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Australian Senate Hears Open Source Is Too Expensive
schliz writes "The Australian Government Information Management Office says that a platform change to open source could cost more than it saves. It was pushed to investigate open source software to reduce its AUD$500m budget at a Senate meeting yesterday. From the article: 'Agencies are obliged to consider value for money on each occasion they apply a software,' spokesperson Graham Fry said. 'If the cost of assessing it [open source] was greater than the cost of the software, you would have to think twice.'"
> Australian Senate Hears Open Source Is Too Expensive
Well, dear senators, this is a normal consequence of vendor lock-in:
"In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without SUBSTANTIAL switching COSTS. Lock-in costs which create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
So, of course, there will be a substantial cost for switching ;-))
In the end, it all depends on how long you wish to stay locked-in. You have to consider the matter in the long term to see the advantages, and long-term thinking is seldom seen in modern politics ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Do they really think it's better to pay for an egg every day than for a chicken today and then nothing for the foreseeable future?
Yes, there are costs to adopting open-source, that's the basic message when you use a bureaucrat to English translator.
How about these from TFA:
A 2007 AGIMO survey revealed that 68 percent of government agencies were either piloting or using open source software.
Centrelink, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and National Archives of Australia were known to use open source products;
Looks like it's getting a fair hearing.
Switching cost includes more the just the cost of the software its self. Just because you're using open source does not mean you don't face a certain degree of lock-in.
You have to consider the matter in the long term to see the advantages, and long-term thinking is seldom seen in modern politics ;-))
Four years at the Federal level. Three years in most states and territories.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sorry, it's too expensive to even assess if there's any money to be saved by switching. Next item on the agenda, can we get some sort of magic machine that makes sure no-one is watching anything dirty in their computer?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
...or of mere stupidity, if that's a simpler explanation?
The Government only cares what happens in the present financial year, next year doesn't matter. If you don't spend your money in the current financial year, next year expect less budget.
On the developer front:
If you have a lot of database stuff, Visual Studio can be much cheaper to develop for, so long as you ignore Microsoft's Architectural Group. For me, moving to Linux isn't just about saving money, really, its to break free from the corporate brain cramp that is Microsoft Architectural guidelines. Visual Studio and C# are great tools, but, if you have to use evaporate 2x as productive multiplier to do 10x as much stupid stuff, there's hardly a savings.
On the office front:
OpenOffice's spreadsheet is not even close to Office 2007 Excel. We developers can say Open Office spreadsheet is good enough, but telling that to someone who lives and breaths Excel is only for laughs.
This is my sig.
Yes, vendor lock in, training costs, etc, will cost more than maintaining the status quo, since the licenses for proprietary software are still valid for next few years.
But long term?? Without a doubt open source is the cheaper option there. Bite the bullet now, and several years down the road, you'll be thinking what a good choice you made when the current version of Windows, MS Office, et cetera, become obsolete, and you need to "upgrade".
Seriously, and I'll bring a bunch of my friends. We can do it for $250 million.
Four years at the Federal level. Three years in most states and territories.
3 Years Federal, 4 Years State. Only half the Senate is up for election each term, so senators are only up for re-election every second term. Unless there's a double disolution...
As usually, price is the only criterion. And I remember a letter of prime minister of Peru to Microsoft. He explained clearly and plainly that the TCO was moot. It doesn't matter if the analysis is good or bad. It matters that proprietary software is not suitable for government.
Government must not allow for vendor lock-in. It must not create a situation where their data is hostage to a private company.
Government must be transparent in all its processes. Their software included, being open for public scrutiny.
Government must use secure software. No black-box encryption can be considered secure.
Government's duty is to be as accessible to wide public as possible. That means, amongst all, open API for their services, and software available to all citizens no matter what their material status. No paywall of any kind to let only the rich have their way.
OSS is not a choice of "cheaper". It's the choice of "doing things the right way".
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
What the very short article DOESN'T mention is what we in the industry have known for years:
1) A software LICENSE isn't always cheaper than software SUPPORT. And you DO need support for your platform, open source or not.
2) Using a well established vendor software (like say windows), means it's easier (cheaper) to educate people in the software they'll be using, and similarly easier to find qualified support (in house and outsourced alike).
3) Open source doesn't mean the software is FREE, it just means it is open source. Many companies supply the source code for review when they sell their software to customers.
4) The lifecycle of "well established" products is well documented (and generally very long lived), and may factor into the choice, as noone wants to scrap the software again in 3 years (and incur another switchover cost) when there's no longer any support for whatever you chose as your platform.
5) Techonologically, a lot of software just inst available as open source. You may be unable to find the software you need for your platform, thus again driving the costs up if you have to develop it yourself. Noone wants to be stuck with a legacy system for the next 15 years (again).
So for a long term saving, it's often cheaper to stay with what you've got (or for a new installation, choose the same as everyone else) and pay a lot of licensefees, than to change to something that's cheaper in licensing and have a shitload of other costs.
That said, I LOVE linux, open source and free software. But for commercial use, it just isn't always optimal.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
There is definitely a "certain degree" of lock-in, but it's like being trapped in a prison with a key-making machine and full details on every lock in the place. Sure, it'll take a bit of time and effort, but you can get out pretty simply.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Just been through a tender process with a federal agency. After submission, we had to provide risk assessments on all the open source packages proposed in the system. No questions asked about any of the commercial packages even though some had less history and share than the OS stuff.
They seemed happy enough once we provided them with the risk assessments.
Their site seems down at the moment, but the AGIMO have a nice document on usage of open source software in government organisations.
Oh yeah. Got it the wrong way around.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It's always the used cars, sloppy seconds, and used needles. Why can't we do better? Are we that shitty?
The bureaucrats last far longer than that and ultimately they are often the ones that make decisions by undermining decisions more often based upon power plays and ego, rather than upon sound economic decisions. In this case one person was making statements full of if, could, necessarily, assumption, all to cover the fact that they had not bothered to conduct any research. The reason for the lack of research, that research could cost more than $500 million dollars a year, one could only guess that Graham Fry was intending to contract out the research into using open source software to a closed source proprietary software company.
Obviously Fry has no concept of foreign debt, no understanding of maintaining control over software upgrade cycles, no idea about monitoring historical trends and how many times they have bought the same software, no concept at all of life cycle costing, believes the lie that closed source proprietary software is free of maintenance costs and, fails to understand how governments choices in this sector impact upon private industry choices and further impact foreign by a nominal factor of 10 (500 million becomes 5 billion). A true asshat that does not belong in a role that legacy, longevity and, political astuteness has provided him, rather than expertise, national economic awareness or even basic common sence. Sounds like the Green Party in Australia is far more technologically aware than the rest (they also oppose censorship).
It seems that global trend of the right shifting to the loony bin and the left shifting to the right of centre leaving the humanity and environment (over greed and power) based parties, in this case the Greens, to take up the centre left position, holds true. With FOSS the bulk of the money in software can always be spent locally and that's down to state and city level, not just country.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I work in state government and what bugs me is we don't put at least say Open Office on every single machine.
It literally costs nothing to do and could at least begin the transition to open source solutions.
Sadly we use document management crap for users incapable of using a filesystem properly, so the saveas and save dialog boxes are replaced by a front end which hands documents being loaded to a specific server. I am not aware if this system can tie in to the open office system.
Stage 1 should be, firefox on every workstation, open office on every workstation, imgburn on every workstation and VLC on every workstation. We should also be virtualising with Virtual Box.
We do in my dept actually put VLC on as default (in conjunction with media player and so on) but it's not enough.
Slowly slowly get the users used to multiplatform open source packages, it doesn't matter if it's a 10 year, very very slow transition, it results in completely free systems in the long run.
I for one am a Windows guy at home but I'd be more than happy to be forced to learn that stuff and support it, from what little I know of linux is it may be missing some UI polish and some enterprise level administration stuff, you can on the other hand lock things down exceptionally well, diagnose problems remotely very well and overall have a pretty reliable system.
It's really sad, but I guess this goes back to the 'no one ever got fired for buying intel' saying, it likely applies to MS applications and OS's as well :/
Different solutions, open source or not, aren't always as functional in the ways you need as what you have now, or what you are considering buying. Now, it's easy to say "Well it's open source! Just hire some programmers to write the functionality you need." However that is a problem for three reasons:
1) That costs money. All of a sudden the "$0 per copy" thing isn't true anymore. You have to factor in the cost of the development team. That is not cheap, at least if you want it done well. Good programmers don't work for minimum wage. So that cost must be factored in.
2) You have to support it. If you are doing major development to something you need, you'll then have to support that development for yourself. This means ongoing support personnel costs. While you might not need to keep the whole dev team on, you'll still need some of them because they are going to have to maintain the software. Again, most costs to factor in.
3) It won't be ready right now. If there's an off the shelf solution that meets you needs now, you have to weight that against the development time for what you'd need to add. It isn't as easy to put a dollar figure on, but it factors in. Saying "Oh just wait 18 months," isn't so easy to do.
One area I've personally seen this as a real problem is video editing software. The OSS solutions are pretty abysmal next to things like Sony Vegas Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro. Now those aren't cheap, but in most cases I bet they are way cheaper than trying to fix up an OSS solution. I mean say you've got a shop with 20 editors that all need their own copy of Vegas. That'll run you $12,000 for the licenses. You decide that the included 40 network rendering licenses are enough for the farm for the workload. You also decide that you want to purchase their yearly-ish upgrades, so about $5,000 in maintenance per year. This assumes no discounts.
Ok, you think you can develop OSS to be the same level of quality for that price? Not likely, you can't even hire a programmer for that, never mind that it'd probably take more than one as well as other people (like designers to make it nice and usable). Never mind that your work either has to wait until its done or you need to buy something now. Makes much more sense to just buy the commercial solution.
So while OSS can be a cheaper solution, and can be a better solution, there is no guarantee it is. All the costs have to be evaluated and that includes things like "Does it do everything we need?" and "Is it easy for non-technical users to make use of?"
Is that you Bill?
According to the headline, the Australian senate says that open source (I guess they mean free software) is expensive, but they actually said that switching is expensive. The headline is supposed to provide us with the best possible understanding of the whole article, given the restricted space, not require us to read the article just to check if it agrees with the headline. Set higher standards, Slashdot!
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Switching costs > Licencensing costs
X$ > Y$ per year !? something about this equation doesn't make sense.
Wouldn't you have to know how many years we're talking about?
You do know that Open Source does not equal free right? Open source or not they're going to be paying for support. It is altogether possible for a closed proprietary system to ultimately be cheaper than open source because support is much cheaper and easier to get.
Yes. in this case it also includes the cost of training people that have never worked with anything but Windows. That is, of course, if you assume you *have* to retrain your existing admins, rather than firing two of them and replacing them with a single Unix admin. In the end, it all depends on how you make the calculation. Sure, a switch *could* cost more, but it *could* also cost less depending on the scenario you choose to follow.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I worked for Vic Roads all the way through their experiment with OS/2. They back end was AIX and department level servers were OS/2 as were the workstations. The rumour going around was that IBM had spent a lot of money making a few senior managers in that organisation very happy to get that deal through. Around about the time I left staff were pushing for Windows98 to be deployed in place of OS/2. I came back to do some contracting and people were betting on how many hours it would run without crashing.
To get anything different in I think you have to have a lot of money behind it. I can see the same thing going on where I work but the product being pushed is clear case.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
cost(assessing) > cost(software) where cost(assessing) > 0 and cost(software) = 0
That's true, but doesn't mean anything, so it's a bullshit reason.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
> but it's like being trapped in a prison with a key-making machine and full details on every lock in the place
Or, in modern prison terms:
"being trapped in a modern prison with a laptop with wireless access to all prison systems and with details on how to break-in every system"
Chances are you could even easily have them opening the doors for you and escort you out ;-) ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Excellent decision, asshole. Please stay away.
We have enough of you running the country.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
It's fairly uncontroversial, isn't it?
* there is a cost for running proprietary, closed source software - usually made up of licence costs plus support costs
* there is a cost for running FOSS - not licence costs, but support costs
* there is a cost for implementing any new software to an organisation, in terms of cost of change, reskilling, downtime, training etc.
Just because an app is free, doesn't mean it costs you nothing to implement it. Any decisions regarding moving from one set of software to another should consider the total cost of change
On top of this, governments do not consider the long term - they want to make finances look good for the period they are in power, so they can get a good economic soundbite at the end of a term and hopefully get re-elected.
Is that most CS talent in Australia *should* be classical Unix, the Darl SCO kind ready. .gov.
Australia did not just print out MS CS degrees, they actually funded real Unix CS.
We like our mini military-industrial complex and did fund some maths/CS aspects of our top educational institutions.
So where is the brain *gap* ? We do not have a bunch of xbox playing cubical chumps running our
Someone fixed something with this.
As someone in Australia did with Saddam Hussein and wheat, Australia can do with software and Redmond.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Open source is not just about Linux or OpenOffice, many if not all proprietary applications use at least one type of open source software. Such as compression library, boost c++ libraries, STL libraries, SQLite, MySQL, parsers, image and graphics libraries such as GIL, Imagemagick, html or XML libraries, networking libraries and many many others.
If you business is software, you have to be a complete moron to ignore all that and create everything from the ground up and maintain them - God knows how long it would take to deliver. The cost does not come from whether the source code is available, it is the vendor who try to lock you in that costs you.
Sounds like we have a difference in administration approach between open source and closed source software.
Open Source
- It's Free
- But if you want something special you will need specialists to write the software and test it for you - Cost lots
- You'll have to pay for your own training
- If you change your computers in future, chances are the software may still be able to be made to work
Closed Source
- It's expensive
- Carefully researched product - will probably meet the needs of your business without much tailoring
- Training will be provided as part of package
- If you change your system in future, chances are you will need to buy the latest version of the software at greater expensive
Options for legacy systems
- virtualisation or emulation - but both have their own administration costs
However, there is one factor that I haven't discussed yet, that is the attitude and stability of the software vendor.
- Some vendors write such highly specialised versions of software that they change little between versions. If you are using such a system then is it probably worth risking the software being closed source.
- But some vendors want to maximise profit, so they will revise the software with short lifecycles and sometime be sneaky enough to remove commonly used features on more basic versions of the software, so that when you do upgrade you have to pay even more or change your processes around the lack of that particular feature.
The horrible truth is that IT companies have a habit of pulling wool of the eyes of governments. This is partly due to the fact that the requirements are often vague and incomplete, but also due to the complexity that governments insist on without understand the consequences. Fact is programming time is like any other engineering type function, it costs money.
With regard the the article, there is too little information to say whether the Australian Government have made the right choice. However, if you want to base the information on the experience with UK government, chances are the politicians have made a complete hash of whatever decision they have made, because they when want a system to perform too many different functions without realising that they are trying for levels of efficiency that could never be achieved, cost more money and finally ending up with a system that doesn't work properly due to fundamental design structures.
Sometimes it is best not to try and implement a one size fits all policy, but too break parts down into their constituents and build systems on a more modular basis. For example two departments may use software from different vendors and have to exchange data, with each other in a define way - the interface software could be open source based and maintained either by the company/organisation/government or a contractor. However, there will be a point when you get to the lack of diminishing returns when trying too hard costs even more, at which point you implement risk management and move on. The problem is that governments are full of people that think they "Know it All", but they in fact "Know everything about nothing" and don't understand when to stop arguing a case as they is no more benefit to what they are saying, obstructing proper process.
So to answer, Open Source or Closed Source - it depends on the application and how you understand the pitfalls.
From TFA:
> "If the cost of assessing it was greater than the cost of the software, you would have to think twice."
We don't understand it. Do you understand it? This stuff is hard. Have you tried rebooting?
> "While open source software may reduce licensing costs, the cost of support could be an issue."
I was flipping burgers last week and now I are teh IT guy. Have you tried rebooting?
> "Centrelink, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and National Archives of Australia were known to use open source products; however, it was up to individual agencies to make procurement decisions, AGIMO said."
Yes, yes we do. And so do quite a few others. Betcha no-one in the proprietary software world knows who we all are. We're here though, and we're not going away.
Yeah, you also have vendor lock-in with reiserfs.
We should always compare IT costs vs doing the work manually. Otherwise, what's the point of IT? No matter which way you look at it, IT always saves money.
Now, switching vendor is simply a temporary inconvenience and requires a certain level of effort, leadership, accountability and responsibility. Unfortunately this is something government tends to avoid just like the Internet reroutes around censorship. In the 60s and 70s, you'd have to buy Blue (IBM) to be save - now it's another company. People go with the safe bets, not the smartest.
If a group is forced to change to from Lotus 123 to MS Excel and as a consequence, they can no longer exchange data with the mainframe, they can just blame the IT group. Switching from MS Office to OpenOffice can have a similar impact. Especially if pilot groups are not well managed and the effort not funded. Things will change it's only a question of time.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Microsoft isn't the ONLY choice when it comes to vendors. Microsoft is just a supplier of OS (and a few applications). For mission critical stuff, most companies use stuff that's a LOT more expensive than what microsoft charges. And frankly, yes, when I have a business critical error in an MS product, I WILL get it fixed, one way or another, that's what I do for a living, and I'm good at my job. But when all else is said and done, show me another OS that'll run for instance a SAP gui, Toad, Quest Space Manager, Business Objects, Dimension and Oracle, has decent text editing, integrated network support, spreadsheet and is intuitive. Show me, and I'll happily try to convice my customers to choose that platform. But thing is, MS being the single OS that EVERYONE supports, you're pretty much locked in on that platform because of your application needs.
That doesn't mean I can't choose MySQL over Oracle (if my applications support it) and similar. It doesn't mean my server side HAS to be MS if I can do it with something else. However, if I do choose the OSS product, I still have to get my business critical support from someone who will charge a bundle.
And when all else is said and done. It's all about my business. Software should adapt to my business, my business shouldn't have to adapt to the software. So IF I choose a software that can do what I want, that'll be a lot easier (and cheaper) for me to live with, than with software that needs millions of dollars in development before it can do what I need it to. And that's just the initial business costs, think about the TCO and added support costs aswell, the investment in knowledge and manpower etc. and you may understand why so many businesses are choosing the "easier road".
In essence it's the inhouse vs outsource debate in a nutshell. With inhouse, you have total control, but also total responsibility and have to carry the total cost. With outsource, you put everything into the hands of someone else, and they provide you with a service (hopefully) equal to what you pay for it, and that payment is pretty much transparent for a number of years.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
Still too soon. His wiki page makes sad reading BTW.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If Australia's government is anything like the US, there is a large number of low-paid support staff that are union members with seniority. The main benefit of open source vs. Microsoft is requiring fewer people to support it. The immediate savings in licenses is pretty much wiped out by conversion costs in the short run, but the real money is when you don't need so much support labor. Somewhere, there are bureaucrats who see fewer vendor perks, fewer warm bodies to supervise, and a shrinking fiefdom. But if the body count and the fiefdom have to be protected at all cost, there really will be no savings. The bureaucracy can outmaneuver the legislature, every day of the week.
Open source doesn't mean the software is FREE, it just means it is open source.
The Open Source Definition, for what it's worth, was originally based word-for-word on the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
Techonologically, a lot of software just inst available as open source.
I'm aware that video games are in this situation, but this article is about the public sector. Could you describe a couple genres of software used by the public sector that have no Free equivalent? Even electronic medical record software is free software, thanks to VistA CPRS developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
So for a long term saving, it's often cheaper to stay with what you've got
Until it's end-of-lifed. Migration costs from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007 aren't necessarily less than to OpenOffice.org unless employees need, for example, the Access component.
we're running Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Open Enterprise Server 2 as our core infrastructure, with a bunch of open-source services providing critical functionality to the entire department across all states. Sure, we pay for support, but in the three years I've been there we've used that support on a total of 7 occasions.
> It is altogether possible for a closed proprietary system to
> ultimately be cheaper than open source because support is much
> cheaper and easier to get.
I specified in my OP that long term thinking was essential so let's try that:
What will happen to the costs you are talking about if all major governments switched to open source driven by a politic and social will ?
They would most likely go down as more and more people are taught as early as in school how to manage those systems and that software becomes a public and collective property.
Open source is also said to help the local economy so I can't restrain myself from seeing it as part of a future trend that should take place in many sectors, agriculture for example; We might stop shipping lettuce across the country when the the oil needed to power transportation will run out and grow it locally where feasible, thus helping the local economy...
As I said, switching to open source is a decision that needs long term goals.
After performing analysis at different governmental agencies, I most of the time recommend to stay with their proprietary software. I they ask why, I tell them that switching to open source would require directions and budget from top executives in the government and a clearly defined political will to make the switch succeed.
Also, you must be aware that every company on Earth will lobby against such an idea, don't you?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
How come you elect assholes to run your country?
"If the cost of assessing it [open source] was greater than the cost of the software, you would have to think twice."
Newsflash Mr Fry - if you're using free software that's what you'd expect. Since when did zero multiplied by anything become a number?
Imbecile.
Support for open-source solutions is definetly cheaper because anyone can offer that support without any prior agreement with the originators. With a closed-source solution, you are locked into the vendors support regime. Think Oracle vs. PostgreSQL.
Of course. But the great cost of switch must be payed once. In the long term, the savings are huge.
I would like to see open source used more, but it won't save taxpayers money.
If the government has a billion pounds in tax money and spends £500 million on Microsoft Office and £500 million on limos, coke, whores and personal swiss bank accounts, what will happen if they ditch MS Office and get free software?
a) They reduce tax by £500 million.
b) They reduce tax by more than £500 million by also paying back the money they embezzled.
c) They spend £1 billion on limos, coke, whores and personal swiss bank accounts.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
While document handling, such as the replacement of Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word dependent operations, benefit massively from the switch to standards compliant software, I'm afraid that CAD isn't there yet. Try designing circuitry or hardware with open source software and you'll see what I mean. Tools like AutoCAD for your metal work and the circuit libraries for PowerPCB just aren't avaialble in the open source equivalents.
For Active Directory, though, that monster should have been replaced by Bind and Kerberos and LDAP years ago.
...software costs are so low that for me they're not even on the radar. For me the biggest factor in TCO is people costs, not hardware or software.
In the quantities I procure what used to be called the MS Desktop Pro license (a copy of the current desktop OS, copy of the current version of MS Office Professional Plus and Windows server and Exchange CALs) costs me ~$200 per year per workstation - chickenfeed, really.
A call to the helpdesk costs about $25, a deskside visit costs about twice that but since it isn't my field I'm not gonna address application development costs, even if I did think our developers were smart enough to code in something other than Windows. Hell, they can't even figure out how to make existing applications compatible with IE8.
But I digress - support types generally have little love for software developers and vice versa ;-)
Anyway, over the long term open source software would probably save money but in the short- and medium-term (let's say three years) migration costs would be ridiculously expensive - sticker shock alone keeps it out of the budget.
Part of the up side is I'd be able to extend PC and server lifecycles for a year or so since Linux generally requires less hardware than Windows, but as mentioned earlier OO Spreadsheet is not an acceptable replacement for MS Excel for power users and there is no direct migration between MS Access and OO Database - the only way you can get them to play nice with each other is through an ODBC connector.
I've got one 500-user Access database (yeah, the person who thought that up should be fired but it happened before I hired in) that simply can't be migrated to OO - right now I'm trying to get it migrated to either SQL or Oracle.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
a few days back this have been prooved to be correct
people using accessibility of the GNOME desktop contributed by Sun will have to change (Orca screen reader, a project led by Sun's Accessibility Program Office). Killed by Oracle.
"the accessibility of the GNOME desktop will become the open source equivalent of an unfunded mandate, doomed ultimately to fail."
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/09/0024241/Oracle-Drops-Suns-Commitment-To-Accessibility
Now they have to migrate to Oracle Product.
"Oracle is committed to creating accessible technologies and products that enhance the overall workplace environment"
http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/index.html
This sure is too costly to work with open source.
Cost of change for these users will be high.
They would have better commit to closed source solutions such as Oracle in first place.
After all it is very well known that companies never kill their product line and have stable roadmaps.
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
...sure, I'll buy that. Considering the savings in perpetuity, proprietary software fails hard.
4 million viruses vs 40k for Linux and OSX combined means far less exposure to those who jack in an unapproved system or a USB stick they just found on the street. In addition, it also means more stability and less downtime with wrong patches, reboots etc, and that is direct, raw human cost. Infections can also totally swamp resources endangering SLAs.
So it's a bit bigger than just the software cost..
That doesn't mean I'm all for Open Source, I would just like something a bit less sensitive to breach.
Insert
Granted there will be some lock-in to the product, but little or none to the vendor. It is lock-in to a vendor that matters economically, because they are the ones who will extract large sums of money out of you given half a chance.
The Data/Sort in Excel is way better. That's hardly "advanced". The styling stuff in Office 2007 Ribbon Bar is hands down easier to deal with than the stuff in Open Office. Little things matter too, and Excel just has more of them.
This is my sig.
In the end, it all depends on how you make the calculation. Sure, a switch *could* cost more, but it *could* also cost less depending on the scenario you choose to follow.
Having actually replaced proprietary systems with open source alternatives, I can tell you none of the expense talking points that usually get thrown around by people invested in Microsoft products have ever materialized. There are always minor disruptions, but no worse than moving to the next version of a proprietary product. The license savings have been huge, but it's more than that. You don't realize how often proprietary companies come back and back for another drop of blood until they're gone. It's like Little Shop of IT Horrors. The up front license costs are only one layer of cost savings.
This may not be a great example, but the last company I worked at saved big when we replaced Exchange with Gmail, which I don't consider an open source product. Not only did we scrap Exchange and the associated server OS licenses, we let the Exchange admin go and replaced them with a lower cost developer. That saved a ton of money and we were able to channel that savings into increased productivity. Double bonus. Gmail is simple enough the help desk could manage the administration.
Really, it's all in how you implement the changes. The barrier for most companies is that their IT decisions are being made by people invested in proprietary technology. They'll never get out from under it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
For governmental use open-source is preferable even if it initially costs more -- you end up paying to your local software support and programmers, creating more jobs, supporting local IT industry and, most important, contributing to own GDP. Money payed for foreign company is money lost for your country, while money payed to local developers stays and works.
We should always compare IT costs vs doing the work manually.
IT != computers.
Or at least that's what I was taught in school back at the start of the 90s. Non-computer options should be considered where appropriate but when changing the system you compare with your current implementation not with a manual version (that may not even be possible).
I'm sure many companies can tell you how much it costs to "upgrade" from XP to Vista. *sarcasm*
On the other hand, the cost of upgrading from Vista to 7 was probably a net positive at any price. *cue rim shot*
--
The value proposition of open source vs. closed source is not just dollars, it is freedom. Sometimes this is hard to quantify.
Even ignoring the qualitative values of freedom, there are purely business reasons to prefer open source: freedom from vendor bankruptcy, freedom from product orphanage or abandonment, freedom to hire a 3rd party or in-house developers to add "core" features even without vendor cooperation, freedom to choose who to hire for support, freedom from "forced upgrades" due to vendor end-of-life, freedom to audit the code for errors, and more.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
We should always compare IT costs vs doing the work manually.
IT != computers.
Or at least that's what I was taught in school back at the start of the 90s. Non-computer options should be considered where appropriate but when changing the system you compare with your current implementation not with a manual version (that may not even be possible).
This article explains the value of IT similarly to what you suggested: http://www.keystonecorp.com/Blogs/ThoughtsonBusinessandTechnology/tabid/82/EntryId/25/There-are-no-IT-projects.aspx
no comment
Installing an open-source application:
1) apt-get install $APPLICATION
time taken: 1 minute
Installing a proprietary application:
1) Visit vendor's website. Find out cost
2) Since the cost is rarely listed on website, phone up for a "quote"
3) Spend 10 minutes trying to extract information from salesman's bullshit
4) Explain that it's not you that buys the software
5) Ascertain whether you need the standard edition or the "pro" edition, and which support contract you need.
5) Write up proposal to purchase $APP for $PRICE
6) Pass to boss for assessment.
7) Boss passes to budget controller to evaluate
8) Budget controller rubber-stamps it
9) Arrange invoice with vendor
10) CD arrives in post
11) Insert CD into desktop. scp image across to server where it is to be installed.
12) Invoice arrives in accounts department
13) Accounts department phones to query what the invoice is for
14) Money gets spent
15) Phone tech support to ask if there's a way to install the software anywhere other than $hard_coded_path
16) etc..
time taken: 2 months.
More expensive, my arse.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Quick! How do we blame Microsoft for this?
It's simple. Every government department anywhere wants to increase their budget, not reduce it. Reduction of the budget could mean their arse on the line instead of the cushy slackarse gravy train they are currently leeching from. The lockin vendors know and exploit this, resulting in this sort of shithouse attempt at oversight. There is no solution as politicians are corrupt by nature, so all we can hope to do is stick it to them every now and then. They deserve a good sticking for this lame attempt but really nothing will come to change their cowardice and ignorance so you may as well enjoy a good drink.
Bottoms up!
If only more source-available, freely-redistributible projects both charged for their software and offered cuts to contributors, we'd see more high-quality software that can be easily and cheaply maintained.
So in the end, the "hidden costs" really do not exist. Sure, I am just some random grad student, but perhaps you can ask the dozens of Fortune 500 companies that rely on Linux and Apache in their server rooms what sort of hidden costs they are encountering and why they are sticking with libre software under the conditions you described.
Palm trees and 8
The rumour going around was that IBM had spent a lot of money making a few senior managers in that organisation very happy to get that deal through. Around about the time I left staff were pushing for Windows98 to be deployed in place of OS/2.
Exactly the same happened in N.S.W at "Orion Energy" now absorbed into Energy Australia - rumors of large kickbacks for the OS/2 deal to certain senior managers and the "push" from MS to convert over to Win98 apparently came with even fatter kickbacks. As an aside, back in those days (1995) Microsoft tried to damage control over the surprise (to them) explosion in popularity of the internet by spending copious amounts of money wooing Aussie developers to use MS private network "OnAustralia" using MS-words rtf format instead of html over http. Microsoft's vision of global communication network was proprietary country fiefdoms locked into their proprietary network, and the internet we know today restricted to the US and few others. I shudder to think at the consequences if they actual pulled it off...
The very definition of switching cost is the cost that is incurred in addition to the cost of the software.
If locked in is cheaper in the long run, and works for them, who cares?
I assume they also studied ongoing support costs as well. So if staying put + support costs cost of switching + different support costs, then staying put makes more sense.
I ditched linux myself because ongoing support of it was more expensive than switching back to Windows.
Microsoft can lay claim to 80 percent of the computer users worldwide (Crow & Zampetakis, 1995) and a global revenue of $US4.7 billion in fiscal 1994 (Advertising Age, 1994). Its planned venture with Telstra in Australia (Microsoft Network or OnAustralia), will offer 'filtered' access to the Internet through Telstra's AUSTPAC. This move assumes that the Trade Practices Commission approves this $AUD9 million joint venture. (Crowe, 1995.) Given the convergence of News Corporation's Fox Television and production facilities with the carrier Telstra in Australia, and the formation of a Pay-TV company, Foxtel, one might rightly expect a crossing of the bridge between these technologies. Also, one should not forget that Microsoft's Bill Gates has stated plans to launch over 800 orbiting satellites in competition with Motorola's 64 low-orbit satellites, among others, thus illustrating even further the convergence that is taking place.
http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw95/publishing/adam/index.html
This is the Australian Public Service. Sacking people is all but impossible based on my experience.
I'll agree with you on the increasing the budget -- but I won't agree on the rest as there are a few good elected officials out there -- they just don't consider themselves "politicians" because they're not active in party politics. (although, they are part of the civil administration, so meet one of the other definitions of "politician")
And yes, I'm an elected official (for a rather small municipality) -- and I'm not affiliated with any political party.
If you want to get rid of politicians -- find someone with some morals and a backbone who's willing to run against them. And once you find them, support them -- it doesn't have to be money. You could volunteer some hours managing their website, or use whatever skills you might have.
Or go to meetings and tell the sitting officials exactly what you think of their ways (although, be careful, it could get you elected). Remember, their job is to serve *you* ... make sure they remember that. (although, I'm not allowed to advocate the violent overthrow of government, as Maryland considers me to be a state employee (but won't give me a state ID card so I can get discounts on hotels), and there's a law against advocating overthrow, which I feel violates the 1st amendment).
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Imagine that what is being discussed was a sorce of energy and not software and that spokeperson Graham Dry said:.
"The Australian Government Energy Management Office says that the cost of a platform change could cost more than it saves. It was pushed to investigate alternative energy source to reduce its AUD$500m budget at a Senate meeting yesterday. From the article: 'Agencies are obliged to consider value for money on each occasion they choose an energy source,' spokesperson Graham Dry said. 'If the cost of assessing it [alternative energy] was greater than the cost of the energy, you would have to think twice.'"
First, if the cost of assessment is so high then you are more locked in than you realize and than you should have been at the first place. (And on the other hand, if by some stroke of luck, we would really-really-for-real find energy which costs less then current cheapeast sources, I doubt that maintenance and support costs would make us drop that particular path without even properly assessing it.)
Secondly, lets assume you have thought twice and decided to drop the idea of open source. That will definitively be the right strategy. For sure. Better yet - forbid that open source should be used by any government agency (due to possibly 'higher costs of switching to it', which means government's inability=incompetence and/or unwillingness=lobbied to even assess it!), and then just wait for proprietary vendors to lower their prices. That sounds like a great plan. Sure to attract many anarchist votes.
Secondly, these kind of things should not be examined at each ocasion - they require strategy. Like, for example, deciding what sort of energy should be used in public transport. Anything short of 15 year plan should not even be considered.
Here's a short calculation - 15 years of 500M budgets with growth of 8% yearly amounts to 13.58B in 15 years. Let's say that half of the software costs could be open sourced - this gives you 6.79B over 15 years to ensure support and maintenance, on top of community support and maintenance.
I quicky googled out that for 10B you could write Fedora 9 from scratch. That's all of the software in Fedora 9 repos, including openoffice and linux kernel (ref from linuxfoundation.org, based on line numbers with overhead factors). It is a lot, but it does not sound out of scope for some governments' budgets.
The main problem here is that countries do not realize what is their position in terms of software systems. They fail to see them as strategic resource. Like energy. Which they are. And that's why it is important. And proprietary vendors know this and do their homework by lobbying government bodies and international organizations (standards).
Actually one of the differences between the software systems and energy, from the government perspective, is that energy sources are mostly defined (research output has results which are simple - in essence this much of energy for that much $), where the software systems can be built according to requirements. At least in theory. In practice you have open software where this is the driving factor and proprietary software where this comes way after maximizing profits.
5-9 are still applicable, as well as 15-16.
-]Phreak Out[-
i'm not saying that switching to open source is more expensive, for most things i dont believe its true... but even if was true, for most countries this doesnt matter much, because keeping the proprietary software sends most of the money to another country (if not all) and investing in open source you are supporting the local IT companies (that do the local support and implementation)... the investment in the local business improves the local economy, generating more taxes and wealth
Higuita
Bribery is a factor, although most vendors make it subtle. There are many people working in IT who have more allegiance to vendors than to their employers. The vendors offer a wide variety of perks, starting with T-shirts and desk trinkets, ranging up to skybox tickets and free trips. I've seen it all. Nothing surprises me quite so much as the way people will clap like trained seals for minuscule desk trinkets.
The average employee looks at it this way...
"Here I sit, working in the IT dept. of XYZ corporation. They really take IT for granted here, and my career options are limited. On the other hand, I am an expert in using [Oracle] [SAP] [Microsoft] [Cisco], having spent my employer's money to achieve certification. And the vendor perks are not so bad either, especially the trips to the conventions and training in [Vegas] [Miami] [SF] [LA] [NYC] [Boston]. My next job will probably be in another [Oracle] [SAP] [Microsoft] [Cisco] shop, or perhaps (if I'm really lucky), working for the vendor directly! Therefore, it is in my best interest to remain as a passenger on the vendor bandwagon. The last thing I want is for my employer to save money by installing technology that cuts off the supply of perks, diminishes my status at this job, to say nothing of my prospects for more money elsewhere."
I work for a company that shows a lot of love to vendors. Problem is, they seldom love us back. You would be surprised how many top decision makers spend wildly on projects involving $VENDOR_NAME, only to have the project fail miserably on cost, time, and functionality. Such people often lose their jobs, only to end up with a big raise and promotion, working for $VENDOR_NAME. Makes you wonder if they planned it that way.
Open source vendors will never bring me T-shirts, desktop trinkets, free lunch, hockey tickets, or lap dances. And if I screw up an open source implementation and overspend, I somehow doubt that Suse or Red Hat will make me a VP. Make no mistake about it, sleaze is a lubricant in the IT industry. This is why any attempt to save money on open source is met by an army of IT people who need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the process.
Given:
1. M$ cost > $400(U.S.)
2. openOffice cost equal $0(U.S.)
Prove: M$ cost
Given:
Statement
"the cost of a platform change"
Why
Australian Government Information Management Office says so.
Statement
openOffice on Windows is a "Big Lie"
Why
Oh, I don't know, maybe someone that works for Microsoft said so?
Conclusion:
Buy Microsoft, it's for the Children.
The funny thing is that, if they project the cost of migration to say 10, 20 or more years, the switching cost will become proportionally lower.
This is because if they stay with the same locked-in products (say, MS Windows and MS Office), they will have to upgrade their versions at least once every 10 years. If the cost of upgrading once is X, the total for 20 years would be 2X.
Whereas, after paying the cost of migrating (Y), they will have to pay very little for "upgrading" every 10 years (pulled from my ass, say 1/2Y).
I am sure there certain amount of time (N) for which N*X > 1/N*Y.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Yeah, you also have vendor lock-in with reiserfs.
Still too soon. His wiki page makes sad reading BTW.
Yeah, I almost drop a tear for this part:
Some directory operations (including unlink(2)) are not synchronous on ReiserFS, which can result in data corruption with applications relying heavily on file-based locks (
Poor data, can you imagine!
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
That's nice to hear, and I hope you do a great job as an elected official, but here in Australia we are all too familiar with the collusion and corruption that happens between the parties and the public sector and are sick to death of it. This is just another case of incompetent public sector bungling and a bunch of typical cover your arse bullshit. It's a hopeless challenge, these buffoons have entrenched themselves so well that no change of government will shift their useless arses out of power. We're just stuck with them because the alternative (an efficient government) is far worse. We've found a solution though, it's to drink to that.
Bottoms up!
Hah! The Senate is too expensive !
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
A saner approach is to plan migration over several years:
This will, over 5 years, give you 80% of desktops and most servers running FLOSS. The remaining 20% may stay around for a long time - it doesn't matter, you still get the savings from the 80%. Yes the cost of heterogeneous systems is initially a little higher than just staying with MS, but the sysadmins will be come skilled at it and costs will drop.
Australian government keeps paying drug addicts new doses instead of drug rehab treatments because is cheaper.
If the cost of assessing it [open source] was greater than the cost of the software, you would have to think twice
And how will you know the cost of the software if you don't asses it?
Honestly, 2 admins for 1 ? I wonder how many people would be under such swap, only 2 or maybe thousands.
OpenSource isn't cheap neither free, if it was cheap or free, companies like Novell, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, IBM and forward wouldn't be placing such high stakes on it. 75% of the Linux kernel developers are payed for it.
Nicollo Machiavelli: It's double pleasure to deceive a deceiver.
Exactly!
So switching your office from Windows XP to Windows 7 and switching the Servers from Server 2003 to Server 2010 would actually have MORE of a cost than switching to OSS alternatives as the costs you talk about are exacerbated by the fact that you have to buy all new software licenses from microsoft, bot all new Apps as well AND new hardware.
I just saw a client do this, their upgrade from XP and 2003 to current cost them a whole lot more than expected. Drivers for Windows 7 did not exist for a lot of the older hardware that was chugging along on XP, so that hardware had to be thrown away and replaced with new.
Then the final insult, they did all this and discovered their upgrade to Exchange 2010 caused their room scheduling system that interfaces to the touchpanels at each conference room to break.
OOPS! that scheduler they relied on now does not work, they tape printouts on the doors until the vendor certifies their plugin with microsoft.
ALL switching has costs, Microsoft upgrades cost as much as Switching to OSS lately and it will only get worse.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This so called "barrier" doesn't exist.
In an IT shop of any size (bet Australia qualifies), there is a continuous process of
upgrading platform, infrastructure and software in place.
Diverting those dollars from a prior vendor/platform/infrastructure to a new target
costs a big fat $0 i.e. it's budget neutral.
The only time you have to absorb dramatic costs are if you insist on a "big bang"
transition which not only increases your costs significantly, it increases your
odds of failure.
Regardless of what the Pols and Bean Counters think, their IT organization is
involved in a continuous change cycle.
That cycle just needs to be redirected.
spokesperson Graham Fry said. 'If the cost of assessing it [open source] was greater than the cost of the software, you would have to think twice.'"
I realize this a government spokesperson and I am not a native Australian English speaker, but WTF?
So if the software costs AU$5,000,000,000 you don't have to think about it because the cost of assessing it is so small in comparison?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
turn those puppies into thin clients and run the apps on the server.
I believe that's what web applications are, just that the thin client protocol consists of HTTP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. What thin client protocol were you talking about? X11, RDP, and VNC all have their drawbacks: either unavailability of applications or Windows Terminal Server CAL costs.
Unfortunately, this happens all of the time. Organizations get locked in and they cannot afford to switch to something else. However I find it interesting they concluded that there was no cost savings by switching to open source over the long term. Yes, there are resources put in and costs at first to switch, but in the long run you should be in better shape as you will not ever have to switch again. There are a whole list of hidden savings with open source that many times are not taken into account. Not only cost savings of the software itself, but cost savings from being on an open platform that allows customization and compatibility. http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux
interfacing with a woman's nipple is hard-wired; it's instinctual.
That's disputed. Some mothers report that their children take a while to learn to suck. But even if it is hardwired, there isn't any computer interface that people are hardwired to use.
BTW, so is sex. It's hardwired into our beings.
I read an anecdote in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* by Dr. David Reuben about a couple who saw a doctor because they were unable to conceive. It turned out they were doing it in the wrong hole. And it is not the only time it's happened.
* but were afraid to ask
There is definitely a "certain degree" of lock-in, but it's like being trapped in a prison with a key-making machine and full details on every lock in the place. Sure, it'll take a bit of time and effort, but you can get out pretty simply.
Is it really all that simple?
OpenOffice.org for most of its existence has been - for all practical purposes - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sun.
12 million lines of code in 2004. OpenOffice.org statcvs (Lines of code) Forking projects on that scale can break you.
Integrated solutions that go beyond the office suite have proven to be be a formidable challenge for corporations with the size and strength and wealth of IBM.
The tools are there... I currently have about 40 Windows 2003/2008 servers under my control and they need very little maintenance. I've previously had a similar number of linux boxes to maintain, and really, its much of a muchness.
Most of our non-development work is simply adding/removing users, etc - which would be just as tedious with a unix only environment.
IT admin costs vs the other 1200 staff who have an existing skillset with applications they know is a drop in the ocean. You use the available tools to achieve business objectives - they don't really have much to do with what IT wants.
Choose what works. If you have a shitload of custom apps written on Windows, then migrating them for the sake of a few license fees and keeping IT happy is going to be a pain in the arse in terms of business process changes, testing, and actually doing the roll out/conversion. Conversely, if you're an ISP or have fairly platform neutral applications, go for it.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Here is one of several papers [csdassn.org] about the fact that Microsoft has no interest in fixing the broken nature of excel for statistical work.
Ah, but then there's always an Excel add-on that can do statistics.
This is my sig.
... just mostly so. In the case of highly customized proprietary programs it can cost more to "reinvent the wheel" by replicating their function in Open Source, vendor lock-in notwithstanding. For the vast majority of mainstream applications, however, this argument is specious to adherents of the status quo, but fallacious, nonetheless.
If it costs more to assess the software than to use it, just go ahead and use it. If it doesn't work out in a test situation, then throw it out.
Isn't that what Aussies do to their politicians anyway?
Without US business interests funneling perks to Australian bureaucrats on a regular basis, just how do you Aussies expect Microsoft to keep America afloat?
You obviously don't seem to concerned about lock in, probably because you are spending other people's money to fix your problems.
Users would do well to consider a mixed strategy of running multiple platforms to foster true competition. One can incrementally move in the path of least cost and more efficiency if one has options. However, if one gets tied to a single vendor because they provide a politically expedient, albeit expensive solution.
Contact: Kent Barnard
kent@kbconferences.com
01-425-397-6683
What No One’s Telling Your Audience About The Real Costs of Proprietary Software
A recent headline on www.itnews.com.au states “Open Source Not Free, Senate Hears.” It seems the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) is under the impression that moving to Open Source and away from proprietary solutions doesn’t make the grade when it comes to saving money.
But did your audience know
Once you “lock in” to a proprietary software solution, you are forced to pay essentially whatever licensing fees they mandate.
Software support always costs money, regardless of whether you’re going with an Open Source solution or one from a proprietary vendor. And with Open Source, you typically have a vast community providing continuous updates and resources to assist in managing and promoting those solutions.
Proprietary vendors mean the money spent by the Australian government gets sent out of the country, including the funds spent on ongoing support. Australia has a vibrant Open Source community in place, with local resources that are passionate and skilled in these technologies – thereby keeping the money at home and creating jobs for the Australia.
Finally, the article only addresses the cost of “switching” from a proprietary system to Open Source. It fails to consider that the switchover is a one time cost, whereas software licensing and support for proprietary systems continues for years thereafter. It’s not a direct “apples vs. apples” kind of comparison.
Getting the real story on the benefits and advantages of Open Source Software out to Government agencies, Enterprises, and Businesses of all sizes is our core mission here at KB Conferences. That’s the key purpose underlying the Open Source Software Pacific-Asia Conference (OSSPAC) that will be held in Sydney in the SMC this coming September 13-15.
OSSPAC Australia’s primary objective is business applications for Open Source and high level enterprise architecture in the corporate environment. Enterprise architecture companies that produce Open Source software of services, and companies that want to use or are thinking of using Open Source software in their corporate environment or government agency should attend.
For more information about OSSPAC Australia 2010, go to http://www.osspac.com.
Well, if forking it is so easy, why don't they just write their own stuff and then they'll have zero vendor lock-in? They don't because they want a turn-key application which means that OpenOffice is just as locked-in as MS Office is for them.
the 150-200$ per computer lisence fee is not saving you money
you have to pay a tech regardless and i hear stuff like how windows requires FAR MORE reboots and is thus harder on the hardware and takes up more time to look after thus requiring more techs.
think add on to that the above 150-200$ per computer fee AND thats just for the OS not all the other software you have to pay for , the returns should be immediate UNLESS some one is sabotaging this progress.
WONDER how Russia is doing with all that open source these days....
"Support for open-source solutions is definetly cheaper because anyone can offer that support without any prior agreement with the originators."
That might be a great argument if just anyone could provide good support rather than just being able to offer it.
"Installing an open-source application:
1) apt-get install $APPLICATION"
Wow, you mean if I create an open-source app for Linux and call it say ClosedSourceBadAssApp, a user can just type apt-get install $ClosedSourceBadAssApp and it will magically install?
So a Windows admin can easily administer a few thousand servers by themselves? Not the last I heard.
.NET - the tools for a Windows admin to be able to administer as many systems as a Unix/Linux/BSD admin are just not there. The systems are too instable and need too much personal attention at the very least - even if the tools overall were there.
The typicalUnix/Linux/BSD admin administers thousands of servers by themselves.
The typicalWindows admin administers < 100 servers by themselves.
Even with all the scripting in Windows now (PowerShell, WSH) and
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Overall, spending $1m on Microsoft software might, for a government, be a worse decision than spending $2m on hippyware.
That may well be. I certainly would like it to be true. But I'd like to discuss your arguments, because I don't think they hold.
Mostly I think you're conflating money with value. When we exchange money for groceries, houses, cars, etc., it's because the things we buy have value. Money has value to an individual only because it's exchangeable for valuable goods. Money has value to a society because it lets the blacksmith buy bread even if the baker doesn't need his horseshoes (as long as someone else does need them): it greases the wheels of trade.
This means that the money is staying in the local economy, rather than going abroad, and so they get more tax money
Consider what might happen if the government sent the money abroad. Either it stays abroad. In that case, the local population got something (software) for essentially nothing: a piece of paper with a number printed on it. Making a little bit of paper consumes fewer resources than making software.
Alternatively, the money comes back into the local economy; it gets spent in the same taxation area that it left, and the transaction is taxed. What the money is spent on leaves the local economy.
By nature, a government is a monopoly and benefits directly (in terms of tax revenue) from increases in the local economy.
Let's just be naive and assume that the government is made up of 100% honourable men and women who try their utmost to do the government's duty: serving the people. What's good for the government is exactly what's good for the people.
The fewer resources the government needs to deprive its citizens of (and still function equally well), the better. It isn't good for the people/government if the taxation is 100%: it means we're drowning in bureaucracy.
Assume a local citizen can create the software at a government expenditure of x dollars (including the taxes on his wages, etc.). Assume that if he doesn't, he goes working on something else, delivering y dollars of taxes.
Then the government should buy non-locally at a price z if z-y < x; that is, it should take into consideration the tax revenue it's losing by spending local citizens' time on software rather than something else.
Basically, I'm going for the concept of Opportunity Cost.
If they then release their changes, then that means that the software is now better and will benefit companies. Some of them will then be able to use it unmodified, and spend money on other things, rather than send it to a foreign corporation.
Once again, sending money to somewhere else isn't a bad thing: either you get something for nothing, or the money comes back.
One thing I do agree with, though:
If they then release their changes, then that means that the software is now better and will benefit companies.
And here we might be going somewhere. The funny business with software (and some other goods, e.g. music and movies) is that it's exactly the opposite of drugs: the first one's expensive, the rest are free---in terms of what it costs to make them of course, not what vendors charge.
So if a set of people x wants a piece of software, and a set of people y can create it, and x wants the software more than they want whatever y could otherwise create with their time and equivalent other resources, clearly it's best if y makes that software. Prices (well, just prices) are used to communicate the relative value people put on different goods and services (and money is exchanged accordingly). But in the case of open source, it's not clear that all the software people really want will always get built.
For the government to build it, at communal expense and for communal benefit, makes some kind of sense. In the sort of the same way it mak
With gmail, google effectively has access to all your company's email.
Sure they do. So does everyone running an email relay between you and the recipient. Any one of those relay points could easily copy all your email and scan it for business intelligence.
If security is a concern you consider options like password protected attachments or encryption. We set up a Truecrypt container on the file server for the secret stuff and I can only think of one instance we wanted to encrypt anything going by email.
I give Google credit for realizing that getting caught browsing corporate email and docs on their system would be devastating for their enterprise aspirations. As you pointed out, that would be true for any company in the enterprise space. My brother and his wife do data security for one of those three letter agencies and he always reminds me that you have to trust someone. My philosophy is to trust companies that have the most to lose if they get caught being untrustworthy.
It's not perfect but neither are the alternatives. Your ISP can monitor all the traffic that goes across the wire. That worries me more than Google reading my email. I trust AT&T a lot less than Google. But, despite that concern, I'm not prepared to encrypt all our traffic through remote proxies and all the hoops you'd entail trying to hide traffic from your ISP running deep packet inspection. You either have to trust someone or spend a lot of sleepless nights sweating the alternatives.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Even long term costs of open source can be high in corporate environmenets. Generally licensing costs are just a tiny fraction of the costs for maintenance and support. Open source products tend to have major revisions more frequently, resulting in more update cycles/app test & deployment. There may also be impacts on productivity - i.e. open source office products may be good for some basic documentation, but products like Microsoft Office make it easier to do more in less time, and with less bugs. In addition commercial products often have higher quality documentation and more polished user interfaces, which can reduce training costs for support staff and end users.
Can you give an example of these tools that aren't there?
By the way, i know a lot of Unix/Linux/BSD admin, I only know one that administers more than 20 servers. I think you'll find your claim that the typical admin adminsters thousands of servers by themselves difficult to support.
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Wow, what incompetent morons. Seriously, if they found out anything didn't work AFTER the upgrade, they're not doing their job.
I also question the wisdom of upgrading old hardware to Windows 7.
Companies replace hardware on a regular basis because the hardware depreciates over time and they take this as a tax write-off. Once the hardware has lost all it's tax value, they replace it with new hardware to get new tax breaks.
Of course, in a downturn economy when you may not be making as much money, tax breaks are less of an issue if you're not making any profit.
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cost(assessing) > cost(software) where cost(assessing) > 0 and cost(software) = 0
What they really should look at is whether cost(assessing open source) + cost(switching to open source) + cost(using open source per year)*(number of years) < cost(using proprietary software per year)*(number of years), and for which values of (number of years)
And even if it is more expensive, at least you're giving the money to people and not overseas to microsoft.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
they actually funded real Unix CS.
Don't get me wrong, I love unix (despite its warts, and it has its shares), *deep breath* but...
Computer Science isn't about any particular OS. CS is about algorithms, not java.util.Collection.sort. It's about relational algebra, not MySQL. It's about automata theory, not grep or sed. It's about context-free grammars, type checking, name ambiguity resolution, Rice's theorem and all the other goodies that go into compilers, not about gcc.
Yes, a lot of people study a science because they wanted to learn a craft. A lot of them are better craftsmen for doing so, I'd guess---I know I am. But the study is about the theoretical underpinnings of the craft, not about perfecting the craft itself.
(Unless of course you talk, if you will, about the craft of science; then you're really an apprentice studying at the science master's workplace)
Money payed for foreign company is money lost for your country, while money payed to local developers stays and works.
And what is the foreign country going to do with your numbered paper slips?
If the money never comes back to your country, you have gotten the thing you bought in exchange for a slip of paper. Paper's pretty cheap, software isn't. Just print some new money and move on.
If it does come back, well, then it'll create some jobs and do all the other good things locally when it comes back, right?
But know this: having a good economy isn't about creating jobs. It's about people doing something worthwhile with their time and the resources available.
Here's a silly example: I can create any number of jobs. Have half the unemployed dig ditches and the other half fill the ditches back up again. There you go, job machine. And the taxpayers' money you gave them for doing it stays local, and you're supporting local construction industry and contributing to your own GDP. How about if everybody did that?! That'd be... in fact, that'd be a disaster. That'd make the community (county, state, country) dependent on donations from the outside, because no one's making food, houses, clothes, cars or anything else that the people want.
I do quite extensive scripting on Windows; but I still can't match the scripting support under a standard Bash shell - and I have no use for PowerShell. The GNU Win32 port of the Linux tool set works somewhat okay, but still has limitations that are not there under a better shell.
Windows Scripting Host (WSH) is okay as well, but still very lacking. Some things are relatively hard to do (like reading the registry), which PowerShell does seem to address but at the expense of good text processing (since PowerShell works on Objects not text streams).
Then you get into the various replication technologies - rsync, SSH, etc. Windows either lacks the functionality, severely hinders it, or makes poor substitutions.
Microsoft tends to focus everything around a GUI. But there is far more to running a system than just clicking a couple buttons here and there.
For example, try managing the installed applications from a central location on a Windows system - and I don't mean controlling through a Push Installer, I mean install once run everywhere. Try the following:
This typically works very easily on Unix/Linux/BSD systems - that common folder is mapped as /usr from a central server - with the required libraries, configurations, etc. also mapped under it. The admin installs it on one system, and it is immediately replicated out to all joining systems without any further installation.
/home), and you are pretty much done. And if you want, you can send the individual computer logs (via syslog) to a central location.
Further, in the case of a problem the admin can fix it once on that same system and have it immediately available everywhere else too.
Comparatively, Windows programs tend to use the registry, and even programs like Microsoft Office require settings in the Registry that are put there only by the Installer, and don't forget about Licensing - they typically don't have any way to license software to support that kind of setup as each system has to have its license key available on that system (typically via a number of registry settings, making it hard to track down).
Sure you can set up roaming profiles, which really just means that the user's registry (HKCU) gets saved onto a server so its accessible from multiple machines - but those all have to be nearly identical in software installations, and it doesn't upgrade to well (you end up with different copies for Windows XP vs. Windows Vista vs. Windows 7 as they are not necessarily compatible with the actual settings).
So yes, it is very easy for a single person to administer thousands of computers using Linux/Unix/BSD - a couple drive maps (/usr,
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
It was more the bit about him being bashed up in jail. I know, worse for his wife but it is sad all the same.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sometimes, a better strategy for open source adoption is to focus on new, unmet needs, rather than 'ripping out' proprietary software that 'already works'.
Consider the new open source policy in San Francisco city government. The tech department started using open source for projects that had to be done so quickly, or for so little money, that there was literally no other option. For example, they used WordPress to launch their RecoverySF.org site in a few weeks, rather than the usual months or years. Their successes got the attention of city leaders, including the mayor. With enough open source victories on the ground, it makes it much easier to create a level playing field for open source, or maybe even tilt the field in its favor.
If you'd like some poorly-written academic papers addressing these issues, I can send you some of mine.
yeah, sacking people is pretty hard. But since everyone in the Australian Public Service is just asleep at their desks, tea-bagging them is a pretty good alternative.
Anecdote, correlation, all the usual caveats.
I had dinner the other day at a sushi place here in Redmond, and wound up sitting next to four Microsoft folks. In the course of conversation, I asked if Microsoft ever had an "eat your own dogfood" kind of policy, and they all rolled their eyes and said yes, and described the fun of moving to Office 2007 and the joys of losing email access, sometimes for days at a time.
Second-hand info (well, third-hand for readers of this post), to be sure, but it seems with no problems is not the whole truth of the matter.
Just sayin'.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Pardon, but I have to jump in here.
Your points are all good ones. At the same time, it is also important to note that the Munich changeover is happening as part of a public government process. This changes the dynamic substantially.
In the private sector, the idea is to come in under budget, and the savings can (potentially) be counted towards profit -- meaning more power and prestige to the person in charge of the project.
In the public sector, the idea is to use all of the budget (or even more if possible), and this can be used to justify asking for more money in the next budget cycle -- meaning more power and prestige to the person in charge of the project.
The politics of budget appropriation results in a very different modus operandi. Consequently, budget overruns in any public enterprise cannot be taken as proof that the enterprise itself is inherently expensive.
-----
Note that this applies to how projects are handled *internally* to an organization. When the project is external, a private company selling its services for example may often find ways of coming in over *someone else's* budget, because this means getting more money.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I'm confused. You saying "I have no use for PowerShell" is the same as a Windows admin saying "I have no use for bash". It's your own personal preference, even though PowerShell is as powerful and useful as bash, if not more so. Just because you're not as proficient in it doesn't make it any less powerful. And just because it works on objects doesn't mean you lose "good text processing", since you can use any of the gnu tools with it as well.
You're trying to administer Windows systems as if they were Linux systems, and of course that's not going to work, just as trying to administer Linux systems as if they Windows or MacOS won't work.
Nothing GUI is required these days.. Anything you can do from a GUI can be done from a command line.
And if you really really insist, there's always cygwin with bash, or SFU with bash, and the complete set of tools.
You really failed to answer my question though, you instead chose to answer "The tools to administer Windows without re-learning my Unix knowledge just aren't there".
Regarding the apps themselves, it's true that many require registry settings, but those are the apps, and there are dozens of ways to solve that problem. Just because you don't like push servers doesn't mean they don't work.
And mounting your /usr partition on a network drive is probably one of the stupidest ways to construct your network. If the network is down, nobody can run their apps. If the network is down, or having issues, things crash. If you're going to do that, why not just run everying on a terminal server? It's a lot less work.
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Lets face it, the *problem* starts right from the start of the education system with cheap educational office licences. My daughter came home a few months ago and told me the teacher says she had to have microsoft office on her home computer.. Makes me F***** mad.
www.boznz.com Simple solutions to complex problems.
yes minister
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
I understand. What I find sad is the loss of a really good software engineer (I mean, the man is a very good programmer/designer or technical software developer).
Unfortunately for one or other circumstances the guy killed his wife. What I really hope is that somehow they can exploit his abilities while he is in jail.
If you see it pragmatically, the guy came from being a job-creation, economic entity (his company provided, how many jobs?) to just another guy Americans have to take care with their taxes. Not only that, because of the nature of his work, the guy was providing goods (technical goods) to the society already (open source).
Of course all that does not make the murder less terrible. But this is where the objective of the justice system comes to play. This guy is in jail so that he cannot hurt anyone else again. Whereas in other countries the objective would be to rehabilitate the guy to make it a productive member of society (or, "only" a productive member, as he already was, but he is also a murderer)
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Oh I dunno, I've managed to be sacked by the Australian Public Service. Took a bit of work, but I did it.
A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working
The typicalUnix/Linux/BSD admin administers thousands of servers by themselves.
Utter bullshit. In environments that are mostly static, and where hundreds of said machines are essentially identical, it borders on feasibility. However, these sorts of environment are few, far between, and nothing close to "typical".
Even with all the scripting in Windows now (PowerShell, WSH) and .NET - the tools for a Windows admin to be able to administer as many systems as a Unix/Linux/BSD admin are just not there. The systems are too instable and need too much personal attention at the very least - even if the tools overall were there.
The centralised management tools for UNIX systems are, to say the least, archaic, esoteric and cryptic.
The few UNIX admins I have worked with who genuinely managed large numbers of heterogeneous machines (dozens, maybe hundreds) well on their own, did it with homegrown tools and processes - that they had been perfecting them for 5-10+ years - highly tuned to their own environments, which were largely static. Their toolchains were not generic, and would never have been functional in other organisations without large amounts of changes, assuming they would even be allowed to copy them over in the first place.
The _typical_ UNIX admin manages a machine count of maybe a few dozen (probably less), and struggles to do it well because the prepackaged tools for doing so are dismal.
PostgreSQL is also far superior to Access, plus it is faster and easier to use than MySQL (I have a client with MySQL).
Open source costs nothing?
It's the time consuming necessity of manual upgrading hundreds of machines which stops me deploying more apps in government. I may not be the system admin at the governmental organisation you work at but then again I might be. I will install deploy firefox, openoffice and a open source media player in our next SOE if you can show me a reliable, simple system which will allow me to update the above programs through a single interface without repackaging/recompiling/wasting time each individual app or update.
Just like every other employee I need to CMA and part of my job is to be the person responsible for every outdated and insecure app on our network.
So, when an OSS breaks at 2:30am on a mission critical project, who do I call?
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
It's Time to show some gumption and at least start the process of doing the right thing. It will be expensive to correct our past errors, it always is. It is better to provide jobs and industrial growth for Australia rather than growth of foreign propriety companies. If Peru can stick it to Microsoft in such a polite and correct manner we should be able to second the motion. Munich is doing a slow changeover so there are no losers, we can do the same. Imagine.. the Australian Government paying Australian programmers/developers to create and support software to help Australian taxpaying citizens in Australia to improve their Australian lives .. who would ever think of that.
It's Time, It's Time, Oh It's Time.
I prefer Classic Slashdot.
Run them side by side with the paid apps for 5 years until the users are used to the UI, beyond security issues you don't even need to worry (too much) about versions.
Also, get a decent packaging team.
It's an incredibly slow process but when complete, ultimately the cost is lower than paying for apps.
I'm confused. You saying "I have no use for PowerShell" is the same as a Windows admin saying "I have no use for bash".
Not quite.
It's your own personal preference, even though PowerShell is as powerful and useful as bash, if not more so. Just because you're not as proficient in it doesn't make it any less powerful. And just because it works on objects doesn't mean you lose "good text processing", since you can use any of the gnu tools with it as well.
Actually you cannot use the GNU tools with it - namely because of how the output comes out, and also because the aliased a lot of the GNU tools (ls, etc.) to cmd-lets in PowerShell. True, you can unalias, but it still doesn't solve the format issue.
PowerShell is "powerful" in its own way; but it still is very lacking.
You're trying to administer Windows systems as if they were Linux systems, and of course that's not going to work, just as trying to administer Linux systems as if they Windows or MacOS won't work.
Didn't say that - just gave one example in Unix/Linux world that has no Windows analogue.
Nothing GUI is required these days.. Anything you can do from a GUI can be done from a command line.
And if you really really insist, there's always cygwin with bash, or SFU with bash, and the complete set of tools.
SFU is a poor excuse of Unix/Linux/etc. support. But then again, so is the POSIX support in Windows. (Yes, it's there. But Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make sure it doesn't have the performance that the Win32 API has.)
CygWin is okay - yes, it has the tools; but it still pitiful as far as integration goes.
End result: neither are a solution. And neither addresses administration - just user/program environment. So as far as this discussion goes, they are moot.
You really failed to answer my question though, you instead chose to answer "The tools to administer Windows without re-learning my Unix knowledge just aren't there".
Actually no. I (i) compared the scripting capabilities, and (ii) gave you one example that has no Windows analogue. Didn't say how - or what tools were used.
You can argue proficiency with the first. But the second directly answers your question.
Regarding the apps themselves, it's true that many require registry settings, but those are the apps, and there are dozens of ways to solve that problem.
Then please name a few.
Just because you don't like push servers doesn't mean they don't work.
This has nothing to do with push servers. I was simply qualifying them as not being close to comparison to the example given. The example given requires zero installation on the client systems - everything needed comes along for the ride. Zero interaction on the user's part, and zero extra configuration or lost time on the user's part. Even with the "quiet install" option some apps provide, it's still not a comparison.
And mounting your /usr partition on a network drive is probably one of the stupidest ways to construct your network. If the network is down, nobody can run their apps. If the network is down, or having issues, things crash. If you're going to do that, why not just run everying on a terminal server? It's a lot less work.
That's also not a comparison. The equivalent would be running a network-booted Linux/Unix/BSD system that then does what I said - which also provides even better security than the Windows Terminal Server AND better performance. Sorry, you still don't get the credit.
Also, Terminal Server takes a lot more bandwidth than mounting a network drive remotely - especially with Microsoft's very inefficient version.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
ALL switching has costs, Microsoft upgrades cost as much as Switching to OSS lately and it will only get worse.
How did you get to that conclusion when you mentioned the point new hardware had to be bought for Windows 7 - where it wouldn't need to be bought for an open-source OS? These costs are now placed in training or something?
I am not devoid of humor.
Your contracted support organization. Typically Novell or Redhat.
You do have a support contract, don't you?
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
Your contracted support organization. Typically Novell or Redhat.
You do have a support contract, don't you?
Which is why there is no such thing as "FREE" software. Furthermore, why limit yourself to Redhat? What about FreeBSD or their ilk? The FOSS community has a pathetic support system. Other than mail forums, which I do vigorously support, telephone or on-site support is virtually non existent.
And no, we have no support current support contract with any open-source supplier. Due to the extreme fragmentation of the FOSS market, it would prove financially irresponsible, even if it were feasible.
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
In that case, the training costs to get them up to speed with Linux should be measured against the benefit of doubling their effectiveness for the rest of their careers.
> at a budget that is blown up to 2x the Microsoft bid
I'd like to see the calculation there. I have a feeling that this "2x" doesn't take into consideration the following:
Free speech, not free beer.
Though free beer can enter into it if you know or are the right people.
We've had commercial software, with commercial support contracts to go along with them. I personally didn't get much sleep assurance from that. If something happens that requires a service call at 2:30 AM it doesn't matter if I'm fixing it myself or babysitting a vendor/contractor, I'm still up.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
Free speech, not free beer.
Though free beer can enter into it if you know or are the right people.
We've had commercial software, with commercial support contracts to go along with them. I personally didn't get much sleep assurance from that. If something happens that requires a service call at 2:30 AM it doesn't matter if I'm fixing it myself or babysitting a vendor/contractor, I'm still up.
The question is, is your support link available at that hour, or are they a 9 to 5 organization. Worse yet, only e-mail support; which is obviously useless if the system with the problem is also your mail server.
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
Reminds me of the Halloween documents leaked from Microsoft a few years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_leak
This is the Australian Public Service. Sacking people is all but impossible based on my experience.
Hahah! You got that right. It's a joke. IT's just as bad (especially in lieu of the Gershon Report), but the fact that once you're in the APS you're in for life is ridiculous. More money spent on red-tape than anything else.