Slashdot Mirror
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.
.
Am I the only one who see's this summary as picking the most incendiary portion of this article, and elevating it by taking out of context? The latter part of the article discusses choosing carefully, and promoting open standards to allow for more compatibility in open source software. Plus, this is a partial book review...what's up with that?
It's a good thing Microsoft places so much value on keeping the user experience the same across its various upgrades. Certainly a user of Microsoft Office didn't have to change their mannerisms when they switched from Office 2003 to Office 2007's "ribbon".
Certainly, all of my XP habits still apply to Windows 7's Aero. None of the functionality has moved around in the slightest.
And it's also a good thing Microsoft places a lot of value on interoperability. Certainly they have never seen an incompatibility that prevents Active Directory from working with other LDAP solutions. Or certain Windows code that creates spurious error messages when run on a competitor's version of DOS.
I give Microsoft all the credit it deserves for making reports like the possible.
--Joe
I predict that this report will be met with much skepticism on /.
I also predict that I will make the argument that open source really *isn't* always all it's cracked up to be--and be shouted down by many, many voices
You'd have to, you know, actually make such an argument first. We don't always have time for shouting down non-existent arguments, only bad ones. The world awaits.
Chickens taste better, say panel of cows.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
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.
Is there some particular reason you trust any statement on open source that comes from Microsoft, considering it's long track record of animosity?
At any rate, it depends on the software in question, much like proprietary closed source software. In some cases with some products one side has an advantage, and in some cases the other side has an advantage. Working in a world where I deal with both closed source software (Windows+AD+Exchange) and open source software (LAMP servers, Samba) I have to say that there are aspects of both that cause me grief, and aspects of both that work well. At the end of the day, my level of competence is sufficient that issues of long-term licensing costs, particularly as far as upgrading to new versions goes, that in some areas open source clearly wins the day. However, in other regards, Active Directory, particular as far as Group Policies goes, does indeed have a clear management advantage that cannot easily be duplicated in open source. So I'd say, at the end of the day, large generalized statements like "open source more expensive" is clearly an invalid statement.
And I'll return to the fact that Microsoft paid for this. Microsoft's long history in regards to open source means I pretty much ignore anything Redmond or its mouthpieces have to say on it. I wouldn't ask a Microsoft rep or anyone given a nickel by Microsoft about the costs of software.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Even if monetary costs are equal, F/OSS stuff may be a better business decision for the community.
Example - A college can pay $75k per year for an Angel or Blackboard license, and host it locally (or contract the hosting out to Angel/BB). Or, they can adopt a F/OSS solution like Sakai, and instead of paying $75k/yr to a corporation outside of the area they can pay $75k/yr for a programmer to maintain and enhance Sakai for their needs. Dollar costs are the same. However, by hiring the programmer, that improves the local economy and keeps that money local, as opposed to sending it out of area/out of state/etc.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
TFA is even worse than that with their usage of weasel-words.
Pay particular attention to the "not always" in that statement. If only ONE "open-source" app is more expensive than a SINGLE closed source app then their statement is true.
Useless, but true.
And knowing open source also means that you know how to fix it when it breaks.
If Microsoft software breaks all you can do is pray and hope that it will be resolved in a future bug fix. A call to M$ support renders you a long wait on the phone where you can't do anything and finally a question if you have tried to reinstall, and if you have done it and have any kind of custom software in the vicinity then they can't help you.
So either you are putting in some hours to get in control or you give up control to Microsoft.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
They are correct in that retraining people to use new software IS generally an order of magnitude more expensive than the purchase/license price of the software. What they fail to take into consideration is that Microsoft drastically revamps their user interfaces every couple years so that the training costs involved with upgrading to the latest Microsoft release is comparable to the costs involved with retraining users to use an open source alternative. Continuing to use what you've always used is always going to be cheaper!
Let's look at this from a different viewpoint: If you are already using open source and have already put in place all the systems, scripts, custom software, etc. to run your business, how much more expensive would it be to switch to a Microsoft solution with all the same functionality?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
And knowing open source also means that you know how to fix it when it breaks.
First off, I am a professional software developer/entrepreneur and a big supporter of open source software and freedom. But the argument you bring here is the worst argument *for* open source. I work with Evolution in my professional life and it crashes on me quite often. (Not often enough to replace it, so I will continue using it.) Even that I am a programmer, I do not know how to fix it. Getting to know a moderately complex piece of software takes a lot of time and effort (and thus money), that I rather spend on working for my customers. They actually pay me for my work.
Otoh, I also purchased Novell Groupwise, combined with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (I thought it was a viable commercial Linux solution), and it is a lot worse than any do-it-yourself packages, so I guess closed source sucks too. Just in a different way.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
Even that I am a programmer, I do not know how to fix it.
I too spend much of my working life programming. It's really not that hard.
1) Download the source.
2) Compile with all debugging symbols and perhaps -fmudflaps
3) Run the program (with valgrind or mudflaps)
4) Go to the line number of the first error, and have a look.
Most of the crash causing errors are simple things, like uninitialised pointers. Some require some digging. But I have successfully fixed bugs and added fearures to a few projects and it's often not as hard as you might expect.
The modern tools available on any decent linux system are feally fantastic. Evil, nasty bugs like subtle memory corruption can be caught much, much more easily than before and therefore require much less in-depth knowledge to fix.
But for some reason, a number of high profile distributions don't have a package with the mudflaps helper files, even though they enable it in gcc.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
A few years ago a large UK retailer upgraded their staff laptops to Windows XP. All the [laptop] staff went on "XP training". Changing to "what you know" doesn't necessarily mean no training costs; proves your point, and that was in use of WIndows itself - which I seem to always hear as touted as not needing any training when "upgrading".
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell