next job I find doesn't provide that.

Meanwhile, I'll get to practice welding at Techshop, and try to pick up on the programming that I've ignored the last few years (I've been messing with routers instead), and go cover my home PC with a pile of virtual machines. Pretty soon I should be able to start actually writing some FOSS instead of just using it - it's been too long...

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[psnyder]

Doesn't Lotus Symphony use forked code from an older release of OpenOffice?

Yes

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anpheus]

Because the new equation editor is vastly superior to the old one, and it was redundant code.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

In a recent study of the top 140 corporations in America, 12 were using OpenOffice.

[citation needed]

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[drolli]

a) i said "consider" solaris. this somehow matches your "most industrial use". Usually i would end up with linux

b) "is enough" makes it sound like linux is inferior or cheap. Nothing in my posts suggested this. To put it in clearer words: the only application for a newly installed solaris i could imagine is file serving/server for SUNs thin clients. For certain applications in certain environments the *overall* (including administration and education) cost will be lower for solaris. I am thinking right now about the consistency of the documentation and overall platform stability. In both of these SUN has done a good job. Not needing to re-educate you admin may easily bridge some minor difference in price!

c) "cheap disk" is maybe not what you want in some not "most industrial applications"

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[HartDev]

Cool!

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[symbolset]

We only need another 4 companies in that sample to get a 50% market share increase!

So we're being trite, are we? Well it would be as fair to say that Microsoft partners are going out of business.

But that would be redundant. Microsoft eats their young, your young, and you if you don't move fast enough.

For credit, name one company that successfully engaged in a partnership with Microsoft, disengaged, and survived. One.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[bignetbuy]

The newest version, the one that runs on Red Hat, OpenSuse, Fedora, and Ubuntu? Hell yeah, they do. I personally just installed it on four computers at home/work. You should try it. Lotus is doing some good work with Symphony.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[bignetbuy]

While I cannot dispute the fact that Lotus might have used OpenOffice code in Symphony, the author of that article seems to be a paid-shrill for the OpenOffice camp. Check his article history at Linux Journal. He has quite a few articles extolling the benefits of OpenOffice. I'll wait for someone a little more independent to talk about Symphony before passing judgment.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

a) Me, too.

b) Linux, overall, is not inferior. Many developer grade completely free Linuxes, like Fedora and Gentoo, would require a serious investment in skilled personnel to maintain or in an expensive external contract to maintain to the support quality you get with a Solaris license. But for most uses, even industrial, the lesser licenses of such Linuxes is quite enough for modest industrial use.

One of the big uses of Solaris right now is satisfying bean-counters that you have a supported architecture that they will accept, irrelevant of the technical feasibility of an appropriate Linux distribution. That's a political issue, not a technical one, and it's a compelling reason to use Solaris.

c) Cheap disk is almost always what you want these days. While some applications do require 15,000 RPM drives and the higher bandwidth of SAS or even fiber channel, most modern systems are quite happy with a reasonable amount of RAM, RAID configured 7200 RPM drives with hot spares at 7200 RPM, and 4 times the capacity or more. That kind of capacity enables the complete retirement of old equipment before the drives reach their MTBF, with the drives released for ligher load use in QA systems or selling the equipment off on Ebay.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[digitalunity]

Eh?

My OOo spellchecker was enabled by default. It works quite handy.

My only spellchecker gripe is in Firefox actually - right clicking a misspelled word shows the correct spelling but using my windows-document-thingy-key doesn't show the same context menu.

Oh wait, nevermind. It's fixed in 3.0.5.

Carry on.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[digitalunity]

Agreed. In a recession, the only companies likely to move from 2003 to 2007 are those who really need to or who already paid for it.

Unless its part of a strategic business initiative, most companies won't change a thing on the desktops.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Dan541]

I always need to download the English dictionary, altho it is turned on by default, only after I download a dictionary, close OOo then reopen it will the spell checker actually start working.

This is only a problem on first install, once I get it working it does continue to work from then on, but the first time I did this was a real pain because I didn't know why it wouldn't work.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[SerpentMage]

Ok let me get this straight...

You are going to push Open Office and Linux as a cheaper alternative. Fair enough can buy that, but when is it cheaper? Now? Nope, gotta train those people to convert. Gotta work overtime to convert all of those documents. When was this going to be cheaper? Oh yeah 3 years from now when the economy is not in a recession anymore.

This is actually the problem I see with FOSS on the desktop. While the software is free, the training, upgrade, and fix up is not. Hence even in a downturn it ain't gonna happen.

On the server side we can have a different argument, but then again Linux is already making inroads...

Now I actually see a stagnation of Open Source... Those that did, did, those that didn't wont...

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[psnyder]

The question wasn't which is better. It was, 'Is Lotus Symphony forked code from OpenOffice'. I knew the answer was yes, so I just googled "open office lotus symphony" and skimmed an article to find someone else saying it, so that the answer was backed up by something.

Forked code doesn't make one thing better than another. Firefox & Seamonkey, OOo & Symphony, or heck, any distribution of Linux for that matter, are all things that build off of the same code. They just make different flavors for different users and functionalities.

I hadn't intended it to be inferred as a OOo vs Symphony issue. But if you want to see other people compare the two, just do the same google search I did, "lotus symphony open office" and you'll get a LOT of opinions either way.

But in retrospect, you're probably right for inferring what you did from my post. I'll have to take more notice of the bias in an article before I link next time.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Hurricane78]

For the load of crap that OOo is, this is actually a very good number. Maybe it's, because MS office is not much better.

I really miss Lotus SmartSuite. (The latest edition is just way too outdated.) :(

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun is going out of business, just like SGI a few years back. Sun is the only one that doesn't know it yet.

That's just bullshit. Sun still makes money. The only problem Sun has is its share price.

Sun is in a transition phase at the moment. Just as IBM and Apple were.

I guess, 10 years ago you also said that IBM and Apple would go out of business. Just look at them now...

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of bullshit "arguments".

If your employees aren't total retards, there is no reason to train them, because there is no relevant difference between MSO and OOo. OOo tried so hard to imitate that crap from MS, that it became crap itself.
Convert all those documents. I think you never ever touched OOo. You can use MSO documents like if they were native formats. No need for any conversion. (Except if you want to keep them for a very long time. But then you would have to convert them to something proper anyway.)

This is actually a problem I see with FOSS on the desktop: The FOSS community does not really fight the companies behind such people like you, spreading bullshit to protect their outdated business model. Remember that those companies fight vor their very existance. So they fight as hard as they can. No remorse.
As long as we don't fight even harder (meaning more intelligently), they are going to win.

And: There is no economic recession. The money just got redestributed to a small group, who tells you that it is "gone".

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[SanityInAnarchy]

it's still a web client and still slower to work then Outlook.

Citation needed. I've had problems with it, but slowness was never one of them.

Second, many companies are not willing to turn over their email to outside party that they cannot control what they do with it.

My assumption was, there are very specific things they're allowed to do with it.

Besides which, the alternative is trusting Microsoft to not patch Outlook to send them copies of your inbox. If you don't suspect Microsoft of doing that, why do you suspect Google of doing something similar?

Zimbra is a nightmare

That's one of four that I was able to find. Haven't used any, though.

there is no reason to use Outlook as client but not use Exchange as backend.

The reason is, you want it to be a seamless upgrade. For example, replacing the Windows fileserver with Samba on Linux, done right, no one should notice except the admins. Similarly, adding webmail to an IMAP server, even if you have to change the underlying server quite a lot, is something the users shouldn't notice, unless they happen to like webmail.

So, if you have a legitimate reason to want to use something other than Exchange as a backend -- maybe better Linux compatibility, maybe it's easier to admin, maybe it has features Exchange doesn't -- it would be nice if the people using Outlook don't have to care. That's why you want to support Outlook as a client.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[SanityInAnarchy]

A mail client that uses an open source calendar source, and integrates it well with email, would be a great Outlook replacement, but I've not seen this either.

Have you tried Kontact?

Last I checked, Kmail couldn't quite handle folders as large as Thunderbird. Other than that, there's Thunderbird with Sunbird.

Is Gmail and Google Calendar working well?

Generally, yes.

Even if it is, it raises the problem that your calendar and email are off-site and you are vulnerable to data theft and loss of services if your external connection is cut.

Haven't had the data theft happen. And unless you're talking about Google stealing data themselves, it seems no more likely than the same thing happening with your own groupware solution, assuming you allow remote access.

I suppose, technically, I could simply connect via IMAP (with a large cache, and offline browsing enabled) and ical+dav. In practice, I've been using Google Apps at work for over a year, and I've never had it go down -- and the times our connection has died, I can count on one hand. But then, it's also less of a concern -- I know I don't get much work done without Internet.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[scuba0]

Aren't all Microsoft products vastly superior to the old one or having a lot of redundant code? On the top of my head, products like Windows ME and Windows Vista.

Microsoft pushes for people to upgrade so they make what they can of it, sometimes their new versions actually stink more than the last one, but why let that stop you?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[wisty]

Unless Solaris wins. Or maybe that weird BeOS clone. BSD seems to be the eternal bridesmaid of operating systems (not that I wouldn't mind giving it a try).

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Hurricane78]

Rather the year of OpenBSD at all.

Will never happen... ;)

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pseudonomous]

But at the same time some degree of re-training is neccessary to learn to learn the new microsoft office suite, so it's not as big of gap as you might think. Also, it's not like open office is really hard to figure out if you've used any office suite, ever. Maybe not for spreadsheets, though, since those are quite a bit more involved, so excell will probably linger on even if windows were to disappear, but for a word-processor open office is pretty much all you need. or Koffice. or Abiword. And, since OO.org can import .doc files, you don't really have that much work converting old documents. you might get some funny formatting once in awhile, but you're not going to lose content. Another thing to consider is hardware upgrade costs, I mean you can't actually run Vista on alot or 4+ year old machines, but you can run a usable, if somewhat antiquited feeling, desktop on a decade old machine with linux or *bsd, and save power while you're at it. (of course, switching to linux is even more work than switching office suites, but this is something else you have to consider) On the other hand, you do probably have to retrain your support personel and that's definately more work. And, as you say, it pays off in the long run (by allowing you to be much less dependant on a particular software supplier, giving you the opertunity to shop for software solutions), and I'm not yet cynical enough to think that there aren't at least some people willing to take this into consideration. So... I certainly don't think EVERYONE will start adopting OS but I think more people will.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pseudonomous]

I agree.

I think the worst case scenario (for SUN) is they end up declaring bankruptcy, slim down quite a bit, and end up being a company that sells x86 servers and becomes to OpenSolaris as Red Hat is to Fedora.

And probably trying to make money off of MySql and Java somehow.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[bsDaemon]

Spoken like the eternal groomsman of computer nerds.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

And who knows what Windows 7 will bring, it may be that in the final release they remove all compatibility with Office below 2007 in which case showing people that they might not have to be retrained with the (IMO) horrid "ribbon" interface of Office 2007 but a more familiar one of OOo might be enough to convince your boss to go with the free app even if it might take more admin work to make it work.

It's always hilarious to hear the various paranoid rants about how Microsoft is going to deliberately break $OLDPROGRAM so everyone has to upgrade, despite them having one of the best records for legacy support in the industry.

A better example of FUD, it is difficult to think of.

Most software I use is backwards compatible, both in user interface (WordStar (=jstar), COBOL, Pascal, C, Forth, Fortran, PostScript &c.) and document format (CSV, ASCII text, ASCII text fixed-length record files (aka COBOL PICTURES), PostScript, TeX &c.) with applications I used in the 80's and even 70's. All old bitmap graphics I have from the early 80's and later can be opened in GIMP, old WordPerfect documents in OOo or WP, Visicalc sheets in OOo or Gnumerics. From my POV Microsoft has a terrible record of legacy support, try to open an Excel sheet from the 80's or a Word document from the early 90's in their modern name's sakes. Try to open an MS Multiplan sheet in Excel. Thank God, there is FOSS capable to open all those file formats MS has abandoned.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM.

This is where you tell me the partnership wasn't successful (bullshit) or that they never disengaged (also bullshit) to try and protect your utterly ridiculous point.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Bert64]

In the short term yes, but openoffice offers a number of long term advantages such as the freedom to choose what platform you run it on, the open file format by default, and when/if you want to update, whereas mso 2003 will become unsupported and no longer have security updates or compatibility with current versions.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Bert64]

Have you tried the pdfimport plugin for openoffice 3?
It allows you to import pdf files and edit them, and then you can export them back out as pdf.

It works well for me, there is also an open source app called pdfedit but i've not tried that.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[shutdown -p now]

Lotus Symphony which isn't OOo but it uses the Open Document format

For any practical purpose, Lotus Symphony is just OOo 1.x with uglified UI.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Bert64]

12/140 is close to 10%, once you have a significant percentage market share compatibility becomes less of a problem because other companies wont like to be incompatible with 10% of other companies they deal with.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Bert64]

Strange, mine came with the english dictionary by default...
I also found that the spell check as you type in openoffice continues to work with large documents, whereas msword seems to turn it off after 100 pages or so.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Skofo]

Yes, but OpenOffice is more modern (therefore I assume it has more support) and has less compatibility issues than Office 2003, and it can also save to PDF format without purchasing an add-on from Microsoft.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pbhj]

Clarification please: are you saying you worked an entry level job for 2 years and now can afford to live for 10-15 years on savings?

In UK average wage is about £28K. (pretax; most quotes are higher, eg http://freedomandwhisky.blogspot.com/2008/12/do-scotsmans-journalists-pay-income-tax.html) - that gives you £100 to live on per month (not allowing for interest payments! and having deducted NI and tax). My rent as a student 15 years ago was £200 for room only.

?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pbhj]

In life shit happens and if you don't save money for those occasions then you're an idiot.

I work 2 jobs and can afford 1 home cooked meal a day. My house needs maintaining, our vehicle needs maintaining (used for work). What should I cut back on?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

No, I _haven't_ tried that. I'll do so ASAP, thank you for the pointer.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[donstenk]

I live in Italy where there are similar conditions but as I am self employed if my business goes down I am on my own. My business is building and selling second homes, a luxury purchase if nothing else. Having a basic understanding of the property markets I have also been sceptical since about 2004 and kept fixed costs down.

My savings are enough to see us through 18 months without change in lifestyle, 24 months with a few cuts (travel, not 2 but 1 car etc).

I think it pays to use common sense and not spend all you have, or even more. Aren't these basics taught by parents anymore?

Having said all that, if young graduates cannot afford a starter home anymore you are effectively removing the feeder at the bottom of the market and a correction will be needed. A bit of a reshuffle creates opportunities for some and is a threat for some. Understanding where you are can give you peace of mind or enable you to prepare for change and embrace it. If you are in IT understanding how and where you can add value by using Open Source is only one of them. Cutting fixed costs where possible and maneuvering to be in pole position when things pick up should probably be top priority for any manager.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Dan541]

I'm surprised to hear that no one else has encountered this, I installed OOo 3 yesterday and today had to install the dictionary. Perhaps I broke something in a directory somewhere.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[IamTheRealMike]

Uh, dude, are you really slamming Microsoft for dropping support for macros over a decade old, except not really because there's a patch?

What are you comparing them to here, exactly? I mean, Linux distros routinely break backwards compatibility with themselves every 6 months, and they're proud of it!

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[IamTheRealMike]

Oh great. The doomers are invading Slashdot.

Well, I won't accept that, you can write this stuff at ToD if you want, but not here.

Firstly, there is no particular reason why peak oil cannot be handled purely through market forces. If you sit down with a spreadsheet and run the numbers (as I have done) you'll find that given the rate at which we manufacture new vehicles, we can reduce demand in line with a 5-8% global decline rate simply through people upgrading their cars to more efficient models. It requires no greater car sales than usual, and in fact can even get by with less, because if you analyze car sales vs efficiency during the 70s/80s you'll see that the average efficiency of the fleet did increase quite dramatically during this time, even during a recession, probably due to a mix of more efficient vehicle upgrades and internal fleet re-arrangements. Read some of the analyses by Staniford if you want to learn more about this.

Secondly, your belief that all economic activity is energy driven is wrong - consider the entire creative industries, which are a massive part of the economy but are very low energy.

Thirdly, food production is not as dependent upon oil as you believe. Fertilizer production in particular uses fossil fuels because it's convenient, not because it's chemically required.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[MBGMorden]

No need to convert documents - OpenOffice read/writes the Office format so keeping everyone would be using that as the standard format.

As to training - we already keep a trainer onsite. He's salaried, and does scheduled Office training anyways (and as the former holder of his position before I was promoted, I can say that our trainer definitely has the extra time to do additional classes). So the additional training wouldn't cost us anything aside from an afternoon of time from each worker (which, being government, will hardly cost us anything - we're service oriented and there's just not as many building permit apps and such to deal with at the moment anyways, so we have the people to spare).

The one thing that many people forget when the "time is money" argument comes into play, is that many businesses are already paying people and keeping them on staff for some amount of work that doesn't realistically take up all their time. They keep paying them because they have some skillset that they need for something and it's worth it, but they've essentially already been paying for 40 hours per week of this person's time and have only been using a fraction of that. Increasing that workload to save a little in materials doesn't cost any more - the company is just using more of a resource they already paid for.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[drolli]

b) its not only political. it's real. If you cant hire ad fire for some reason, but haxe a fixed staff, you dont have the choice but to reeducate them (e.g. 15 Persons, 5000 Euro/Person Reeduaction costs). I worked in the computing center of my university, and there i think they i would recommend to buy sun machines als long as they can, because their not so simple network is running without trouble (only the part of it settling on solaris, the novell/nt/linux group is such a mess its incredible), which the personal and infrastructure and under the funding/infrastructure boundaries they have. Causing out-times for services which are used by 20000 students and a few thousand employes, some hospitals and associated research centers sound like a thing to avoid. And no, there failing drives need to be replaced (some Admin has to go there and touch it) in this case.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Daengbo]

I make 30K a year and have enough cash for 4-5 years. You just need to stay debt free. And before anyone makes cracks, I don't live with my parents, but housing is part of my compensation package.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't be laffing so hard when all of us take over your country and cover it with liters of primate sperm in a huge bukkake invasion. You for one, should be welcoming your masturbating monkey overlords.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[gbjbaanb]

Don't forget you can get funny formatting in Word, all by itself. The amount of time I've spent trying to get stuff looking nice when Word will decide I really did want a bullet list, or a modified style, or a table cell format amazes me.

The only thing I've found so far that OOo does not do that MSO does, is embedded flash. Yup, those elves bowling, or yeti sports games do not work in OOo. I think that's possibly a good reason to go for it though (your employees may not totally agree :)

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are two honest questions:

1. Why did Microsoft make the equation editor in Word 2007 incompatible with that in Word 2003? (And yes, I know that they shipped the old equation as part of powerpoint 2007 and you could discover this with enough effort. But in my setting a few people upgraded and everyone else had to upgrade to be able to edit the new documents. No, the docx update for 2003 did not permit editing of the new equation format.)

2. Why did Microsoft ship Excel 2007 in such a form that it couldn't read old macros (circa Excel 95). In fact they have a simple fix for this, but it's not available unless you contact MS tech support.

I can see two reasons for these omission: 1) stunning incompetence or 2) a deliberate attempt to drive upgrades. I have a hard time believing it's not #2, but I have no evidence.

Just because it's FUD doesn't mean the F, U, and D are not justified.

You forgot the third: Improve de product, detaching old-fashioned-bad-designed features.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he said after 1 year he could live for 2, and after five, for ten to fifteen. I still think that's stretching it a bit.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[b4upoo]

Believe it or not tax increases may limit the spare time activities of many people who contribute to open source projects. Cities and states are all putting on their thinking caps to find or create taxes and fines to help support them in hard times. That may leave those that are employed with a much higher tax burden.
            And the fact is that hard times shake things up to a point where a few people will land in better positions. I knew one oldster who happened to have a powerful friend who made him a factory foremen with a $150 a week pay check in 1930. Other people worked really hard for one or two dollars a day. Some even worked for a lot less than that. For example our local lumber mill paid 7 cents per hour before the Great Depression even started. My old friend with his $150 per week could live like a Sultan.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Hognoxious]

By integration features, read: "Using Office as a development platform". Programming.

OK, you can stop. I see the problem, right there.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[David Gerard]

No-one ever gets training on new versions of Office.

I have worked for large corporations, I'm working for one now. The last time I got such training was 1997, when I was working for a computer training company.

FUDsters keep claiming "but what about the training costs" - there are no such training costs because there is no training. I would like evidence that such training is widespread and expected. I would like evidence that it's anything more than negligible. Statistics, please, not anecdotes.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[David Gerard]

This is true. The suits live in Outlook and Excel. Outlook's functionality has been a big fat steady target for ten years and there still hasn't been a usable free software replacement.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[houghi]

Of those 12, how many ONLY run openoffice?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[marcosdumay]

"By the way, don't listen to the pundits that tell you the recession will last years. Those same pundits four months ago were saying life is great. They don't have a clue, they just echo the popular opinion of the time."

I don't know what pundits are you listening to, but the ones I listen were predicting that crisis by 2006. It just seemed less intense by that time, but that isn't really their fault, since from the data available by then, one couldn't say the crisis would be so harsh (we took the worst possible path, or something very near it).

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[marcosdumay]

"Now I actually see a stagnation of Open Source... Those that did, did, those that didn't wont..."

Or, maybe, those that didn't will go bankrupt, altough I don't expect so many people to go without at least a fight. IT is a major cost of business today (and a major - maybe the biggest - source of savings), one can't ignore major costs during a recession and expect to stay in bussiness. Now, you seem to agree that life-cycle costs of FOSS are lower than the alternative, since your focus is at the migration costs.

Anyway, a more "recession-style" migration would be giving people some very simple training and expecting them to adapt to the new software otherwise they'll be fired. That isn't nice, but lots of people would be fired anyway, better choose the readblocks than the adaptable ones.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[marcosdumay]

"What should I cut back on?"

Slashdot.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[budgenator]

Yes they might have been better off if they had, the time and effort spent on legacy support work could have been spent on making the new stuff rock solid stable and usable.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[jez9999]

PS: 4/12 is not 50%.

He used Excel to calculate it.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pbhj]

"What should I cut back on?"

Slashdot.

That's just insanity!

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pbhj]

OK, got it, sounds doable.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[dbcad7]

"due the limited oil production, prices will skyrocket again"

Thing is.. there is not, and has never been, a shortage of oil.. In these years of $140 a barrel oil, have you ever gone to the pump to find no gas ? ... Prices got where they were because of "speculation" of "possible" shortages.. and greed.. you see, if I buy something for $100, and mark it up 20 percent, I make $20.. If I buy it for $200 I make $40..

When a product like oil, which is used to transport most of the products in your economy, is out of control with it's costs like it has been.. it is a disaster in the making.. Of course we should continue working on alternatives.. but in the meantime.. enough is enough, and we need to say something like "if you want to sell gasoline in the US, you must not pay more than $50 a barrel for it.. or you can't sell here".. and stick to it.. you see we have the buying power, and I can guarantee that if that is "the rule" for selling in the US, then it will be stabilized at $50 or less.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[budgenator]

In a recent study of the top 140 corporations in America, 12 were using OpenOffice. That's not exactly much.

I read as 12 of the top 140 admitting they use OO, how many consider OO a confidential competitive advantage? I've installed OO on a computer for an office worker in my shop, she doesn't have a clue what she's using and doesn't care because it works for her. Mostly they are fill-in-the blank forms saved as PDF's, if OO crashes and burns so what, they are usually printed from acrobat anyways.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[burnin1965]

I do not understand this business model. Free software and selling support.

A common and often repeated predicament but it is something every software vendor had better be trying to understand whether they intend to join the ranks of FOSS based vendors or if they intend to compete using the old tried and true closed source model.

The primary developer would have to subsidize their development costs with the services

As is the case with both closed and open source software development. The difference between closed and open source development is that the closed source vendor incurs all the costs to license the libraries and tools needed for development of closed source software and the salaries for the development, testing, marketing, etc. where as the open source vendor shares many of those costs with others in the development community.

I think the difficulty many people run into with the application of a business model on an open source product is they assume they will maintain the original organizational structure they used for their closed source model with an open source model, in which case you are correct, the business will fail. The solution is to discover how you can fit your business within the open source community so there is an equitable relationship. Even this is not much different from the closed source model, all the vendors licensing their software to enable another company to develop a software product are trying to maximize their profits at the secondary developer's expense. If the licensing expenses for the closed source libraries and tools you use are too high then your business venture will not be viable.

Obviously some businesses will want expert support for critical products, but that is very niche.

This is a false statement. Both closed and open source based businesses are making hundreds of millions from the service side of the software business. Read the details in the SEC statements for companies like Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. and you will find the service market is massive. Most businesses benefit from added productivity enabled by IT infrastructure and one way or another have expenses necessary to place and maintain that infrastructure. Whether its the small business that buys a PC preloaded with Microsoft Windows and Office that comes with a minimal amount of support and they rely on their own time or a local PC shop or the larger corporations that subscribe to the Red Hat support network so they receive orderly updates to their linux operating systems and all the associated software.

Honestly all one has to do is look at the profit margins for a company like Microsoft and you realize the development costs of the software are not so amazingly high that a move to the service side is going to kill the company, but I suppose it could result in fewer Lear jets and Porsche 959s for the CEOs.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[BlueParrot]

And: There is no economic recession. The money just got redestributed to a small group, who tells you that it is "gone".

Uhm, not quite. What happens is that as moronic government policies and corruption causes miss allocation of resources, stuff that is necessary to make important stuff was instead wasted on making crap that nobody has any real use for. I.e when people build swiming pools for the rich rather than repairing roads and bridges, then that labor is indeed gone. The money may still be around but due to the wonders of inflation that money will no longer buy you the same amount of resources that it did before. Essentially a bunch of corrupt crooks wasted labor and resources for their own short-term benefit and the result is that now we're all fucked in the long run.

The perhaps most depressing thing is that it's not much better in socialist or even communist countries. The problem is corruption, and as much as fanatic reaganomics is a bad idea, it does not have a monopoly on corruption.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Hognoxious]

If your employees aren't total retards, there is no reason to train them, because there is no relevant difference between MSO and OOo.

Then a very large proportion of the workforce are either total retards, or they have an extremely low threshold of what constitutes a relevant change.

OMG, how did you expect me to know that was the save icon - the background is a slightly darker colour! ... This doesn't work, on the old one the move icon was to the left of copy and here it's to the right ...

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Rakishi]

I spent a nice amount of time living in a shitty apartment, with no ac, barely usable heating, no car (in a place where one is really useful), no tv, an absurdly old cell phone and almost never ate at home (no time, unless you count $1 canned soup). I could have afforded much better but my savings were low and I didn't really need such luxuries. That wasn't even the most frugally that I could have lived althrough I did make sure to track all the expenses I had (ie: I wanted to make sure I didn't spend too much on toys and frivolities). I also know people who make less than half what I do in the same area and still pack a decent amount into savings.

I understand that there are some people who really can't afford to put money into savings but I've seen many more who simply don't care to sacrifice their fun. It's also not something you can simply do out of the blue one day (due to habit, obligations, etc.) but rather something you need to do constantly and since the beginning.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[uassholes]

Some governments and institutions would like to be able to save their files in an open format. Can you do that with MSOff03?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[jonbryce]

What do you plan to use for email / groupware?

I've looked at the various options available, and Exchange with Outlook / Evolution / Entourage generally works out the cheapest, and there isn't really anything else out there that is a suitable free replacement.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[rmcd]

Absolutely.

Office 2007 (without the fix) strips out the VBA code from an old spreadsheet. It's gone. You can't see it. You can't retrieve it. You can't edit it to fix it. It's gone. I fully expect that with some future release a fix will no longer be available. If this were a matter of the syntax changing, that would be one thing. But if you save the opened file you've potentially lost a lot of work.

Can you point me to a comparable Linux compatibility issue? One where old documents are irretrievably lost due to an upgrade? (I'm not talking about the need to edit configuration files.)

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[jonbryce]

I only ever see flash embedded .doc files used for chain letters, so I don't think it is going to be a problem.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[rmcd]

The fact that it's a better editor doesn't help the people who are trying to collaborate with users of Office 2003 (who can't touch the equations produced by the new editor).

If this had been clearly documented, with suggested workarounds, I wouldn't be nearly as unhappy. But I have several colleagues who got trapped between the two equation editors.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[JAlexoi]

When Office is an integral part of your processes

The keyword here is "when". Working as a consultant in a number extra-BIG companies, I have yet to see a business process that has Office a san integral part of it.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[JAlexoi]

No, the best legacy support in the industry award goes to IBM! CICS anyone?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[jonbryce]

Things like pulling figures off your accounts program and preparing reports with them.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Shados]

Oh, its not everywhere... but considering the amount of companies where Sharepoint is omni-present...it is definately not a small amount :)

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[jonbryce]

The main thing is you can take regular backups of your exchange server. It is not so easy to backup GMail. Yes, it can be done, but most people like to be able to see where their data is.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Shados]

Both really. There's 4 primary ways of doing it.

1) Make some macros along with Office's built in database integration to pull data from views or stored procedures from SQL Server/Oracle/Whatever and the process it, let say, with pivot table... Excel 2007 is a really sweet OLAP Client, for example. Probably easier to use than half of the "specialized" solutions for this.

2) Code in Access/Word/Excel/Whatever with VBA, basically make a normal app and use Office as a GUI. A little bit like Clipper of old. Access is the obvious one, but using Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Infopath, etc with that is fairly powerful.

3) What I was thinking when I posted that: add-ins and modules for Office. So then you can code in .NET or whatsnot, make a full blown application that will integrate in Office. So the user can go in a new, custom menu or something, pull an option "My Company's Process", and do something...maybe display forms or wizards to manipulate their word documents, applications to work with their spreadsheet, whatever.

4) (This is whats big lately...) Sharepoint development. Sharepoint is already integrated with Office, so extending it for your business process or workflows is pretty nice. Coding things such as "When a document is uploaded, parse it, put some data in a database, if it breaks email a supervisor, push it for review on another page, then print the result and email a company to the client". Uses bunch of apps from Office at every steps, from Word to Infopath...

Especially #3 and #4, you don't switch just overnight. Making the same things using other solutions, open source or otherwise, building from scratch, whatever...often it still becomes cost effective to do the above, even if it ties you in. The company I work for right now does that...and there's people keep analysing if its worth it, continually... No one's job is on the line. There's also studies to see if it was cost effective, even in hindsight...and the answer keeps being "yes". Its a lot of work and it IS expensive, so if there were cheaper alternatives, management would jump on it, but its really cost effective if you have a complex company with a lot of stuff going on that requires lots of in-house development.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Yfrwlf]

It's just easier to call you a troll, or stupid, sorry.

While considering the cost of anything, you have to look at the TCO (total cost of ownership). Office = costly upgrade treadmill. OOo = supported for years & years * possibly centuries, depending, but basically some other piece of open source office software would have to really really really start kicking it's butt for support for OOo to vanish, and even if the support did vanish in, the cost of switching to some other piece of open source office software would be um zero, provided it wasn't too different that you'd need training.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[SanityInAnarchy]

The main thing is you can take regular backups of your exchange server. It is not so easy to backup GMail.

Aside from the fact that Google presumably keeps backups, and you're generally not deleting email in the first place, I don't see how it's easier to back up exchange server than Gmail.

It's just IMAP.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[SanityInAnarchy]

See, and I thought it might have something to do with separating work and personal correspondence. Or maybe with branding -- every time you email someone on behalf of the company, you're both advertising the company, and providing some amount of assurance that you work for them.

Or maybe to manage mailing lists, or group calendars. Or to provide email and webmail to people who don't already have them.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

In a nutshell, you didn't answer the parents post, and even insinuated that his problem might be he spends too much on luxuries. Course, his post didn't have a good answer, but geez you could've done better with that response...

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[b1scuit]

The best way to handle that is to ask the user if they've ever had more than 1 car. If they say yes, ask them if they know how to roll down the windows in the new one. If they say yes, tell them they just got a new car. Everyone's happy!

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Dan541]

Apparently bug reporting is considered inappropriate, the integrity of slashdot moderators never ceases to amaze.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Hurricane78]

Aah... A typical (-1, Disagree). Guys, maybe you've never seen anything better, and for that I pity you, but OOo really is a load of crap.

The usability is stuck in the 80s. The software interfaces are a huge unstructured mess. The code is bloated in a way that makes Vista look lean.

One example are the formatting options. Modal tool boxes, called trough sub-menus? Are they completely insane??
Then the typical icon bars... for a text editor... yeah, right. Have fun jumping between mouse and keyboard like you're a DJ scratching his turntables.
Now on to modularity (the interface thing). I took a look at the code structure, and there seems to be no module system, and no proper plug-in interface. (Like in Miranda IM, Firefox, Photoshop, or Cubase (VST)) So for most stuff you end up patching the code anyway.
Finally the load times. There are two main indicators that your code is a bloated sluggish mess. Level 1: The splash screen: When your app starts so slow, that users would think it crashed or did not start at all, unless you add something that comes up quicker. Level 2: The preloader: When even the splash screen hangs on the desktop for more than half a minute, while trashing HDD, RAM and putting 100% load on the CPU.

What OOo is missing, is the 5 years of completely rewriting the whole code, that NN had to do, to become Firefox. And even Firefox is bad for needing five years.

As soon as I have some free cash-throwaway-time from what I'm developing now, I'll help solve this mess. :)

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pbhj]

I bought new shoes last year. First ones for 3 years though so I don't think they were to much of a luxury. Last ones lasted about 10 years, am hoping for the same again.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[erwanl]

If you really can't afford to save anything, you have absolutely no luxury you can cut, then you have a revenue problem. I think it's time to think about your career, maybe switch to a better paid job or go back to school if you need a degree for that.

If you don't, then the time you lose your job and/or have some serious medical problem you'll be in a real trouble.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that study shows that most of the major corporations in America are not using Linux, wouldn't that prove that Linux is a second rate OS. I mean, if Linux was the best as most of you claim or seem to believe, then wouldn't those companies be using it, instead of paying licensing fees for Windows. You know, someone once said that in order to be successful, do what the rich people are doing. So why the heck are all of you using Linux?

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Dan541]

That is also true, but many organisations still like to keep things in house for security/privacy reasons. Of course that becomes undone when companies try to cut costs and do security on a budget.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[Antique Geekmeister]

That's a very fair point. It's why I disliked the claim that 'Linux has $0 cost', because switching infrastructure tools is a very real cost, even when the software itself is free and high quality, and ignoring that switchover cost and risk makes a Linux advocate look foolish.

It's often well _worth_ the risk. Linux NIS, for example, is obviously superior to Solaris NIS because of its correct handling of low and high-numbered UID accounts and very superior handling of configurations files outside of /etc/passwd, /etc/group, etc.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[drolli]

I left to be a physicist before the UIDs hit the 65000..... (:-)

I was kidding (about the UID beeing below 65000). There where some troubles with that, but the head of the administrators was extremely competent about first testing things for a year or two on a few boxes in his room before rolling them out, so he spotted the problems beforehand and handled them appropriately - so i did not see any of these problems, but i was told how to handle it (i was only co-responsible for the web-server, which also served user homes, deeply buried in my memory i remember there was something....).

And about the config files well i think the usual solaris customers dont want to touch anything without need, which means that 'superior' for them means that their specialised tcl script they used the last 10years stops working (or worse: behaves strange).

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[pbhj]

Thanks for your comments.

Re:FOSS Will Gain Market Share

[JasterBobaMereel]

So people are buying the ludicrously expensive Sharepoint system then?

If I were foolish enough to, then I too would be using nothing but Microsoft... since it requires Windows, IIS, MS-SQL, Exchange, Office, Outlook, etc... to work at all! ... and any client without the proper tools is locked out...

Sharepoint the ultimate lock-in tool ....

FOSS is not free...

[Computershack]

The one thing these articles miss out is the massive costs involved in switching over and training staff. The old adage of "Linux is free only if your time is worthless" is especially relevent to the corporate world.

And as they've already got fully working and paid for Windows setups, why would they incur costs they don't need to to switch?

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! And air is not free because you still have to expend energy to breathe it!!! So anyone who says you don't have to pay for air is lying to you.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[CaptCovert]

Yes, but there is no alternative that has a lower ongoing cost to air.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. Just as vendor one-upmanship causes many "open standards" (CSS is a great example) to be "open, but not open", enterprise FOSS is "free, but not free".

If FOSS were really free as in beer, then Red Hat wouldn't be able to keep thousands of people on its payroll, would they?

And Sun Micro wouldn't be able to keep tens of thousands of people on its payroll... OK, bad example.

Most CIOs don't like the idea of having their engineers digging through mountains of C/C++ source code, plus Perl, Bourne, GNU make, autoconf, and m4 scripts, to find the source of a bug that they might have to build and maintain independently of the vendor's patch releases. And deploy on potentially dozens of production systems.

FOSS should compete on 1) transparency; 2) lack of vendor lock-in; 3) customization; 4) significantly lower cost. *Not* on being "free", which practically all non-Slashdot readers interpret as being "free as in beer".

Re:FOSS is not free...

[thetoadwarrior]

To be fair a lot of companies train people on upgraded software whether or not it's FOSS.

We had Lotus Notes 8 training recently and that's an hour out of my life where I struggled to stay away and could have used to code something useful but no, we have to pretend people are stupid and train them on anything where the UI changes a little.

So really you can't count training costs because companies will likely pay that whether or not they move from Office 2k3 to Office 2k7 or OOo.

In regards to going from Windows to Linux. I think the time to get people up to speed is relatively low because

A) In a corporate environment they shouldn't be allowed to install whatever they want so the finer details of Linux aren't needed.

B) Menu layouts are fairly standard thanks to Linux copying Windows who copies Apple.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[RichardJenkins]

Well, if energy was a currency then what you say would be perfectly true! It would also be true that with every breath you get a little richer despite the cost.

When people say "Linux is free only if your time is worthless" it's really just a pithy way of saying it is naive to assume licensing costs are the sum total of all costs around software. It is certainly not true that people who value their time pay more for linux.

I'm not a fan of pithy ways of saying things, I'd prefer it be unambiguous, bland, and easy to understand. But that's just my peculiarities. Most people like sexy phrases which invite the type of misunderstanding that I (and perhaps you? - maybe time to get tested for Aspergers) find difficult to avoid.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[vux984]

The one thing these articles miss out is the massive costs involved in switching over and training staff. The old adage of "Linux is free only if your time is worthless" is especially relevent to the corporate world.

Office 2007 is both expensive and different.
OpenOffice is free and different (some would even argue less different).

That makes it potentially a good value proposition, unless of course you can stay on Office 2003 which is already bought and paid for. But I know companies still on Office 2000 and Office XP and those aren't fully compatible with Vista (and Windows 7) and while they can hang onto WinXP for a bit yet, they can see the end is near.

For them, OOo is genuinely a good value proposition.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[thetoadwarrior]

FOSS just need marketing fullstop which is hard to get when your business model involves giving things away for free.

Most people just care about getting things done rather than how they get it done. If they knew they could get it done for less with Linux they'd love that but most people are afraid of computers and wouldn't dare try something that looks remotely different from Windows. I think part of Vista's problem is more that they changed the look rather than it's a POS.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Anonymous Coward]

More retraining is needed for office 03 -> 07 than Openoffice 1 -> 3, not to mention office 03 -> Openoffice.

On the other hand look how long it took to reverse engineer wine, samba and ntfs so that one can access old documents with a powerpc or a linux netbook.

  IMHO you scored one for free software.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Darkness404]

Most CIOs don't like the idea of having their engineers digging through mountains of C/C++ source code, plus Perl, Bourne, GNU make, autoconf, and m4 scripts, to find the source of a bug that they might have to build and maintain independently of the vendor's patch releases. And deploy on potentially dozens of production systems.

That is much, much, much, better than the Windows way. With FOSS you can at least fix a bug, with Windows you basically can report a bug, the MS engineers deny that it is a bug, you insist that it should not be default behavior, 2 weeks + you get a patch that may or may not work.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Narcocide]

Those "training costs" arguments are at least 99% bullshit though. You ever had an office job? How many of those people really know their way around MS Office? I've got news for you - when forced to actually perform anything more than basic tasks most of those trained employees would find themselves hard pressed to even recognize the difference between OpenOffice and MS Office much less find a bit of advanced functionality from the latter that they are familiar with that isn't in the former.

The same goes for most of the rest of the so-called productivity software - "training costs" really consist of the company now being accountable for addressing incompetence where previously the existing incompetence was just ignored because everyone lies and says they know how to use Office and nobody really knows it well enough to call anyone else out on it.

So in short my point is this: everyone just fakes it anyway. They should sack up and fake it with cheaper software they'll find its not functionally different for basic features and they can't even make use of advanced features so they don't have the right to be whining in the first place.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[CaptCovert]

When I'm the CEO of a small-medium company that doesn't actually employ any programmers and only has a small IT staff (*gasp!* but they do exist, people), how is the ability to program in my own fixes any sort of real benefit?

Of course, I could report the bug to whoever built the FOSS solution.... and wait 3 months for them to come up with a patch to fix it (lucky me, it doesn't happen that often)?

This is better somehow?

Re:FOSS is not free...

[LurkerXXX]

Install compatibility mode on Vista, and they ARE fully compatible.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[binarylarry]

You'll clearly never be the CEO of a company of any size.

You could go with Microsoft Office and when you need a bug fixed or whatever, you could report it to them. They would then send you an automated response that politely tells you to "Fuck Off," because they don't care.

They already have your money.

At least with OSS stuff, you have a fighting chance, you aren't screwed from the beginning.

And that's the point.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[abigor]

Actually, in my experience MS is quite responsive to bug reports, particularly if you have paid support. Your response might be true for home users or something, but it's definitely not true for corporate accounts worth a lot of money.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[wzzzzrd]

The one thing these articles miss out is the massive costs involved in switching over and training staff.

This is a problem indeed, but it has nothing to do with what you are switching to. It has something to do with employing stupid and/ or lazy people. For anyone able to read a book the switch from MS Office to OOo won't be a problem. If you need to train your people for THAT, you have a problem. Really, RTFM and back to work.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife works as an executive PA. The government organization she works for uses Microsoft as here in Australia the government doesn't purchase anything without a bribe - or backhander as it is called here. Most of the harder more extensive documents she creates she does at home on her Linux machine with OpenOffice, translates to pdf (sometimes .doc), and takes back to the office for printing.
Certainly this government office could save alot of money by dropping Microsoft.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[truthsearch]

My last two employers were big financial firms with Microsoft support contracts. Every support call was first handled with useless canned responses. It took an immense amount of time to get to speak to a developer who could actually admit we found real bugs in their software. Once we got to communicate with a real developer at Microsoft the issues were handled well, but it was incredibly frustrating to get to the point where Microsoft provided any satisfactory support.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[mcrbids]

Those "training costs" arguments are at least 99% bullshit though. You ever had an office job? How many of those people really know their way around MS Office? I've got news for you - when forced to actually perform anything more than basic tasks most of those trained employees would find themselves hard pressed to even recognize the difference between OpenOffice and MS Office much less find a bit of advanced functionality from the latter that they are familiar with that isn't in the former.

I frequently see this argument as an indicator that the costs of switching will be low, but my experience tends to lead me to conclude the other way; people who don't know how their Word Processor works will have only memorized the exact keystrokes to get their job done. It can take hours to days for each of these barely conscious cubicle monkeys to identify train, and support the switch to a new set of rote keystrokes and/or mouse clicks.

In review, while they can't necessarily identify or articulate the difference between Office, OpenOffice, AbiWord, and Wordpad, they can sure tell that their Macro installed by $TECHGURU back in 1998 no longer works on the Excel sheet they've been copying and saving for the last 10 years.

Don't believe me? Take a look at some of the user comments from this very recent slashdot article. I once drove 9 hours round trip for a baffling support issue when it turned out that the site administrator needed to SCROLL DOWN to find the icon that we kept insisting HAD to be there!

You don't know until you've spent 2.5 hours discussing the difference between "Save" and "Save As" to a roomful of fearful, distraught staff members of all ages... people who've been using computers every day for 10 years and still don't know the difference...

The cost of switching is much higher than you think.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is different from any other software company how? No-one wants to admit their software has bugs to their clients. At least though, there is someone to call. Who do you call when you are at home and your fails? Usually noone. You Google it, and hope there is an answer. And that is better than calling tech support how? Either way you may or may not get the fix you wanted. FOSS in a lot of cases means you are on your own.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Perhaps this is a more fundamental problem in UI design. I mean really when people say "intuitive" they usually mean works the same as the last program i used. There is some merit in that, but how many of these people still can use a Xbox or drive a car?(ok bad examples.. but you get the idea)

Personally I think we have a long way to go for computers to be "intuitive". The comments about cubicle monkeys above indicated that there will always be a large non technical user base.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[pseudonomous]

whatever you grew up with is intuitive.

I grew up with DOS, and it pissed the hell out of me that I had to flip my slashes around when I started using terminals in Linux. The first time I used emacs I was like "what the, hell ctr+v and ctrl+c don't cut and paste!, what the hell's with that?" and, etc...

I think the fact of the matter is that windows is NO current operating system is actually intuitive to learn, a cousin of mine has been working in the peace corp, trying to teach people to use computers, they have trouble understanding the concept of "double-clicking", why is intuitive that if you double-click something different happens then if you single click? I don't know.

I miss DOS.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Bert64]

How good are your small IT staff? Do none of them have some level of scripting/programming ability? It's pretty disturbing if they don't...

Yes, you can report the bug and hope for a patch, you can do the same with proprietary software...
But with OSS you are able to keep up with their progress of implementing your fixes, and you have the option of hiring a programmer to implement the fix if it's really important to you. Depending on the size of your company, hiring a contract programmer for a few weeks may work out cheaper than buying proprietary software.
OSS gives you choices that proprietary software doesn't offer you. So yes, it's better, because the worst case is that it's the same (in terms of getting bug fixes) but cheaper.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Bert64]

Only if you are a large important client with high level expensive support contracts.... If you are paying that much, you could get a better level of support from IBM, Sun or any one of a number of vendors... Or you could just hire some contract programmers to make changes for you. When your willing to throw enough money at the problem that MS would take notice, you would be able to get pretty much anything you wanted from OSS. Do you think MS would port any of their apps to linux if a large affluent customer demanded it? With OSS you have no such limitations, you could get pretty much anything done.

Because of the open nature of OSS it's possible for multiple vendors to provide high levels of support, including developer time, meaning the support becomes a competitive market in it's own right giving you more options, better service and lower prices.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Bert64]

FOSS only means you're on your own because you haven't paid for support... You're on your own if you get free proprietary software (pirated) too, only the free OSS is actually legal.

You want support for OSS? Buy support from one of the many vendors who provide it. No, it's not free as in beer, free beer software is for technically competent people who don't require support from anyone else.

Support for OSS is actually a lot better than proprietary for a number of reasons...

Support is optional, you can have legal software for free without having to pay for anything, this is great for people who don't need support.
Proprietary software can only really be supported by it's original vendor, leaving a captive market where customers can be gouged... Anyone with a few competent staff can support OSS, there are plenty of vendors out there providing different levels of support for different prices... Shop around and take advantage of the market competition.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Bert64]

Yes, but the people who made the choice to save money would be saving someone else's money which they couldn't care less about... And in response they would lose their personal backhanders from microsoft, which they do care about...

Re:FOSS is not free...

[pbhj]

It can take hours to days [...] to identify train, and support the switch to a new set of rote keystrokes and/or mouse clicks.

the first time I used Office 2007 was to answer a support call for a friend (who should have called his IT department). It took about 10 minutes to find the Options menu so I could switch the default filetype so he could send docs to his colleagues that they could read. [Forgive me if the details, menu option name, etc., are wrong, I only used Office on Vista that once, I'm not in IT support].

The point is a UI overhaul in an upgrade can be more problematic than a switch to a visually similar app.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[David Gerard]

No-one ever gets training on new versions of Office.

FUDsters keep claiming "but what about the training costs" - there are no such training costs because there is no training. I would like evidence that such training is widespread and expected. I would like evidence that it's anything more than negligible. Statistics, please, not anecdotes.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[jefu]

The same could be said of Windows (well, not the "free" part) except that our school systems, universities and other corporations are doing the training for you so you don't have to invest the time to do training. Which amounts to a massive governmental subsidy for Microsoft. A subsidy that nobody in the government ever actually decided on - but one that just became ingrained in the educational system.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure there is: death (aka Windows).

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Anonymous Coward]

Spread that cost out over the years following your transition to linux (or whatever FOSS product) that you WOULD be paying to renew Windows and Office every time there's a change. Suddenly it becomes a lot cheaper in the long run for a one-time up front cost that's a bit higher, I'd wager.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[Locklin]

I always wondered who's bright idea "Save" and "Save As" was. Surely something like "Save" and "Create a new copy" or something like that would be more intuitive.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[JasterBobaMereel]

Sorry do you have engineers digging through the sourcecode of Microsoft systems .... No so why would you need to do it with OpenSource systems ...?

Just get it from a vendor who sells support and get it preconfigured how you want it and duplicate ti to every machine ... just like all large companies do with Windows...?

Re:FOSS is not free...

[vux984]

Install compatibility mode on Vista, and they ARE fully compatible.

Until you need to add a few licenses, because you hired some new staff. And now you need to either source some office 2000 licenses or mix in some office 2007 and cause all kinds of headaches like:

1) user envy... he has Office 2007 and I don't -- Stupid as it is, this is a very real problem.
2) intra-office document exchange problems -- its bad enough when you have to exchange documents with customers running different versions... but to have to deal with that hassle internally is far more aggravating.

With OOo you can simply install 2.4 everywhere for as long as you like, or move to 3.0 everywhere whenever you want... etc. Big corporations have some of this flexibility with their (expensive!) Volume licensing maintenance packages... but smaller and medium sized businesses more often than not don't.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[LurkerXXX]

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the software does run fine in compatibility mode. I wasn't looking into get into an argument about debating about getting licenses for old software vs other troubles like retraining staff, etc,etc. Just pointing out your statement was wrong.

Re:FOSS is not free...

[vux984]

Just pointing out your statement was wrong.

Fair enough. I agree I went in a different direction as I thought it was the more important point. However, to address the argument directly:

Outlook XP can't store passwords in Vista, even in 'compatibility mode'. You have to re-enter all your email passwords every time you re-open the program. I suppose it still 'runs', but this is beyond aggravating especially if you have multiple accounts/complex passwords.

haha

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people who think this is going to happen are those within the FOSS cult.

Re:haha

[Vectronic]

Ok, so I know you were going for sarcasm + troll, but its actually pretty true, because those within the "cult" know more about how its doing than those who are ignorant to it.

Those outside of the "cult", in Sept '09 or something will go "wait, Linux has 10% market share now? whats Linux?"

Granted, im sitting here typing this from XP (with Slackware as part of a tri-boot), and I really have no idea what market share it currently has, but I could easily see a 300% increase (on the Desktop) of whatever it is currently by year end.

I don't think it will really be the "Year of Linux On The Desktop" etc, but I bet it becomes pretty commonplace. (outside of geekdom)

Re:haha

[xaxa]

I don't think it will really be the "Year of Linux On The Desktop" etc, but I bet it becomes pretty commonplace. (outside of geekdom)

A friend who needs help burning a CD just told me she's ordered a netbook with Linux because she's read that it's better than netbooks with Windows. I doubt she'd heard of Linux a month ago, but by the end of the year a lot more people will have heard of Linux, even if they don't yet use it.

Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[Gothmolly]

Fear. Nobody got fired for buying IBM. If you complain enough, they'll cut you a deal. If you bet the farm on some hippy software from Finland, at the first sign of trouble, the blame arrow points to you and you get the axe.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[MichaelSmith]

Nobody got fired for buying IBM.

Very true. I recently got "reassigned" for opposing a purchase from IBM.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any color, so long as it's black."

Non black cars caused recessions, and are causing them again.

Buy black cars today!

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you bet the farm on some hippy software from Finland, at the first sign of trouble, the blame arrow points to you and you get the axe.

If you get the axe for the very first mistake you ever make, that's probably not a job or a company you want to keep anyway, even in a recession.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahaha, it is a recession/depression, dumbass. The golden years ARE GONE! You can't choose between companies anymore. Now your choice is either the slavery office-space style, or go to the free soup line at salvation army...

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[SanityInAnarchy]

Now your choice is either the slavery office-space style, or go to the free soup line at salvation army...

Or unemployment benefits, and then a choice of companies.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

You totally missed the point.

The thing is, it doesn't matter whether it is a good or bad decision. When bad things happen people search for someone to blame. And if you buy from some no-name company instead of IBM you paint "blame me" in huge letters on your back.

The phrase "nobody gets fired for buying IBM" does not exist because IBM delivers the superior solutions.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[thethibs]

What part of "bet the farm" did you not understand?

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[FilterMapReduce]

Now your choice is either the slavery office-space style, or go to the free soup line at salvation army...

It doesn't sound so bad when you phrase it that way, actually -- choosing between slavery and free soup. Does that work anything like "cake or death"?

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

You pay your bills with the job you have, not the job you want to have. Right Rummy?

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[SanityInAnarchy]

When bad things happen people search for someone to blame.

I say again: The problem is not that you failed to cover your ass. The problem is that you're in a job where you feel the need to.

I was in a startup that recently imploded. It would have been easy to start pointing fingers, but no one did.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[upuv]

When it comes to buying IBM or from someone else. The bean counters always choose, ..... IBM. This boggles the mind. The most expensive vendor out there. The flood the shop with consultants and usually fail to deliver anything remotely like what you wanted.

And your right no one ever gets fired for buying IBM. But they do get fired for buying anything else. Can't wrap my head around this one. But I've seen it happen more times than I can count.

Since almost every medium to large enterprise shop goes this way it's hard to avoid the situation of "It's probably not a job you want".

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[tftp]

I was in a startup that recently imploded. It would have been easy to start pointing fingers, but no one did.

There is a big difference. I don't know anything about your particular case, but when a startup goes down there is nothing left to fight for. One could point fingers, but why? On the other hand, when bad things happen in a viable company fingerpointing is a method of survival, and there is a job to fight for.

I kind of agree with people who say that such a job is not worth keeping. However many people don't have a luxury of quitting - they have loans, mortgage, family and so on. If the family was barely making it with that "bad" job, losing it may mean moving out of the house and under the bridge. In this economy it may be simply impossible for an engineer to find a job, especially in a fixed area (if you have a house and can't easily move to where the new job may be.)

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at a big (Fortune-50) company for a few years. It was very Office Space, but nobody got fired for any kind of technology platform decision. People only got fired for not delivering. Everybody used a combination of proprietary and free software, so it's hard to say for sure, but I sure didn't notice people and groups using more IBM/Microsoft technologies being immune to getting the axe if they couldn't produce.

In fact, I think they did worse. Those of us using open-source were very pragmatic: how can we ship something useful right away? Those using proprietary tools tended to be more showy: lookie, we're using Rational Rose and have a big impressive class diagram we can print on the big printer! True, Mgmt smiles at the latter group more, but at the end of the year when they see that 3 guys with Python actually made some useful software while the latter group has *only* the pretty class diagram -- well, they're not stupid. Leaders like people who can make a lot from a little, and doubly so in a recession.

P.S., I suggest we drop the "some hippy software from Finland" line. Even the big rich slow-moving suit-wearing companies have moved beyond that. It's like the kid in high school with zero self-esteem: "yeah, I don't know why anybody would be my friend" -- nobody said that but you, and you were doing fine until you did.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[SanityInAnarchy]

One could point fingers, but why?

Well, because it might be resurrected. We're still looking for funding, though somewhat less vigorously. The layoffs are "temporary".

If we do get funding, it's possible there won't be enough money to hire everyone back. Again, I could point fingers, but I won't.

And I'm not saying everyone suddenly got nice when we went down -- we were like this most of the time. When we'd be late, when we'd push deadlines back, no one was singled out, certainly not as a CYA measure. There simply wasn't time to play political games when we have that much work to do.

many people don't have a luxury of quitting - they have loans, mortgage, family and so on.

Then play the political game, and get ahead. Maybe that will help you do your actual job.

There's a term for that -- "Wage-slave." I hope to never be one, and that's exactly why.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[SanityInAnarchy]

Actually, I pay the bills with the money I saved from the job I had, which was a job I wanted to have.

And, at the end of the day, I'd much rather eat ramen than be a wage slave.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

If you bet the farm on some hippy software from Finland, at the first sign of trouble, the blame arrow points to you and you get the axe.

Then you should fight fire with fire and get the Finnish company to draw their axes too. We have a long history of that.

Re:Companies will turn MORE to proprietary stuff

[marcosdumay]

Recessions are when people get fired for buying IBM. Not directly, but because they reduce the company competitiveness, and the result goes back into lay-offs.

No.

[XPeter]

This won't really help Linux win the desktop for one simple reason.

People who have the money to buy a new computer, have the money to buy a regular OS such as OS X or Windows. Ubuntu really isn't appealing to the common consumer.

This will help open-source programs greatly on the other hand. Instead of paying money to buy Microsoft Word, people will start to use programs such as Open Office. I'm sorry Linux Fanboi's. 2009 will not be the year that you win the desktop. It's pretty sad in my opinion though, I mean look at Ballmer. lol.

Alternatives to Outlook?

[Anonymous Coward]

The main thing that has kept the last couple of companies I've worked at from switching from Windows to FOSS is the lack of an integrated mail/contacts/calendar/tasks app that runs on our own servers. For us, this was a show-stopper.

I haven't been keeping tabs on the latest FOSS offerings, so nowadays are there any replacements for Outlook and Exchange?

Re:Alternatives to Outlook?

[MichaelSmith]

The main thing that has kept the last couple of companies I've worked at from switching from Windows to FOSS is the lack of an integrated mail/contacts/calendar/tasks app that runs on our own servers. For us, this was a show-stopper.

I haven't been keeping tabs on the latest FOSS offerings, so nowadays are there any replacements for Outlook and Exchange?

My site moved to Exchange so I replaced my suse desktop with ubuntu and used Evolution to talk to Exchange. It was working well until just before christmas when my windows password expired. I set a new password then evolution refused to work. I will have another look when I go back on monday.

In short: its a bit brittle.

Re:Alternatives to Outlook?

[Jorgensen]

Yes it is brittle.

My solution: Configure Exchange to enable IMAP - and things work again.

Yes: I know that exchange and imap are not the best of friends. And not everybody can talk their windows system admin into opening up exchange for the standard protocols. But In my (limited) experience, it works better that way.

My next step: Remove exchange.

false economy

[timmarhy]

OSS always represents a false economy with the "but it's free" angle. it's NOT free, linux professionals are harder to come by and cost more, they also represent a large risk of taking secret knowledge with them.

to be fair to MS, the reason business chooses them is they are cost effective, not because they are the cheapest. compared to vendors like IBM and redhat, MS products represent good value for money.

does anyone seriously believe windows 2003 with sql server 2005 is a bad platform? i'd suggest if you do you've never used it.

Re:false economy

[Darkness404]

to be fair to MS, the reason business chooses them is they are cost effective, not because they are the cheapest. compared to vendors like IBM and redhat, MS products represent good value for money.

...Because having tons of downtime is "cheap"? Because having to buy $5K worth of software licenses is cheap compared to paying some contractor $2.5K to set up a comparable Linux system? Look, whenever a business currently running XP wants to upgrade their machines, they can either pay Vista licensing costs of around $50 per box, $50 for anti-virus and about $25 for other software. Compare that to $0 per box in software with Linux. Sure, someone who knows Linux is going to be harder to find, but really, having one Linux guy getting paid slightly more than a Windows guy is worth it with the software savings.

Re:false economy

[Antique Geekmeister]

I cost a lot more than the average Windows guy, as a case in point. On the other hand, I replace about 4 Windows guys in personal productivity, and tend to provide a lot more services on the same amount of hardware, so it's a good investment.

Note also, that $0/box is misleading. Updates cost bandwidth, commercial support costs license money, and some Linux compatible software is licensed in ways requiring payment for commercial use. (The MySQL licenses and their interesting clauses come to mind.) Nevertheless, the ability to do very low-cost or free prototype and testing systems is invaluable in industrial work.

Re:false economy

[timmarhy]

windows 2003 is a perfectly stable OS and easily holds it's own against linux, look at the top uptimes on netcraft for crying out loud.

and the fact that you think $5k is a lot of money to even a medium sized business shows lack of perspective. whats more important is the ability to get trained staff and software that's compatible with your platform. the typical backyard linux guy you discribe comes in with promises of free software, and leaves with fat consulting fee's and a string of boxes running software that's on the knife edge.

Re:false economy

[SanityInAnarchy]

linux professionals are harder to come by and cost more

You get what you pay for. Good Windows admins are harder to come by, and cost more. And a good Linux admin can do more -- manage more machines, spend less time doing it.

they also represent a large risk of taking secret knowledge with them.

And this is different than Windows admins, how?

to be fair to MS, the reason business chooses them is they are cost effective, not because they are the cheapest.

Almost. Business choose them because they believe them to be cost-effective. It's difficult to have an unbiased study back up either as more cost-effective.

does anyone seriously believe windows 2003 with sql server 2005 is a bad platform? i'd suggest if you do you've never used it.

I don't have to use it to think that requiring a video card on a server is fucking moronic. And there are plenty of other reasons to dislike it -- the most recent of which is the 10% premium on services like Amazon EC2.

Re:false economy

[Tubal-Cain]

Hint: Cache your updates into a local mini-repo, point nearly all machines to that repo.
That should alleviate your bandwidth issues, unless you mean LAN bandwidth.

Re:false economy

[drsmithy]

I don't have to use it to think that requiring a video card on a server is fucking moronic.

Why is it any different to "requiring" a serial port or a Lights-out-management card ?

Incidentally, I doubt the vast majority of hardware engineers are "moronic", yet for some reason they think including a video card is a reasonably good idea.

Re:false economy

[Timothy Brownawell]

OSS always represents a false economy with the "but it's free" angle. it's NOT free,

So consider the other angles, such as supporting The Unix Way and helping you stay free of BSA entanglements.

does anyone seriously believe windows 2003 with sql server 2005 is a bad platform?

It's perfectly possible for that to be a good platform, but just less good than something like Linux + Postgres (not that I know anything about running databases, I just use them).

Re:false economy

[timmarhy]

"You get what you pay for. Good Windows admins are harder to come by, and cost more. And a good Linux admin can do more -- manage more machines, spend less time doing it."

and why exactly would a linux admin of equal skill get more done? greater l33tness factor or something?

"And this is different than Windows admins, how?"

windows typically utilises standard gui management tools. linux admin's typically utilise cryptic scripts that take even experienced admin's an hours to decypher.

"Almost. Business choose them because they believe them to be cost-effective. It's difficult to have an unbiased study back up either as more cost-effective."

well, i can pick up the phone and have MS tell me exactly what my volume license costs me and what i get with it. can you do the same with linux? management need to know how much things are going to cost in order to budget, some linux guru telling us "it'll cost roughly this an hour and it takes as long as it takes" isn't the same.

"I don't have to use it to think that requiring a video card on a server is fucking moronic. "

why is it moronic? if you lose network connectivity what do you intend on doing? serial terminal? you may as well have a video card since you can't buy a mobo without one these days.

Re:false economy

[SanityInAnarchy]

Updates cost bandwidth

They also cost bandwidth on Windows. And if you point to WSUS, I'll point to apt-proxy and friends.

commercial support costs license money

There you go. But is any commercial support included in the $50/box cost of Windows?

some Linux compatible software is licensed in ways requiring payment for commercial use. (The MySQL licenses and their interesting clauses come to mind.)

WTF? MySQL can be had under the GPL. By the time you'd need to use the commercial license, I think you're far beyond what other proprietary offerings will get you.

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

windows 2003 is a perfectly stable OS and easily holds it's own against linux, look at the top uptimes on netcraft for crying out loud.

And how many years did it take to get there? We've had very stable OSes in the Unix world for over a decade.

What was the point of putting up with a (perceived?) flakey Windows release when you could have used Solaris or FreeBSD or whatever, and simply run things 24/7 without worry of collapse or worms for years?

and the fact that you think $5k is a lot of money to even a medium sized business shows lack of perspective.

It's not the $5K for one server, it's the fact that you need two prod servers ($10K) for failover, at least one stage/QA server ($5K), and one or more dev boxes (n*$5K). With a zero cost OS you can have as many machines as you want (each dev can have their own sand box), and you only have to pay the license / support fee on your prod box.

And that's just for one possible business app. Multiply that for each business app (10+), and you're talking the salary of a someone (or someoneS) who have mortgages and families to support that can be kept on the payroll.

Re:false economy

[Antique Geekmeister]

Yes, bandwidth does cost money for Windows. That's partly why the retail price can be so misleading.

Some commercial support is included with a bare Windows license, including the nominal $50 OEM prices with new machines. Mind you, those OEM prices are a bit misleading, but they do include someone to call and rant to when you can't figure out what happened and you need help getting your machine to boot. That these calls are likely to be more frequent and more devastatingly unhelpful with Windows is a separate matter, often not factored in properly.

And whether or not you've 'gotten beyond what other proprietary offerings can get you', you've still entered the world where MySQL itself is not $0 cost. So please, let's remember to count the cost of these other components of open source, to make the comparisons to closed source products more fair and complete, and not get tricked by someone who misunderstands things like the support requirements of Windows.

Re:false economy

[timmarhy]

"And how many years did it take to get there?"

why would anyone considering a server right now care? you need to consider what you need right now not gloat over what ever problems you believe windows had in the past

And when you start running multiple servers and spend $100,000+ like we do you get a volume license, which are much cheaper. i'll use our last migration as an example. we were running oracle, it was hellish expensive and we had to employ an even more expensive DB to keep it running (it was on linux). now even though linux was free, the DB and oracle licenses were about 3x the price of sql server + win2k3. not only that our existing dba's could now admin it. the other option was go to postgresql but that would mean hiring another person (no one besides me has experience with it and i don't have time to do DBA stuff anymore) which canceled out most of the cost saving and resulted in yet another sacred cow within the department.

in case you were wondering the DBA in question was given the option of towing the line and admining sql server, but i'm pretty sure he refused and quit. silly if you ask me.

Re:false economy

[timmarhy]

i ran freebsd+postgresql for years. win 2003 + sql server 2005 is every bit as good, if not better in some instances. oh and BSA are easy to stay clear of - just pay for everything!

Re:false economy

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, I do that! It's an effective approach to reduce wasteful external bandwidth usage. But it's still not _free_. You have to pay for the server space and manpower to maintain the local repository, and the bandwidth for the one-time downloads. And internal LAN bandiwdth is not free, either. 200 Windows desktops, all hitting the server at the same time, can saturate some classes of links and interfere with other operations such as backups.

Using open source is like eating at home. It's normally a lot cheaper, and healthier, than eating out. But you still have to buy or grow the food, and even growing your own food costs time and resources, so it's not 'free as in beer'.

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so you know not to waste your time in the future, the guy you are responding to is a complete idiot. Look at his posting history.

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

leaves with fat consulting fee's and a string of boxes running software that's on the knife edge.

I'm afraid you imply that commercial software is more tolerant of underlying changes in infrastructure...

That hasn't matched my experiences for windows software running on newer versions of windows [vista] or even popular commercial software running as non-admin on the then current version of windows [quickbooks on windows xp if I recall]

Re:false economy

[timmarhy]

try mosting as yourself next time. gutless.

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

It just sounds that you have a much more inflated ego that 4 Windows guys put together. That is the problem with your linux zealots. Most of you are stuck up, egoistic and you think you know everything. Companies are often scared to put their trust (time and money) into someone like that.

Re:false economy

[gilboad]

"does anyone seriously believe windows 2003 with sql server 2005 is a bad platform? i'd suggest if you do you've never used it."

Bad? No. Good? Depends on what you use it for....
Our DB department is currently switching from SQL2K8 on Win2K3 to RHEL 5.2/Oracle 10g and the performance is nothing short of staggering.
I'm not a DB person (I'm the resident Linux geek), but least according to the benchmarks I helped setting up, we gained a 3/1 performance increase. (10g on Windows 2K8 was -far- less impressive.)

- Gilboa

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

try mosting as yourself next time. gutless.

I think you meant posting. Sentences also should begin with captials.

Re:false economy

[SanityInAnarchy]

And whether or not you've 'gotten beyond what other proprietary offerings can get you', you've still entered the world where MySQL itself is not $0 cost.

My point here is that it's incredibly unlikely that you've gotten to that point. As far as I know, most proprietary databases will never so much as disclose source code, let alone make it possible to distribute modified binaries.

In order to fall into the case where you need a proprietary MySQL license, you must:

  - Be distributing MySQL
  - Have modified the source to either the server, or some of the tools
  - Refuse to disclose the source to those modifications.

Alternatively, you could:

  - Be distributing MySQL
  - Want to hide the fact that it's MySQL, so you don't provide any reference to the source code

The absurdly vast majority never even get to the point where they need to redistribute MySQL outside their organization, which means the GPL never kicks in -- you aren't even required to accept it, in that case.

let's remember to count the cost of these other components of open source, to make the comparisons to closed source products more fair and complete,

Well, MySQL is GPLv2. The Linux kernel is also GPLv2. It's kind of a popular license -- I see no reason to warn about MySQL specifically, unless you're going to argue that people more frequently need to modify it.

and not get tricked by someone who misunderstands things like the support requirements of Windows.

So, I'm going to argue that free support via the mailing list and community is actually better than what your $50 Windows license gets you. If you need more than that, it's going to cost you either way.

I suppose $0/box is misleading, but not in the context in which it was presented. $5k just for licensing seems a bit extreme when the alternative is $0/box, just for licensing.

Yes, there are other costs involved, but we know that -- it costs money to buy the components, labor to build them, electricity and space to run them, and time to maintain them -- but it's kind of nice to start thinking about those other costs with an extra $5k to spend.

Re:false economy

[SanityInAnarchy]

Why is it any different to "requiring" a serial port or a Lights-out-management card ?

Mostly because a serial terminal can be managed remotely, and because that video card takes up more space and electricity than a serial port.

And yet, I seem to remember not needing a serial port either. It's a headless machine; let it be headless.

Incidentally, I doubt the vast majority of hardware engineers are "moronic", yet for some reason they think including a video card is a reasonably good idea.

Must be a recent phenomenon, then. I certainly remember buying motherboards without video cards, which would run fine without them. If it was unbootable for some reason, you'd go find a spare PCI video card and use that.

And yet, we're not necessarily talking about hardware, either. Consider virtual machines, and the problem compounds. You now need a virtual display somewhere, either by virtualizing access to the actual video hardware, or by running a video card in software (slow). Contrast to a Linux VM, which ends up using a pseudo terminal.

The main reason I consider this to be moronic, though, is how completely unnecessary it should be. It speaks volumes about the brittleness of the software. Even if it had no practical implication -- and I believe it does -- what's a good reason for requiring a video card to be present? For not being able to simply run an RDP server, or cmd.exe over a serial console?

Re:false economy

[SanityInAnarchy]

and why exactly would a linux admin of equal skill get more done? greater l33tness factor or something?

This is always the counterargument, but it is consistently true. I'm guessing it's got to do with Linux being easier to admin, particularly easier to script, but I don't know a lot about Windows admin.

windows typically utilises standard gui management tools. linux admin's typically utilise cryptic scripts that take even experienced admin's an hours to decypher.

That might be part of the above point on efficiency, then. If you're not scripting repetitive admin tasks, you're Doing It Wrong. And by doing it right, you free up some time to actually document what you do -- which is important no matter how many GUI tools you use.

Now, if you are scripting things, there's not really a difference here -- on Linux, you've got standard commandline management tools; on Windows, they're standard GUI management tools. Do you script that GUI? If so, I'll bet your scripts are even more cryptic and fragile than the worst Linux admin script. If not, you're wasting a lot of time on repetitive bullshit you shouldn't have to do.

well, i can pick up the phone and have MS tell me exactly what my volume license costs me and what i get with it. can you do the same with linux?

No, MS doesn't do Linux.

But seriously, yes, I can call Canonical, or I can call Redhat, or even Novell. Or, I can do the support in-house, if needed. Or I can hire a contractor and get vague estimates.

Point is, there's a choice. If you're doing Windows, you pick up the phone and call MS, full stop. If there's something the OS doesn't do that you want it to do (even a simple security hole), you call MS and grovel, or you pay through the nose for "Shared Source" and someone to code it, assuming the parts you want are even available that way.

why is it moronic? if you lose network connectivity what do you intend on doing? serial terminal?

Why not? Plug it into a neighboring machine, and hook that up to the network. Much faster than doing the same with a capture card of some sort.

If it's unbootable, pull the hard drive, put it in another machine.

you may as well have a video card since you can't buy a mobo without one these days.

Doesn't have to be bare metal -- what about a virtual machine?

Supposing it is bare metal, you apparently weren't looking. Why should I have to buy a video card on top of that?

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes your opinion so worth listening to? You can't use capitals and have difficulty with an apostrophe. Language use is directly related to intellect.

Yours appears to be lacking.

Re:false economy

[drsmithy]

Mostly because a serial terminal can be managed remotely, and because that video card takes up more space and electricity than a serial port.

A regular video card can also be "managed remotely" in the same fashion and, well, it's the whole *point* of a LOM card.

And yet, I seem to remember not needing a serial port either. It's a headless machine; let it be headless.

Not having _any_ way to connect a console directly to a machine is asking for trouble. 'Headless' typically means 'without a console attached' not 'without any way to attach a console'.

Must be a recent phenomenon, then.

Maybe if you call the last 8-10 years "recent", because that's at least how long video cards have been standard on the majority of servers sold.

I certainly remember buying motherboards without video cards, which would run fine without them. If it was unbootable for some reason, you'd go find a spare PCI video card and use that.

"Motherboards" ? "Find a spare PCI video card" ? We're talking about server hardware, not DIY-in-the-basement projects (and even for the latter, it is serial ports, not video, that is becoming harder to find on motherboards).

Most server hardware, bought from Dell, HP, IBM, et al, comes with a video card, and has for quite a while.

And yet, we're not necessarily talking about hardware, either. Consider virtual machines, and the problem compounds. You now need a virtual display somewhere, either by virtualizing access to the actual video hardware, or by running a video card in software (slow). Contrast to a Linux VM, which ends up using a pseudo terminal.

Again, the difference in the real world is zero. Once they're installed, you're only going to use the local display hardware (be it real or virtualised) in emergencies. How "fast" it is, is irrelevant when it isn't doing anything.

The main reason I consider this to be moronic, though, is how completely unnecessary it should be. It speaks volumes about the brittleness of the software. Even if it had no practical implication -- and I believe it does -- what's a good reason for requiring a video card to be present? For not being able to simply run an RDP server, or cmd.exe over a serial console?

For not wasting development time and money handling a scenario relevant to a vanishingly small proportion of users. "Optimise for the common case" is a fairly solid engineering principle, and one that is being employed here.

15-odd years ago, back in the early '90s, "needs a video card" was an argument that may have carried a bit of weight in a world where the majority of server-room infrastructure was based around serial consoles and few servers came with video included. Today, when IP KVMs are common, Lights-Out-Management cards (delivering more benefits than just console redirection) come with all but the lowest-end machines, and Blades are rapidly growing in popularity, it's just silly.

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have to use it to think that requiring a video card on a server is fucking moronic. And there are plenty of other reasons to dislike it -- the most recent of which is the 10% premium on services like Amazon EC2.

you don't need a physical video card.

Re:false economy

[rufus t firefly]

does anyone seriously believe windows 2003 with sql server 2005 is a bad platform? i'd suggest if you do you've never used it.

The last two companies I've worked for have used Linux boxes running enterprise Java software running with opensource database software. We've used puppet along with serial console servers to manage them, which was less expensive than a full remote KVM solution would have been.

MS SQL Server and Windows are fine for certain people, but they're not necessary to run enterprise applications.

With the Linux boxes we've run, the issues have usually been hardware failures and other physical issues rather than anything operating system related.

Re:false economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Better to put more money into those 4 windows guys who have (finally, whew!) learned to click on the right boxes, but who are otherwise clueless. Me, I'd rather put my money on someone who knows something and isn't afraid to admit it than on those who know almost nothing and are afraid to admit just that.

Re:false economy

[budgenator]

A windows machine can get flaky for little or no apparent reason, and therefore need a lot more fidgeting and rebooting to stay healthy. The *nix machines are more time consuming for initial configuration, but need a lot less nurse-maiding later.

Re:false economy

[Bert64]

Very few people will call themselves a linux/unix expert unless they really do know a lot about it...
People who do know a lot about unix typically know a fair bit about windows too...
People who know a lot about linux typically know other unixes (eg solaris) too...
People who know unix are more likely to have a general interest in computers as a whole.

By contrast...

Many people call themselves windows experts, based on various things ranging from having fixed his parents/friends computers, to having done an mcse course... Only a small percentage of them have any real in depth knowledge...
Many windows "experts", especially the less competent ones, don't know anything else and are resistant to learning it, even tho learning unix would make them more valuable.
Many people did an mcse course just to get a job and have no real interest in computing, they don't care to learn anything new and are only interested in the bare minimum to get paid... They have no pride in their work, and don't want to do their job well, they just want to achieve the minimum level to avoid being fired.

When you filter out the generally quite useless people, you will find that the number of good staff is similar for both windows and linux with a fair amount of overlap between the two... Most people with a genuine interest in computers will have tried various systems.

In several companies i've seen, the unix guys have to show the windows guys how to do some more complex things with windows... That's not a good sign, but it does go to show why the unix people cost more.

In a recent case i had to help several windows techs remove malware from an infected system... They were running an automated scanner which didn't detect it, but looking through the registry and the list of ie plugins quickly revealed there was certainly malware installed. Any semi competent windows admin should be able to do that! My responsibility is unix machines, i shouldn't be called in to remove malware from windows boxes because the people employed specifically to manage them fall to pieces when their automated tools fail.
And yes, they thought it was some kind of voodoo when i manually stripped the malware out of the registry, killed the processes and set permissions on the binaries so they could not be read or executed...
Really simple stuff, but the vast majority of windows guys i've seen rely totally on automated tools to do stuff like that, and have no idea how to do it manually.

Re:false economy

[Bert64]

$100k is a lot of money, while it may be cheaper than buying lots of individual instances its still an insane amount of money to spend unnecessarily...

Oracle is just another example of overpriced proprietary software, that it's capable of running on linux is largely irrelevant, oracle want all the money going to them, not part of it going to the os vendor so it's in their interest to keep other costs to a minimum... incidentally, oracle can also run on windows and solaris which would have made it even more expensive.

Re:false economy

[Bert64]

You don't require any such port on linux, take a look at devices like the linksys access points that can run linux.... They dont come with a serial port, you have to break out a soldering iron to get one.

A general purpose server will have some method of controlling it independent of any software because you could be running any software on it... Once installed, you no longer need it for linux tho windows will fail to boot if you remove the video.

That said, a serial port is more useful for remote admin purposes... It's faster, easier to script, cheaper to implement and run etc.

Re:false economy

[Bert64]

windows typically utilises standard gui management tools. linux admin's typically utilise cryptic scripts that take even experienced admin's an hours to decypher.

The correct spelling is "decipher"

Linux admins use scripts because they are more efficient, a majority of common linux admin tasks can be accomplished using a gui too, yet you will only find them being used by people with minimal levels of unix experience... Season unix/linux admins will use the cli and scripts because they're usually faster and more efficient or even just because thats what they know. The CLI is easier to automate, and easier to chain multiple actions together with pipes, gui based tools very rarely give you the flexibility to do anything not thought of when the interface was originally designed.
You cant do everything on windows with the gui either, some things still require manual tweaking... Also, one of the big selling points of win2k8 was an improved CLI... Do you think MS would make such an effort to improve the cli if the gui really was better for everything? They do it because a powerful cli is seen as an advantage for unix, and they want to try and match it.

Also, once you get underneath the graphical front-end you will find that linux is actually extremely simple, while windows is extremely complex, and to use your word "cryptic".

well, i can pick up the phone and have MS tell me exactly what my volume license costs me and what i get with it. can you do the same with linux? management need to know how much things are going to cost in order to budget, some linux guru telling us "it'll cost roughly this an hour and it takes as long as it takes" isn't the same.

You can pick up the phone and find out exactly how much the software will cost just to acquire. You don't need to do that with linux because the answer is zero. You can also find out which apps are covered by the volume agreement, but again that's not necessary with linux because all of the open source apps are always available to you.

What you're talking about with "some linux guru" is the time taken to configure everything to a working state, and noone will give you a "as long as it takes" answer unless they're incompetent, wether they use linux or windows.

why is it moronic? if you lose network connectivity what do you intend on doing? serial terminal? you may as well have a video card since you can't buy a mobo without one these days.

You can indeed buy motherboards without onboard video, i have several of them... Onboard video tends to be very low end, and having it on a machine which isn't going to use it is just wasteful. Do you think the average gamer wants to use onboard video, or have a motherboard that cost more because of it?

If the network goes down your server is rather redundant anyway, so your goal should be to fix the network ASAP...
If only the network on the one server has gone down, then serial console is far more useful because its cheaper (power/hardware), faster (no need to shift video data over the network, no need to physically enter the server room), easier to script...
Oh, and most networking equipment (routers, switches, firewalls etc) use serial consoles... Do you want to try and tell Cisco they should be putting video hardware and keyboard controllers in all of their routers so you can hook up a monitor instead of a serial console?

Re:false economy

[Bert64]

Pay for everything, and spend a lot of time/money keeping track of exactly what you paid for relative to what you're actually using... All these hidden costs soon add up.

Not during recession

[hwyhobo]

With the coming recession, I can see quite a few companies deciding to cut their costs and switch to OpenOffice.

Switching corporate standards causes temporary increase in costs due to retraining and document conversion. Such a move may be fine in good times, but it is counter intuitive during recession.

Re:Not during recession

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wasn't anonymous and wasn't a coward, I would mod you up. In this recession, companies will just push back spending to the next fiscal quarter or year. Besides, with all the layoffs, the PHBs won't have anyone to train the staff on how to use those shiny new FOSS thingies.

Re:Not during recession

[David Gerard]

No-one ever gets training on new versions of Office.

I have worked for large corporations, I'm working for one now. The last time I got such training was 1997, when I was working for a computer training company.

FUDsters keep claiming "but what about the training costs" - there are no such training costs because there is no training. I would like evidence that such training is widespread and expected. I would like evidence that it's anything more than negligible. Statistics, please, not anecdotes.

In addition, it reads and writes the 97-2003 .DOC format just fine.

Re:false economy - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

One *nix admin can look after many more computers than one Windows admin. Also, given that the *nix boxes don't break as often, *nix can be a lot cheaper to administer.

We have several insurance company head offices within a few tens of miles of where I am right now. They tend to use big iron. The employees have very locked down boxes with almost no possibility of data tampering/theft. If those companies aren't on a mainframe, they are on Unix. The last time I looked, they weren't using Linux but that may be just a matter of time. In any event, *nix admins have less chance to steal secrets than their Windows counterparts.

Never been happier

[blue l0g1c]

This is the best recession, ever!

Here's why it is free

[SuperKendall]

The one thing these articles miss out is the massive costs involved in switching over and training staff.

The "Massive Cost" of buying a new system vs. squeezing more out of an existing one by installing Linux?

What about the training costs - I have news for you when revenue is headed down separate training is a LUXURY and one of the first things against the wall. You can't figure out how to work Open Office vs. Word within a day or two? Then how valuable are you really? Same with server operating systems, if you are an SA now you had best be flexible and able to train yourself in short order.

The ability to save money on recurring costs like licenses or powering too many servers is a powerful force that will ratchet Linux/BSD into many systems this year.

Consumer confidence

[zymano]

We need to lower taxes on goods for a year instead of a big stimulus package.

Having a tax holiday for new cars would help the economy. Also luxury goods taxes must be reduced and rich must be encouraged to buy since they are a big % of consumer confidence numbers.

Just a thought.

Lets do something instead of relying on government to dig us out of this hole.

Go buy something!

Re:Consumer confidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Go buy something!

... that was made in China

hmmm

[thatskinnyguy]

Didn't the founder of VA Linux give this same argument in the documentary "Revolution OS" all those many years ago?

We're seeing an uptick

[ducomputergeek]

We have a pair of products that are customized tweaks of an opensource ERP/POS combo customized for a particular industry. We've snared two customers away from using Netsuite for their ERP needs and being opensource was a huge hurdle to initially overcome. It takes time for people to understand the concept that they are paying us to come in, install the system, tweak/customize the system for their needs, provide training, and after sale support. The way it works with the POS software is an initial one time fee to do the customization then we provide them with a .iso that is tweaked version of OpenSuSE that is designed to boot and load only the POS software. After that we don't care if they install on one terminal or a million. (Granted we do charge a yearly fee per terminal for backup and support services). Very few other POS systems can offer that.

One of the biggest aces in the hole was PostgreSQL. The cost for us to come in, set up and install everything was cheaper than some other well known DB vendor's cost of database software alone.

Frankly the hardest thing for them to understand was the lack of vender lock-in. If they want, they can hire their own internal IT people to maintain or improve the system or another firm later on. So no matter what happens to us, they will be able to grow and expand the software with or without us.

We deploy on OpenSuSE & SLES by default. No specific reason other than a few months ago during development, SuSE happened to be the first distro where everything worked out of the box.

Re:We're seeing an uptick

[tcopeland]

> One of the biggest aces in the hole was PostgreSQL.
> The cost for us to come in, set up and install everything
> was cheaper than some other well known DB vendor's cost of database software alone.

Right on. Same goes for Sphinx vs any proprietary text indexing setup I've used. And it's fast, and there's good Rails/Ruby support via UltraSphinx and Riddle.

Don't bet on it.

[jd]

In a recession, managers will be even more eager to have nothing to be blameable over. Remember, underlings get sacked first. If they go with Microsoft, the managers will feel reasonably safe, even if it drives the companies under. They will be paid the longest and will be the most likely to be re-hired quickly. Going with Open Source will be seen as taking a risk, something that in risk-averse times will not be looked on favourably even if it DID save the company's bacon.

I see the recession as a time when views will become far more entrenched in existing companies. Start-ups may be willing to go with OSS, as they need to cut costs to a minimum and they don't have shareholders to placate, but expect extreme conservatism to reign supreme. At least for the first half of the recession. After that, some of the brain-dead companies will also be financially dead, and more dynamic companies may well be profiting from their early risks. But that's a year away at best. 2009 will not be a good year for OSS in business, though 2010 might well be.

Re:Don't bet on it.

[thethibs]

Bang on!

Not only will they not be making adventurous switches to FOSS, they'll be milking their existing systems for as long as they can with a minimum of adds, moves or changes.

On the other hand, who are we to get in the way of a really good self-delusion? It's New Years--the time for resolutions we don't keep, and predictions that we hope no one will remember we made.

Re:Don't bet on it.

[Shados]

Straight on the money. Its not just open source vs closed source or whatever that follows this logic. Java shops will push away their plans to make a prototype in Ruby on Rail, dev firms using CMMI cancels their scheduled Scrum implementation... In a recession, companies don't always go for whats cheapest, they go for whatever is conservative and makes them feel secure.

Re:Don't bet on it.

[jd]

What we really need is a good recession somewhere around 2032-2033. That way, the idiots won't patch the time_t bug in time.

Re:Don't bet on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only will they not be making adventurous switches to FOSS, they'll be milking their existing systems for as long as they can with a minimum of adds, moves or changes.

In which case, when it is time to update, FOSS will likely meet or exceed their existing, somewhat archaic systems. If your org ran Office97, which is more appealing, OpenOffice3 or Office2007 (2 years old already!)? Also, a delayed purchase means not spending the money with proprietary vendors. I call that a tie. Also, when your company is LOSING money, you are much more particular about increases in cost. It is a much different environment when you are making good money and focus only on your company's core capabilities. A recession means looking at the things you are bad at: pruning unproductive employees, conserving on utility bills, constant negotiations to get customers to pay and vendors to lower pricing. You have to have a twisted mindset to think a cash shortage is going to lead to more cash in the hands of MSFT.

Re:Don't bet on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any company that may go under due to their choice of computer solutions is doing something very wrong, and their choice of MS or FOSS won't make much difference at all. Companies usually have a budget that they've set aside for their IT, they aren't just going with the flow. You clearly have no idea.

Re:Don't bet on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

That's an interesting delusion you got there.

Re:Don't bet on it.

[jd]

So much of a "no idea" that you and everyone else on Slashdot knows perfectly well that I'm right, that the IBM mantra of "nobody ever got fire for..." is far truer in a recession than in a time of optimism. So much of a "no idea" that I stand by my claim that managers are inherently conservative to the point of being lemmings, whereas you aren't willing to stand at all.

Enough free time to always make first post?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty amazing how frequently you've been managing to make First Posts lately... and not a one of them any less than three paragraphs. With all that free time to suck on the Firehose, perhaps you should be developing FOSS?

FOSS has no cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, there's no cost to download the software. What about the cost to train people how to use it (both in training sessions and in hours of productivity lost by learning it), the cost to hire someone who knows how to administer it, the cost to hire someone who knows how to fix it if it breaks, etc? Yeah, surely the solution to all problems is to switch to a brand new OS / office suite / etc that most people in the company don't know how to use. Let me tell you what is more likely to happen: Some businesses will try FOSS, most that already have Windows/Office will realize there is no pressing need to upgrade their OS / office suite / whatever and stick with their current version.

If you're not convinced, think of the following. A Windows or Office license is maybe 100-200 dollars. Now if you think about the salaries of people who work on a computer for their day job, at many companies they could easily be costing $50-$100 per hour, especially if you include benefits. Do you think that an average person will spend less than 1-4 hours in total learning how to use something like Linux? (Including looking up how to do things once in a while, etc.) I've surely spent more than that looking up how to do random things in Microsoft Office, and I spend way more than that troubleshooting things every time I upgrade Ubuntu. For most companies it's just well worth the $200 to install an OS and productivity suite that everyone already knows how to use.

Re:FOSS has no cost?

[westlake]

For most companies it's just well worth the $200 to install an OS and productivity suite that everyone already knows how to use.

I will take the odds that classes in MS Office are being offered within a twenty minute drive of wherever you happen to live.

That competence in Office is the simplest path to full or part time employment above minimum wage.

Re:false economy - sometimes

[Tubal-Cain]

In any event, *nix admins have less chance to steal secrets than their Windows counterparts.

Do you mean in general, or just at the workplaces you describe?

MOD PARENT UP!

[russlar]

Nobody wants to admit the truth.

More "free" software use maybe

[carlzum]

Sure, more companies may be looking for ways to avoid licensing fees, but does that translate into more contributions to FOSS projects? Don't get me wrong, a larger user base is a good thing, but more companies riding the coattails of the open source community won't lead to a golden age of open source. When organizations use their development resources to contribute to projects rather than develop internal applications or hire a commercial vendor's professional services "free software idealism" is realized.

Re:More "free" software use maybe

[Tubal-Cain]

but does that translate into more contributions to FOSS projects?

Probably not directly, but like you said: An increased userbase is a good thing.
If Linux were to gain a non-negligible market share, software will be ported to it, drivers will be written for it, and MS's formats will no longer be de facto standards.

Open source != GNU

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if software isn't under a GNU license, it's not open source? huh... If anything I'd think companies would avoid the whole copyleft thing.

Re:Open source != GNU

[Bert64]

Most companies will simply use software, and have absolutely no intention of ever distributing it...

The GPL does not apply unless you are distributing software. It has no restrictions on how you can use or modify the software internally. Proprietary software on the other hand does have usage restrictions as well as distribution restrictions which are often far stricter than the GPL.

The GPL may not give you as much freedom as say BSD, but it still gives you a lot more than proprietary software does, and it gives you all the freedom (unlimited use) that 99% of companies care about.

I read an article about 2 weeks ago...

[scienceprogrammer]

that stated the opposite. I forget if /. picked it up but said the obvious who will pay developers for a project they cannot sell. Likely the first people to go or be reassigned if the budget gets thin. I saw it on yahoo news so could have been CNET or Infoworld? Too lazy to search for it.
Soooo Laaazy DOH!

That is my dream job though, get paid to just work on any number of open source projects. Probably everyone on /. feels the same (minus the owners of software companies and sales people) are we communists? HA

Re:FOSS is not free... Yes, compatible.

[miknix]

Install compatibility mode on Vista, and they ARE fully compatible.

Yes, you are right. The Vista CD fits perfectly on my toaster. Too bad it won't last long.

time wasted in pointless tasks....

[N!NJA]

Linux might get an extra 1% market share in the business environment in 2009. but not at home. at least not until Auntie Mary can figure out how to use the OS.

if the zealots spent as much time simplifying the GUI and unifying the distros as they spend touting the OS, 2004 would have been the year of the Linux Desktop!

Re:time wasted in pointless tasks....

[digitalunity]

One of the biggest challenges to getting technically illiterate people using Linux is installation. Sure, most newbies could manage a Ubuntu install, but can auntie?

Even if she could, how/why would you try to convince her to change from whats installed to Linux so she can continue using the same webmail/whatever websites?

Re:time wasted in pointless tasks....

[Bert64]

Most of those people who couldn't install ubuntu, couldn't install windows either (which is actually more difficult to install than ubuntu)... They will get computer repair shops to perform the install for them etc, or remain with the default install the machine came with.

So what's really needed, are more machines with linux preinstalled, priced considerably lower than windows ones...

And pc repair shops that know about linux and try to push it to their customers.... But this is unlikely to happen, because these shops make their money repairing broken windows installs, and linux would significantly decrease their revenue stream.

Re:time wasted in pointless tasks....

[maugle]

As someone who occasionally gets called to rid my neighbors' computers of malware, I've come to realize just how profitable a computer repair business could be. If I wasn't around, they'd be taking their PCs to Geek Squad and paying $100 to have their computer formatted, or just buying a new computer altogether.

Computers that work as intended and don't get infected make for a poor computer-repair business.

Re:time wasted in pointless tasks....

[Risen888]

And pc repair shops that know about linux and try to push it to their customers.... But this is unlikely to happen, because these shops make their money repairing broken windows installs, and linux would significantly decrease their revenue stream.

Not me. I make my about half my money converted b0rk3n Windows boxes to Ubuntu. I work with home users pretty much exclusively, and between "XP keeps getting pwnt" and "Vista is slow and ugly" I've been doing better and better.

Does it pinch my revenue stream? No, and I'll tell you why. First, I can charge more to convert a box than I can to fix a Windows install, both because it's typically more hours (converting files, custom setups, etc.) and because I'm actually adding value rather than simply fixing a problem. And second, word of mouth has been phenomenal, every customer feeds me one more.

What it does mean is that I have to have fairly high customer turnover, because once the job is done, it's pretty rare for the client to have another major problem. I don't have a problem with that, because god knows we're not running out of broken Windows boxes anytime soon.

Re:time wasted in pointless tasks....

[causality]

But this is unlikely to happen, because these shops make their money repairing broken windows installs

Could this be an example of the broken window fallacy?

Ok, you can mod me into oblivion now ...

Re:time wasted in pointless tasks....

[Anonymous Coward]

My company (Mainly networking sales at the momment) is looking for office space for pc sales and repair. As soon as I get this space I am going to find out what my restrictions are with canonical and such but I will have Ubuntu plastered everywhere. We are also looking at it to be kind of an internet cafe too so that customers can take there time there and use the many pcs that will be around with open source software only on them. We will have quarterly free open source software classes to help businesses and residential understand how to use a new piece of software more efficiently and what is right for them. Not really trying to give away all of our business plans but I can't take on the world yet anyway. The other idea is once a quarter have a "Upgrade your computer with us" day. Basically the store will have the parts available for purchase and we will help them get into it and upgrade going over both software and hardware. I believe with these ideas I don't need customers coming back for repair. They will come back for new computers/parts and send their friends for a coffee and an experience.

Re:haha - Impossible to know Linux marketshare.

[miknix]

I think nobody really knows what's the real market share of Linux.

On the desktop:
The number of downloaded cd images of each distro it's no viable.
The number of registered users is not a good sample.
Browser referrals can be cheated (good thing that's not needed anymore) and people doesn't navigate all in the same place (Hum.. maybe google was able to do this).
There is people with Linux cooked at home (small distros, LFS..).
There is a lot of people dual booting with Windows and a lot of people running it on a VM.

There is also Linux on embedded devices. Our wifi router, divx/dvd player, might have Linux and most of us don't even know.

Linux on servers.. Even on rockets going to moon.

How are we going to count all of that?

and what about paying the programmers?

[wkearney99]

This entirely ignores the question of how the FOSS people are paying their expenses. Many are no doubt coding on the company's dime, often with only tacit (not official) approval. Wanna bet how many of them get canned in the coming year? Or how many suddenly don't have as much 'free' time to devote to such endeavors?

Re:and what about paying the programmers?

[aristotle-dude]

This entirely ignores the question of how the FOSS people are paying their expenses. Many are no doubt coding on the company's dime, often with only tacit (not official) approval. Wanna bet how many of them get canned in the coming year? Or how many suddenly don't have as much 'free' time to devote to such endeavors?

I think that you have hit the nail in the head. So many people on slashdot are ready to be vocal proponents of OSS but so few if any are prepared to contribute their own efforts or money to support the efforts of others. OSS projects should rethink their business model and think about charging a nominal fee for downloading and registration of binary builds. People who do not want to pay should be forced to compile it themselves.

Re:and what about paying the programmers?

[nick.ian.k]

Aw heck - you're just looking for a spot to go all sour grapes contrarian on us. If project management on up isn't sharp or otherwise attentive enough to have already clamped down on unauthorized projects for every perceived IP and budgetary nightmare in the bogeyman's sack, they're not about to catch it when it's time to trim overhead in a blind panic. A shitcanning during an economic downturn is more likely to be a good ol' fashion lay-off that takes out Secret Agent FOSS in the same fell stroke as Corporate Drone.

Re:and what about paying the programmers?

[nick.ian.k]

"So few if any"? You must be forgetting about all the people who do useful stuff like filing bug reports, writing howtos, lending a hand on forums where the software gets talked about, writing and sharing scripts, plugins, modules, and other forms of add-ons, donating cash towards a particular application or documentation project, and hell, even in some cases *gasp* coding applications. Yeah, I know, it's easier to pretend that not one single person actually puts any effort towards anything and that everyone's just a freeloading ingrate unwittingly applauding their own destruction as they vaccuously wave their FOSS pennant and take the willingly-offered fruits of other people's labors, but no matter how many times this gets pitched, the end-times trumpets don't sound.

People keep making stuff and giving it to other people on the terms they decide, because that's how they want to do it. If you want to write and application and charge for X, Y, and Z around it, nobody's stopping you.

Re:and what about paying the programmers?

[Bert64]

You will just get pirated distribution of binaries...

Re:and what about paying the programmers?

[aristotle-dude]

You will just get pirated distribution of binaries...

You just illustrated how many people view open source software as just an easier way to get software for free and how many usesr today do not understand the value of movies/music/software or how much effort went into making it.

Nobody wants to work for free for their employer and yet some people feel that they should be entitled to the works of others without any compensation. The hypocrisy on the internet is unbelievable.

Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[upuv]

Some of the classic arguments against FOSS are:

1. It's not free. You still have to train people and migrate data.
Response: But you don't have to pay for the upgrade, more licenses and still have the data migration issue.

2. There is no technical support.
Response: Actually the technical support is far better. Multiple forums exist for most FOSS applications. They usually have the answers too. Have you ever tried to get and answer to a problem with Notes, Tivoli?

3. Not as feature rich.
Response: Do you actually use those weirdo features in MS word? Have you used Firefox lately? Linux almost installs on everything including my fridge! Does Windows?

4. FOSS applications are not as stable.
Response: Certainly some FOSS apps pretty much crash 3 seconds after they launch. However the majority of FOSS applications that we use every day are rock solid. For example the most widely used web server is apache and it's variants.

5. FOSS applications are insecure.
Response: IE is the most hacked browser out there. Enough said.

6. The unspoken argument. Who do I sue when the applications wrecks my business?
Response: To be honest if your business is wrecked by software then you are probably incompetent. Yah there is always a risk. That's what insurance is for. But it doesn't really matter what is in the contract. If your business goes under as a result of IT systems. Well it's under, a law suite won't fix it.

7. If I contribute to FOSS then I will ultimately loose! As my competition gets a free ride.
Response: If you're an IT shop developing the next wonder product this may actually be the case. However if you are an IT shop and you want to off load some of the development of the required peripheral software that enables your wonder product it makes sense to support FOSS. If your Bob's Music and Flower emporium and you have a wizz-kid in the back that is contributing both to the company and the FOSS. The long term benefits are greater. As that software this kid made is now being supported and developed by many many people that you could never have a hope of paying for.

Comment:
I know I've locked the barn door and soaked the building in gas. Flame away if you wish.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[timmarhy]

I think most of those arguments are weak, but that's not why foss isn't being adopted by business. lack of support (real or perceived) , lack of speciality apps used by industry and secret knowledge are the main reason.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[upuv]

Good point about specialty apps. No argument there. By specialty app you mean something that is very specific to a particular function? I'm not including the likes of Photoshop. As their are alternatives.

Specialty users are probably another catagory. Those users that are so highly skilled at what they do their is still only one app/OS combo.

As for my arguments weak. Well as stated above they are. No room for detail on each point. As each point is probably a white paper in it self. So I stuck with a basic style argument method.

Please define "secret knowledge" I read that a few ways.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

Unfortunately they still are true to some extent.

1. The price is quite often immaterial.

2. The technical support is sometimes much worse. "Paying someone to fix" is not a good option.

3. Once in a while the feature X is a deal breaker. Really.

4. For example there is no stable Linux kernel, hasn't been for a while and apparently won't be, ever. The kernel today and kernel year ago are not compatible.

5. This is probably bullshit, but impossible to prove so. Especially as lately Firefox has had same number of exploits as IE.

6. "You are incompetent" is not very good selling point.

7. There are huge amount of software for which this is true. Then, again, there are software (e.g. OOo) for which it is likely not.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[Anonymous Coward]

2. There is no technical support.
Response: Actually the technical support is far better. Multiple forums exist for most FOSS applications. They usually have the answers too.

You think that a billion dollar business should be happy running its mission-critical apps on a platform where tech support comes in the shape of searching the internet to see if someone has asked a question about the same issue on a forum, and then hope against hope that someone else posted an answer?!

Sorry, I do not believe that is acceptable for one moment.

I'll give an example from our work.

We had a problem with some Windows systems a while back. Called MS, got them involved, got a patch within 2 weeks, all was well.

We had a problem with our RedHat systems (random inexplicable crashes). Called RedHat (who we pay MORE money for support than we pay M$).
They ummed and ahhed and eventually confirmed there might be a problem but they didn't know what.
Meanwhile, because we could not afford for our systems to be at risk, we spent our own time and money to investigate the issue and found a fix; to this day RedHat have still not offered us a fix.

Remind me, why would I want to use FOSS tech support again?

(Mind you, neither RH nor M$ can hold a candle to the excellent support we still get from Sun).

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[Anonymous Coward]

6. The unspoken argument. Who do I sue when the applications wrecks my business?
Response: To be honest if your business is wrecked by software then you are probably incompetent. Yah there is always a risk. That's what insurance is for. But it doesn't really matter what is in the contract. If your business goes under as a result of IT systems. Well it's under, a law suite won't fix it.

Umh, you know those "THIS SOFTWARE COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND." texts? You know, the standard EULAs that are in almost all proprietary software, no matter how corporate, expensive or enterprise focused? The ones you have to click "Agree" on in other to install said software? That'll be a kicker in court.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[paradxum]

3. Not as feature rich.
Response: Do you actually use those weirdo features in MS word? Have you used Firefox lately? Linux almost installs on everything including my fridge! Does Windows?</p></quote>

Sounds like it's time to upgrade your fridge.... Embedded linux is very common. :)

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[fat_mike]

This is exactly what the Linux pundits (I am one to a point) don't get.

Corporations have tons of proprietary software written in 1985 that they still rely on today. Have you ever looked at a bank employee's terminal. Some of them still have DOS apps that connect back to the mainframe. There are still a buttload of ATMS's that run on OS/2.

I've said it before and I'll repeat, I work in the insurance industry. There are really only three major players when it comes to Agency Management systems. None of those are Linux based, they all tightly integrate with Office and Exchange and they just freaking work. My main W2K3 + SQL 2003 server (120gb database) just works.

Now, when I need support I pick up the phone and have someone in two minutes. Do I pay a premium for that, hell yes but its worth every damn penny. Companies have budgets, they plan for economic times like these. Some of you supposed IT guys need to pull your heads out of your asses and spend a day actually watching customer service or human resources do their work. You'll get a better understanding of the company overall.

By the way, the Arby's down the street from us...the drive through screen has said Linux-2.2.26-whatever...... for the last six months. I asked them when it was going to get fixed and the manager looked at me like I was an alien.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[rastos1]

6. The unspoken argument. Who do I sue when the applications wrecks my business?
Response: To be honest if your business is wrecked by software then you are probably incompetent. Yah there is always a risk. That's what insurance is for.

I work for a software company that develops specialized CAD/CAM software. If our development tools break, that is a unpleasant thing but can be recovered by some overtime work. If e-mails/IM/VOIP, issue tracking or version management goes down, we can continue for a few days. But let's take our customers - if order processing goes down that is a REAL problem, if the the DB with data accumulated over years goes down, that can cost really big money, if the CAD system where the data is created breaks, that can be lived with for a few hours. If the software that drives the material processing machines (think plotters, cutters, drills, ...) which work 24/7 - that ... can be a disaster. These kind of businesses can be wrecked by software quite easily.

Now that can happen regardless of open/closed source. But when you say insurance - how do you think the insurance company will asses the risks and calculate the fee?

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

For example there is no stable Linux kernel,

You're employing a homonym! Congratulations. This isn't the version of "stable" that the PP was referencing.

The kernel today and kernel year ago are not compatible.

If you're talking about compatibility from a "code living inside the kernel" standpoint, then this is by design. The kernel devs *want* kernel-space code to be published and live in the kernel source tree. This helps to keep the Linux kernel and associated drivers free and open.

If you're talking about userspace compat issues brought on by kernel changes, I don't know what you're talking about. Care to elaborate?

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[JAlexoi]

6. The unspoken argument. Who do I sue when the applications wrecks my business?

OMFG! You know that you really can't sue any of the commercial software vendors for anything? If you're big enough, the only way is threatening of changing the vendor.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[Anonymous Coward]

[Stuff]

Response: lol strawman

(also, lol stallmann)

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

The problem with the "design" is that the design is Just Bad. Not only does it kill proprietary drivers it more often kills FOSS drivers. Besides most users do not give a shit whether some driver is FOSS or not.

They just want their machine to work. And especially, they do not want their machine to die on every kernel update. I know people who do not install even security patches anymore.

There are numerous examples of user space compatibility issues caused by kernel changes, e.g. USB, audio and some wifi cards.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

Ah! Forgot, sorry!

I cannot consider a kernel to be "stable" in any sense if you cannot install security patches without the system dying.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

What?

I can install security patches on my various Gentoo systems w/out even rebooting the boxes. Are you pulling random anecdotes out of the air?

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

Not only does it kill proprietary drivers it more often kills FOSS drivers.

Maybe there are far more out-of-kernel FOSS device drivers than there are proprietary ones? Or maybe you're pulling anecdotes out of thin air?

most users do not give a shit whether some driver is FOSS or not.

More's the pity. However, the kernel.org gatekeepers *do* care about FOSS drivers. And really, that's all that matters. The kernel.org kernel is their project, not anyone else's. If you don't like their policies, you're free to fork their kernel, freeze the interfaces, generate some "legally questionable" GPLd driver wrappers, and start accepting and supporting all the proprietary drivers that you like!

The problem with the "design" is that the design is Just Bad.

Amusingly, this policy exists to *reduce* the effects of bad design. The kernel folks dump and rework kernel internals as they see fit. Not having to worry too much about back-compat makes their job easier.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

And especially, they do not want their machine to die on every kernel update.

Are you saying that they don't want to reboot their box? If so, there's not much they can safely do about that for now. (They might be able to do some fun things with kexec, though!) If not, what strange systems are these folks running on? Have they reported any bugs on the matter? Where? Do you have any bugtracker links or mailing list convos? (I might be able to help out! ;) )

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

Kernel security updates? Really?

P.S. I know you cannot.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

There are a lot of out-of-kernel FOSS drivers there.

However, the kernel.org gatekeepers *do* care about FOSS drivers.

No, they do not! And I have already proven it: huge amount of FOSS drivers die in every minor-minor (e.g. security) kernel update. Unnecessarily.

I know the theory behind the policy. Unfortunately it works in practice exactly shoot-the-foot way.

Not having to worry too much about back-compat makes their job easier.

Sure. And it makes my job much harder.

But after this you'll never claim the kernel to be "stable", will you?

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

Every out of the kernel tree FOSS driver dies on every kernel update.

TV cards, wifi, webcams, you name it. Once one ethernet driver was a such and the machine was used by a person incapable of recompiling the driver - and as you can deduce there is no way I can do it remotely.

Therefore on every installation I have done my advice has been: "do not install *any* updates, ever". Hardly the best way to deal with security updates? Unfortunately the only way!

I hope you can "help me out" and kill this utterly ridiculous concept of purposefully killing binary compatibility on minor-minor updates. I do not care about major, I can handle once a year, but almost once a month[1] is just too often.

[1] Approximately the number of kernel updates in Ubuntu

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

No, they do not! And I have already proven it: huge amount of FOSS drivers die in every minor-minor (e.g. security) kernel update.

You've proven nothing until you provide even a basic citation.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

But after this you'll never claim the kernel to be "stable", will you?

From futher upthread:

For example there is no stable Linux kernel,

You're employing a homonym! Congratulations. This isn't the version of "stable" that the PP was referencing.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

Every out of the kernel tree FOSS driver dies on every kernel update.

This is wrong. pcc_acpi (0.8.4) builds with 2.6.16, 2.6.24, and *would* have worked with 2.6.26 had its author not used a private part of a structure (marked "DO NOT USE" in the relevant header) to get some info. Four small code changes later (using the proper getter and setter functions) and we're back in business again!

"do not install *any* updates, ever"

I personally know the status of a dozen or so Linux machines, most of them running Ubuntu. Their users apply security patches soon after being prompted by their distro's updater. I haven't heard a single one of the users of those machines complain of a security update breaking their systems.
Anecdotal evidence kinda sucks, doesn't it?

If you're not going to present some hard facts, please go back to guarding your bridge.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

We both know for fact that kernel updates break binary only drivers. Now what kind of "hard facts" are you asking me to show? My "anecdotal evidence" that this really happens in the real world apparently is not enough.

Let me state that at the moment Linux is the best OS there is. I like it. That is why I have put it to friends machines.

But I am open to the problems it has and I would like to see them fixed. I am not going to pretend there are no problems. I am not going to defend it for the faults it has. I am not going to fight over semantics, syntax, "proving", or like.

You can consider yourself a "winner of this fight" as I am not going to continue it nor put more "evidence".

See, you do sound like a fanboy - to me it is clear there cannot be any evidence which would make you admit that there are FOSS drivers which do break in minor-minor updates and it is a big PITA.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let me state that at the moment Linux is the best OS there is" Let me ask you something, if Linux is the best there is, then why is it not being installed on any New Computers? And don't give the usual BS about windows being the controlling factor. I can prove to you that Linux is not the best. Out of every major corporation and every school district. Any place in the United States that has computers and is managed by an educated person, you know how many are running Linux as it's OS? That is right, Zero, none, Linux, this revolutionary and free operating system is being ignored by everyone that could find a use for it. Do you know why? Because it is the crappiest OS since DOSS. You and everyone like you that is stuck on Linux are fools, you cling to a system that is destined to fail. And you blame and criticize everyone who doesn't sympathize with you. You are all ignorant, and afraid. The thing is, the arguments against FOSS may be weak, heck, they may not even exist, but FOSS, along with any other OS that has followers like you, will fail, because it's devoted followers are too stupid to open their eyes to something that doesn't work. If Linux is so all fired powerful, then why are there many applications through different software programs that are not compatible with Linux? Why are you all so stubborn to realize that Windows won the fight before most of you were born. And fighting that is not only pointless, but stupid. I hope all of you are able to open your eyes

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

You could name a couple of drivers that broke, and what kernel revs broke them.

Is that an unreasonable request?

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

*shrug* I'm not involved in a fight. I use Linux-based operating systems 'cause I enjoy it. I'm a hobbyist. Why are you so worked up about *software*?

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

Linux is installed in new machines, which makes the rest of your rambling complete bullshit.

Besides I really do not care if Linux is not the best OS for the rest of the world, it is for me.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

I use Ubuntu, mostly 8.04 (it is "LTS"). YMMV.

TV cards: Artec T14BR + one for which I do not remember the model (a friend has it). There are more, the latest in linux-tv are not in the main kernel tree. Every kernel change during 2007-2008.
WebCams: any gspca or spca based until very recently, still at least the one in EeePC 701. Again, the latest source is not in the kernel tree. Every kernel change during 2008.
Wifi: At least the one in EeePC 701 and EeePC 900. Every kernel change during 2008. No matter whether you use ndiswrapper, madwifi or atk5 drivers - AFAIK (I do not have 100% "coverage" of all of those, but ...).
Ethernet: Came with some motherboard, maybe RaLink 2500 or 2x00 (another friend has so cannot check). In Linux kernel main since 2007 so the problem has gone away. At least one kernel change in early 2007.
One USB 1.0 based Ethernet controller, maybe it was called "PeraComm" (throw it away as it was quite crap anyway). After update it failed and I never got it working. It *is* (or at least was) in the kernel tree, but apparently gets no testing[1]. Change of Ubuntu from 6.X to 7.X (exact Ubuntu versions long since gone from my head - thankfully).
MTP008 based temperature sensors worked in 2.4.X but never in 2.6.X.

Those all were FOSS.

For proprietary there are nVidia (Ubuntu fixed this, Fedora was PITA), Xilinx parallel cable, Epson USB scanner and something which I do not remember now. All these required recompile (of the wrapper). Except because the big USB change three-four years ago the Epson was unusable for about a year.

[1] How could it as the kernel developers do not have it? (and most likely do not give a shit)

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[ion.simon.c]

Sweet! Thanks for coming back with this info. What do you mean when you say "every kernel change"? Do you mean every minor revision? Every patch revision? (ie: 2.6.5-rXX) Every security update? Were you only using Ubuntu-packaged kernels?

I'm dealing with my own problems here... sometime after 2.6.16 the cifs module started oopsing whenever you umount cifs shares after mounting a share in two locations with two different sets of credentials. (This really, really sucks, btw.)

Anyway, once I get that done, I'll hopefully have time to see what went wrong with some of those drivers that you mentioned. /me hopes to do some kernel development in the future.

Re:Arguements against moving to FOSS are weak.

[jhol13]

Practically every update of the kernel (there might have been one or two updates which did not break anything, some might not break everything, etc.). I have been only using Ubuntu lately (last two or three years), before that I used Fedora.

I hope you do not waste your time with my problems ... perhaps finding out how dkms works would make more sense (solves the underlying big problem rather than some individual, small, problems).

Stop looking for the "Linux year".

[koolfy]

Here is how I see it :

Those companies are full of windows-users, and installing Linux on their computers at work will NOT make them become linux-users.

Of course, Linux is 'free', of course, it's more flexible, powerful, etc
Of course, people knowing about Linux will probably be more effective in any ways.

However, I must insist : it costs MONEY to get someone using Linux at work, as a tool. Are you people forgeting that those employees only used windows for their entire lives ?? It's not something that can be learned in two hours (not at work, not as an essential tool.)

Please, stop behaving like kids, asking every two months if the time when windows gets down has come or not.
2009 is NOT going to be Linux on anything year. Just like 2008 wasn't and 2007 wasn't.
2009 is going to be another year of increasing overal market share of Linux, like other years. There will be no revolution.

Please, understand that the kind of adoption of Linux you are hoping for will not be a "one-year" revolution. Maybe much people will begin using Linux on their desktop, and it's good. But before Linux becomes proeminent or even common in large companies Linux has to stop being "that cool system that everybody heard about but nobody in the company really masters". If there is recession, those moving-to-linux costs will be too important.
The only way Linux gets enough market share in large companies is that those people working with computers, already made contact with Linux at HOME, and thus don't need any formation.

Just wait.. wait for Linux to be known, used and mastered by the lambda user, and then our society will have the choice to move to Linux without prohibitive costs.

Re:Stop looking for the "Linux year".

[Lorien_the_first_one]

I agree with your points on when and how Linux will be adopted. It is agreed that FOSS adoption is slow, inexorable and self-evident. I would like to add that during slow times, new systems can be tested in the lab and moved to production because there is time to do it. If I was going to be making a change, I'd rather do it during the slow times when I can stop and take inventory of how the changes are working. During the fast times, I won't have time to fix mistakes. In sum, the people who take the time and the risk to make the change now, when it's slow, will profit over the people who choose to remain with MS (insert top tier vendor here). For those who worry about making a mistake with FOSS, it's worth noting the wise words of Watson of IBM fame, to paraphrase: To increase your chances of success, double your rate of failure.

Re:Stop looking for the "Linux year".

[pseudonomous]

While it's as unlikely as ever that 2009 is the year of the linux desktop, I think that eventually it will either happen or you'll never see linux adoption over 2%, I mean if enough people actually used linux that it became a part of the mainstream conciousness, I think you would see a flood of new users trying it out, and OEMs offering it pre-installed, as it stands now, linux is something that geeks and IT proffesionals have heard about, and they don't neccisarily even have any experiance in using it.

And when you reach something like 5% market-share, you'll see alot more commercial software ported or written for linux, maybe even a crippled version of microsoft office. And at that point another barrier to adoption comes down. Already, hardware support is pretty good, as marketshare increases it should only get better. As linux grows in marketshare, there's a sort of positive feedback to the growth, at least once it reaches a certain threshold, I thnk, on the other hand, it's possible that it just won't ever get to the point.

Re:Stop looking for the "Linux year".

[rantingkitten]

Are you people forgeting that those employees only used windows for their entire lives ?? It's not something that can be learned in two hours (not at work, not as an essential tool.)

They may have "used" Windows but they don't "know" Windows any more than they know anything else. Most office employees who aren't in IT barely know more about computers than they absolutely require to do their job. Every day, legions of sales staff power up their computers, and dutifully open Outlook, Word, IE, maybe Excel or something. They use these things to do their work but emailing proposals to clients and typing numbers into spreadsheets doesn't mean they "know" Windows or Office. It means they've learned, mostly by rote, how to open a few applications.

Anything more complicated than that is beyond them, which is why their drives are always full of "Shortcut to New Word Document (1)(1)(1).doc.doc", files are saved in any of seven different locations with no rhyme or reason, IE is filled with idiotic "Free Smilies Toolbars", and the thing takes four minutes to boot because of all the crap they have on startup.

Saying they know Windows or Office because they can open a few applications is pretty meaningless. I could put any one of my salespeople in front of Ubuntu, tell them "This is the new Windows Longhorn," and they'd figure out how to open email, Firefox, and OO Writer within minutes. They'd also never know or care about the difference.

Remember that for the majority of people they aren't "using" Windows or any other OS, especially at work -- they are using applications to accomplish a very narrowly-defined, specific task. If Evolution lets them send mail, they don't care that it's not Outlook. If they can write letters to their clients they don't care that they're using Abiword or OO Writer instead of MS Word.

I'm well aware that many corporations use this or that propietary, Windows-only bit of software or whatever, and that may be a deal-breaker, but that has nothing to do with whether or not their rank-and-file staff "knows" Windows.

Re:false economy - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

I refer to the particular insurance companies in our local area. I'm sure some admin there can steal/tamper with data but I'm equally sure most of them have no clue how to do it. I sure don't.

It may be just my own limitation, but I don't see how you could make Windows boxes that bullet proof.

Hanlon's razor

[rdnetto]

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Re:Hanlon's razor

[rmcd]

Thanks :-) I had heard the expression but didn't know the name.

Re:Hanlon's razor

[cyphercell]

So, wolves eat rabbits because they don't know any better? I suppose the rabbit doesn't care either way.

Re:Hanlon's razor

[rdnetto]

Me neither - I only just googled it :)

Re:Hanlon's razor

[rdnetto]

Microsoft isn't a wolf - its a group of people who can be reasoned with. We (the rabbits) would care because it means that we can (attempt to) convince them otherwise. I think the repeated extensions of Windows XP's lifecycle are evidence of this.
In other words, if it's not intentional, then it's a bug which they could address in the future.

Complexities

[Jeheto]

First I would like to state I am not an expert at Linux, nor have I even had the chance to use it so my opinions are completely based upon the things I've read at Slashdot and this article. Now that I got that out of the way I would like to point out the + and the - from my view. -:The article argues that Linux offers more in versatility. To me that translates into more places for problems that IT (who has probably used Linux a bit more than I have but still is unused to it)has to deal with. -: Everyone upstairs will not have the same patience as they would not during a recession. But perhaps this is a mixed curse per say, because people change more often under pressure. +: Exponential rate. The companies that switch will lure even more to switch. The recession only emphasizes that effect. +: Cheaper than other alternatives and their upgrades (windows).

Not exactly wrong =p

[psnyder]

Well, it does go up every year. Doesn't it?

Linux, FOSS, Business

[Ux64]

We're quite happy. We used to use all traditional tools. Now we're using Eclipse, Ubuntu, Open Office, Firefox, Evolution and all new applications being created are created as web applications. We're very happy with this. All used tools being used are free open source or our own products. We work in software development sector. We havent been missing outlook or sharepoint too much at all.

Recessions have historically been good for FLOSS

[yes it is]

In the early 90s, there was a recession and linux was created about the same time. Around the turn of the century there was the dot-com bust, and at that time we got bittorrent. These are both pretty revolutionary bits of software. So yes, I'm quite keen to see what free software innovation that this recession fosters :)

Change is opportunity

[symbolset]

For you and me, we're worried about whether about we will be swept in our out with the change but let's step back for a moment and examine the greater forces.

If you are centered on yourself, have skills to offer, and are poised to leap on opportunities, you'll do fine.

If you're a clinical MCSE, in private industry, you're hosed. In government service you should be fine.

If you're making $100k/yr or more, now is the best time to remodel your kitchen, reroof your house or buy the sweet new Washer/Dryer -- you have no idea how sweet these things are until you try them. One does 20 towels at once. A normal dryer does four. You'll find contractors ready and eager to refit your house at far less than the prices they were asking even last year. Seize the day.

Huh? Regression?

[trollebolle]

I first read the title as "Regression vs. GNU"... that didn't make sense at all.

Ok, this is a recession.

[symbolset]

Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. It was February 1984, a brisk 12 degrees. It was our scheduled obstacle course and we were going to take it and prove we were men. 4:30 we mustered, we were at the course by 5. The sun would not be up for hours. The course was simple: over the logs, climb the wall, under the wire and take the hill. We didn't know yet that that the logs were slick with snow, the wall was crusted with ice, the wire was embedded in frosty slush. It was snowing fiercely, so we could see about 12 feet. If you think Army weather gear is up to these conditions, I have nothing to offer except: try it. You haven't lived until you've low crawled your M16 through 30 yards of Margarita slush, bobbing your head up for breath and ducking shells the whole way. Then they started the artillery simulators, threatened to shoot us, and fired .50 cal machine guns over our heads.

Only two of us died. That was a success I guess.

I've got about a dozen of these and I haven't actually been in a war - so you're not hearing from an actual hero. Embrace life and quit whining, bitch.

FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

I love free software. I really do. But isnt building stuff free and pushing it to everyone kind of BAD for developers? I mean, you cant sell something if someone's already given it away. Programmers are screwing their own industry.

Re:FOSS

[Bert64]

Depends why you program...
Some people do it for fun, some people to write programs for their own use, others do it as part of another job (eg system management)... All of these people stand to benefit from open source.

Only those who write software for sale stand to loose, and they are a small percentage of the overall.
Most developers are employed by companies who's primary business is not selling software, they need some custom apps for their own specialized use and will employ programmers to write them. Proprietary vendors won't supply the software they need because the niche is too small, open source won't supply for the same reason.

It's a perfectly good desktop OS for your server..

[msimm]

And after I've installed cron, a real shell and a ssh daemon it's mainly usable.

I appreciate RDP but it's not the best solution for everything and I still find it surprising (frustrating) to have to cycle the OS after every update.

But I could care less what you use to get your job done. If it works for you, great.

Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

... happy GNU year

Of...

[Anonymous Coward]

A comment in TFA caught my eye:

"I can't see how [the free software ideals] can fail to become more important in the coming year," says Brown. "As people depend more on more on technology, it's important to have a philosophy about technology, and free software gives a strong baseline for what that means."

What I'd like, almost as much as YOTLD, is the year of decisionmakers actually thinking about the implications of letting a single vendor control your technology platform through copyright, patent, and trade secret law.

For about a decade now, anyone who brought this point up has been roundly refuted by "software just needs to Get Things Done, we don't have time or interest in philosophical battles"

Joe 6 packs....

[DrYak]

But out of all the Average Joes who will be changing their computers in the few next years, how many of them will just use Word to type out a quick document ? And how many of them have complex non-portable macros and pipelines ?

These are an interesting market for Microsoft as they don't volume-license their software.

With the bad economic environment a few might post-pone their system upgrade.
Of those buying new hardware and software, most won't like the prices of buying new licenses.
Some of them will probably pirate the software.
Others will probably give a try to the open-source world.

It would be interesting to see what the effect of all campaign against piracy will be. Will most Average Joes still pirate their office suites, or will more of them hesitate and try to find other alternatives ?

Re:Joe 6 packs....

[Shados]

These are an interesting market for Microsoft as they don't volume-license their software

No, but they get Office Home and Student edition, at 150$ for 3 licenses. Thats cosmetic at best and pays for the support and the advertisement/box and pretty much nothing else. Net result: not much more than piracy. The only thing "average joes" bring in, is the mindshare, and even that is less important than it used to be, now that Office has some features beyond "its what everyone knows" (which certainly wasn't the case a few versions back).

That said, its still significant, but as you pointed out, far more so in a "The effect of piracy on commercial software" discussion... the recession has little to do with that.

Demand alone isn't going to cut it ...

[Lazy Jones]

FOSS is not demand-driven unfortunately, so higher demand due to a recession does not mean the projects will flourish. On the contrary, the FOSS contributors might no longer be able to provide their time and money due to economic difficulties.

IMHO, FOSS just needs a lot more guidance, direction, focus, leadership. Experimentation and ad hoc development are good, but the net output is still subpar. We could have fewer, but much better apps with all the manpower spent on FOSS.

Re:Demand alone isn't going to cut it ...

[onet]

FOSS is not demand-driven unfortunately, ...

If you interact with the developers and submit feature requests, or even better, pay someone to contribute to the project to implement your needs then FOSS actually is demand-driven.

Microsoft calls for government bailout

[David Gerard]

Microsoft Corporation is headed for swingeing layoffs in mid-January after the failure of its stock buyback program, and has called for a government bailout in the face of the credit crunch.

"Vastly popular operating systems like Vista just aren't selling," said marketing marketer emeritus Bill Gates, "and it's all because people aren't confident to spend their money. In fact, they didn't start buying it in 2007 because they were expecting this even then. A subsidy to buy good, honest American computer operating systems is essential to the health of the economy, or my part of it."

Should the Big One of American virtual office supplies fail, economists predict that it could free up millions of dollars in business spending and provide a devastating boost to an economy reeling from the impact of the credit crunch.

Hiring in most Microsoft divisions has frozen in the last six months and 30GB Zunes are already on suicide watch. "The workload's impossible to keep up with," said blog technical evangelist Gary M. Stewart. "I've even been answering Slashdot comments on Boycott Novell. It's impossible to keep track of! Anyway, you're just another Twitter sockpuppet. Or Mini-Microsoft. Admit it."

Additional bailouts have been hooked on the bill as riders for HD-DVD, eight-track cartridges, 78rpm gramophones and Babbage analytical engine gear manufacturers.

Senators have stated they will only bail the company out with a change in top management. "What the shit," said Linus Torvalds as his draft notice arrived.

VT 100 ought to be enough for anybody

[crovira]

Never did see the use of drawing pretty, sorry, 'purdy pitchurs' on a cathode ray tube.

And who needs dem dere rodents?

We could have REALLY thin clients then.

24x80 ought to be enough for anybody.

GIVE AWAY the suspenders AND the belt,

[crovira]

but plan on charging out the nose for your tailoring skills.

Not GNU

[Brandybuck]

It's not just GNU, it's all of FOSS. Only software that comes from the GNU project should be called "GNU".

Continuity is the key

[hwyhobo]

No-one ever gets training on new versions of Office.

Perhaps I should have been more detailed instead of just saying "training costs". It makes no difference whether the training comes from the IT department, or outside, or whether user have to train themselves. These are all training costs.

I would like evidence that such training is widespread and expected.

Expected? Heh. Perhaps when you work for a union shop. In most companies you are simply expected to know how to use the program. Again, how you get retrained, doesn't matter. It is still a training cost. In a way, lost productivity is a "training-neglect" cost.

In addition, it reads and writes the 97-2003 .DOC format just fine.

And that tells me you have never used Word for anything more than simple notes. You probably haven't used PowerPoint at all. I use both, extensively. Please don't tell me not to use Word to produce complex, multi-chapter documents. It's not my decision. The last time I attempted to open one of those documents in OpenOffice I laughed so hard, it cured me of any illusions.

Most companies cannot afford to start everything anew. Continuity is the key. There are repositories of thousands of documents that serve as a base to build more and more documents and presentations in the future. If you think someone will struggle for weeks or months converting all of that just to save a few hundred dollars in software costs, then I am sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Continuity is the key

[rabiddeity]

And that tells me you have never used Word for anything more than simple notes. You probably haven't used PowerPoint at all. I use both, extensively. Please don't tell me not to use Word to produce complex, multi-chapter documents.

Are you one of those people who tries to make a spreadsheet behave like a database? Or perhaps you read from your Powerpoint slides? A leatherman tool has a Phillips head on it, but it's not an ideal screwdriver. Likewise it's possible to use a word processor to make "complex, multi-chapter documents", but it's better to choose the correct tools for the job and apply them properly.

If the documents are primarily intended to be printed on standard paper by professional printers and needs to look pretty, create the content with minimal formatting in another tool (in multiple files when necessary), and then import it into a proper layout program. LaTEX, PageMaker, InDesign, or another program capable of making PostScript compatible documents would be the correct tool here. You can convert easily to PDF, if it needs to be screen viewable. And if you've set it up properly, anyone can edit the content without accidentally mucking up your carefully selected fonts and kerning.

If the docs are intended to be read by humans on a screen, again start with CONTENT in a file with minimal formatting, and then use the correct tool to format it in your choice of HTML, PDF, or some other common open format. If you want HTML to look pixel-perfect on a screen, you're attacking the problem the wrong way. One guy who sets his machine to "Large Fonts" will either break your pixel-perfect formatting or (if you've overridden his preferences) get angry because he can't read the fine print.

If it needs to be commonly editable and point-perfect printing isn't important, then a word processor might be the proper tool. But again, the content should be separate from the formatting. Templates exist for a reason! If the formatting gets mucked up in the transition then you can edit a single file to make all your documents of that type work properly. But if your poorly trained office staff simply opened up last year's document and pasted in this year's figures, they weren't using the toolset properly. You're going to have to transition off your current version of Word eventually. Might as well make it easier for yourself.

Use the right tools for the right job, and use them properly.

Re: Continuity is the key

[hwyhobo]

Are you one of those people who tries to make a spreadsheet behave like a database? Or perhaps you read from your Powerpoint slides?

[More condescending drivel deleted]

Sorry, you have addressed not one of the points I made in the previous post, but instead you come back with irrelevant and unsubstantiated guesses about my work style. Clearly you know nothing about me or my work. You also have little understanding why certain applications are used. If you did, you wouldn't make laughable recommendations or use a straw man ("one guy") to prove your "points". And where the hell did you get the idea that I want HTML to look pixel-perfect? I don't even use HTML. Did you just spew years-worth of bile onto the screen all at the same time?

You need to listen to people more before you start preaching to them. I sure hope you don't work in IT.

Use the right tools for the right job, and use them properly.

Good god, man. What the hell are you talking about?

I seriously doubt you can find a more bare-bones minimalist than me when comes to tools. I only use what is necessary to get the job done. I still use vi as my primary writing tool on my laptop. But I also understand workflow requirements and dependencies for production of deliverables in training and publishing, having spent ~20 years in related functions. You might want to listen to people before you start spouting off condescending bs. You might accidently learn something.

Re:Continuity is the key

[JasterBobaMereel]

In my experience... The change from Office 2003 to Office 2007 requires *more* training than the switch from Office 2003 to OOo !

OpenOffice is more like Office 2003 than Office 2007 is ...

Re:Continuity is the key

[hwyhobo]

That may well be the case. I have been spared that so far. BTW, I hope no one mistakes me for a fan of MS Office. It is an awful piece of crud. That, however, does not change the issues mentioned in previous posts.

Re:Continuity is the key

[hwyhobo]

One more proof that continuity is the key - resistance of many companies to "upgrade" to Vista from XP. If you introduce too many interruptions to business processes like Vista did with incompatibilities and other problems, the companies will rebuke you, even if you are Microsoft.

Software costs insignificant compared to salary

[Zey]

What you're seeming to neglect, in the desperate hope that OSS software can now compete on cost, is that the cost of desktop software licenses easily pales compared to all the other costs involved in hiring and retaining staff; salary being the biggest component.

If an accountant is looking for fat to trim, software isn't going to be it. That runs the risk of incurring large costs in either finding people with skills in those unfamiliar software apps in their CV or retraining people to use them. Risk is the last thing these people will be thinking of. It's conservative choice time. Nope, it's layoffs.

Very small business and the home market are where people will start looking at cutting back on software costs. Unfortunately, that same thing will also bite everyone who supplies software and services to these markets in their day jobs which pay the rent so they can code OSS in their spare time. There are no silver linings in the oncoming recession.

If OSS is going to compete, it has to be on quality. In many areas it already does. In many, it doesn't. Publicise the former, encourage the latter to improve and contribute if you're able.

Current crop of managers have to retire first

[deanston]

Like pro sports and communism, positive change only happens after the people at the top changes first. Average software use is 1 or 2 versions behind, so most software a company relies on for daily production business still run perfectly on XP and average users do not want change. IT policies and governance are not decided by the cost of software and equipment. If it was that simple FOSS would've dominated already. Top execs look at what system their peers and industry run and conform to the average standard. All the money spent on more recent Windows Server and MS SQL upgrades in the last couple of years means most Windows shops will just bear down and keep the same HW/SW running for the next couple of years. The most promising avenue for Linux growth is where IT shops look years down the road and decided the ever growing TCO for running your own systems is simply unsustainable, and opt for EC2 or similar future solutions. Linux and FOSS should have formed the foundation of 90% of cloud computing for the next decade. Imagine where Open Office could have been if Sun+IBM had invested in building it as online app instead of trying to (still) catch up to MS Office. Now MS has woken up and started to focus away from the desktop, OOo and the like are too late, when it could have been years ahead of the game. I hate to say it, but seems the only company with FOSS savvy that knows how to target where users will be tomorrow instead of where we've already been is Google.

I'm your huckleberry

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a community college. 100% of the students receive formal training using Microsoft Office. I hope that's statistical enough for you. Each of them that graduate (and require technical office training) will receive two years academic experience with MS Office. The costs are about $10,000 - $20,000 (minimum) per student. If you switch to OpenOffice and tell next years graduates that they need to learn a new system, then if students finally begin insisting we offer classes with OpenOffice, I'll work on the faculty that have been teaching with MS Office for 10+ years. (if this day ever comes, it will be one of the most frustrating things I have ever wanted to do)

The point is that the ball is in your court. Convince enough students that someone, somewhere has gotten OpenOffice certified and landed a $40/hr job, then we will risk lawsuits for not teaching it. I don't think anyone can put a good number on what it will cost for you to make that switch, you will be absorbing costs that have never been on your balance sheets before.

You will also be dealing with strong resistance from 50yr old accountants (lawyers, writers, etc) that are very set in their ways. They will make strong allies with new hires that realize their recent and expensive technical training was ~30%-60% inapplicable.