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Open Source More Expensive Says MS Report
doperative writes "Much conventional wisdom about programs written by volunteers is wrong. The authors took money for research from Microsoft, long the archenemy of the open-source movement — although they assure readers that the funds came with no strings attached. Free programs are not always cheaper. To be sure, the upfront cost of proprietary software is higher (although open-source programs are not always free). But companies that use such programs spend more on such things as learning to use them and making them work with other software"
Maybe that is because software by certain companies deliberately ignore standards and try to maki it as hard as possible to work with other peoples software.
So using an MS or MS-compatible (thanks to years of aggressive marketing by MS) stack is less expensive in terms of training time than inserting a piece of open-source software into that stack and trying to make everything work? Interesting...next up, replacing my car's wheels with motorcycle wheels makes it take longer for me to get to places. Perhaps I should just get the entire motorcycle instead?
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
The argument is valid for certain cases. That said, the large majority of work I do has the same operational cost regardless of where we get the software. We still have to learn how it works, and integrate it into the system we're deploying.
A proprietary solution has merit if you don't have technical people and you depend on an external company. Take whatever solution they provide.
But out in the technology world proper, these things cost more upfront and probably take just as much work to integrate.
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Funny. My wife's office recently upgraded from Office 2003 to a more recent release.
How do I know?
The first day it was on her computer, the conversation at home went something like this:
Her: "What the FUCK! The fuckheads in IT gave some new bullshit version of Word on my fucking computer and it is completely fucking different. I spent like a fucking hour trying to find how to do "X". Where the fuck are my fucking toolbars? There is this new bullshit toolbar that is completely useless." ... continue 15 minute profanity laced tirade...
Me: "It's called the 'ribbon'."
Her: "Whatever the fuck it is called it is fucking stupid. And what the fuck is this 'docx' bullshit?"
Companies spend more money on learning how to use open source? The three-year quota on profanity that my wife used up in a day says otherwise.