Submitted by The theory behind open-source software is that it avoids many of the pitfalls – including cost – of closed alternatives. But Steven Buckley, who runs Christian Aid’s common knowledge programme, prefers to buy software from the likes of Microsoft. Is this not odd for a charity? “Open-source doesn’t mean free,” he told BBC World Service’s Digital Planet programme. “Quite often, if you install open-source software within an organisation, you have a support contract that goes with it – it’s an essential part of operating that software. Over time, that can actually cost more than having Windows on an enterprise machine.”
<sarcasm>
Right… ’cause MS’s support contracts are free…
</sarcasm>
Right… ’cause MS’s support contracts are free…
They are very inexpensive as you pay per incident, rather than say a yearly RedHat tax of 2500$.
As I’ve said before, the organization I work for has 3000+ desktops and 200+ servers and we spend beteween 1250 and 2500$ for Microsoft support because we only call them 5 – 10 times a year.
Edited 2006-11-08 22:06
Compared with a yearly Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian/Gentoo/FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD tax of 0$
Compared with a yearly Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian/Gentoo/FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD tax of 0$
You mean I can call someone up and get them to work on my problem non-stop for hours or days for 0$?
Cool. Where do I sign up?
(You do understand RedHat support costs 2500 a year and this article was about support … don’t you?)
Well, it’s about TCO. And if you already have people capable of giving support you don’t have to pay a tax
When running closed source (no matter company) there is no way around paying a support tax – when using open source you can avoid the support tax, IF you have employees capable of handling the system. If you have an IT-department with “I-can-only-click-on-buttons” employees you’ll have to pay a support tax. But in that case you’ve hired the wrong employees.
When running closed source (no matter company) there is no way around paying a support tax
Completely false. Most non-Communistic software allows you to opt in or out of support.
I don’t have to buy support from Microsoft. We in fact buy a 5 pack of support incidents for $1250 at the start of our fiscal year if we need them. If we need more, we buy more. If we can’t afford more, we don’t buy them. Our choice.
Non-Communistic software? O_o
“And if you already have people capable of giving support you don’t have to pay a tax”
Are those employees working for free? Your comparison is flawed as well…the “support tax” for closed software is the same as open software, i.e. capable employees’ salaries.
There isn’t a single IT department I’ve ever heard of who hasn’t had to phone support at one time or another…it’s simple economics. Pay Fred 2 days of salary while he bangs his head against the wall trying to fix something (and ignoring his other duties), or pay the organization who wrote the software to fix the issue, and let Fred get on with his day.
Are those employees working for free? Your comparison is flawed as well…the “support tax” for closed software is the same as open software, i.e. capable employees’ salaries.
No, but that is irrelevant since they will be there anyway. It doesn’t cost extra if they can handle Linux instead of Windows.
The total cost will still be lower _IF_ you have the required employees. If not it may look quite differently, correct. But it’s better if Fred can solve the problem in hours by googling and applying the required patches (or whatever the solution is) than to wait 4 hours for a support team that cannot solve the problem in less than 4 days.
No matter if Fred can fix the problem quickly or not, you’ll still have to pay him 2 days of salary, so that reasoning is flawed.
I know of several IT departments (in Denmark) that haven’t called for support. In part because they are their own developers. I also know an IT department that needs a lot of support, but that’s mostly due to the IT department itself (they are not exactly too bright for their jobs.. point-and-click employees do not belong in an IT department).
dylansmrjones: Your reasoning suck.
1. Finding expertise in Linux is hard and on top of that 100s of distributions make it even harder to find expert.
2. If Fred has to google for problem and solution isn’t there then what? He has to call support, he can do same for windows, so how windows is more expensive?
3. In case of Microsoft, he knows he will only pay for support when he uses it, in case of RedHat, you have to pay upfront and practical experience shows that you don’t need support that often so Windows is cheaper.
Overall if a person is saying OS X(replace X with your fav OS) is expensive, i believe it because they don’t have a hidden agenda to lie.
So shut up and shut your linux fanatism..you damn linux pimp…
CuriosityKills: Your reasoning sucks
1) If the person is useful as a System Administrator he/she can use Linux as well as OpenBSD. If not the person isn’t qualified to be a System Administrator. If such a useless person is hired, you’ve hired the wrong guy/gal.
2) I have yet to find a problem that somebody didn’t know the answer to. Ever heard of mailing lists? They can usually fix the problem in minutes. It depends whether it is desktop related problems or if we’re talking about a SQL-server and corrupted tables. The latter one will probably require help from the company behind the SQL-server.
When working with FLOSS one must put behind old customs and use a different approach.
3) Following your reasoning this would make any major free Linux distribution cheaper than Windows. You don’t have to pay for the distribution and you don’t have to pay for support you don’t need. And if you do, you can most often get it for free. According to _your_ logic it would make any free linux distribution of a reasonable size cheaper than Windows.
Overall if a person is saying OS X(replace X with your fav OS) is expensive, i believe it because they don’t have a hidden agenda to lie.
But I do have a hidden agenda? Unfortunately I don’t have an agenda. You can use anything you want. Right now I’m using Windows 2003 Server. And this is written in K-Meleon 1.0.2 on mentioned OS. I haven’t been running Linux in several days though I do have Gentoo installed (and DesktopBSD).
So shut up and shut your linux fanatism..you damn linux pimp…
Now now, don’t be nasty. I’m not a linux pimp, I do not use offensive terms (unless a certain person keeps insulting me – in which case he will get it back – and no, he is not you – I think), and I am not a fanatic. You cannot find a single fanatic statement from me.
If I was a “linux fanatic” or a “damn linux pimp”, how come I have Win2K3 Server running as my desktop OS, and have IE7 installed, not to mention .NET Framework 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 – and Microsoft Visio 2003, Microsoft Publisher XP (2002), Microsoft Virtual PC, MSN Messenger, Windows PowerShell and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and quite a few more Microsoft applications. And of course quite a few other proprietary applications for Windows. True, there is a lot of Open Source / Free Software as well, but that hardly makes me a fanatic.
If I was a fanatic Windows wouldn’t even be installed, right?
“1. Finding expertise in Linux is hard”
Finding Windows expertise is almost equally hard. Sure, you can find a lot of people who “know Windows” but, well, lets just say that the actual knowledge they possess is usually less than stellar.
Being good at Counterstrike doesn’t make you a Windows expert.
“practical experience shows that you don’t need support that often so Windows is cheaper.”
Who’s practical experience? How do you know it’s not the same with Linux?
“Overall if a person is saying OS X(replace X with your fav OS) is expensive, i believe it because they don’t have a hidden agenda to lie.”
I like your seriously flawed logic.
“So shut up and shut your linux fanatism..you damn linux pimp…”
Nice. Cheap, witless personal attacks.
So, by your logic…
$1250 (minimum support from MS) + (3,000 (desktops) * $100 (I’m guessing in MS’s favor for a discount for bulk purchase of XP Pro)) + (200 (servers) * $200 (I don’t know what this number should be, but I figure for client access licenses plus discount it’d be at least this number. Probably much higher.)) = $401250.
vs
1 Redhat Enterprise linux destop extension pack (as many installs as you want) = $3500.
1 Redhat AS Server (as many installs as you want) + Premium support. = $2500 / year.
If you had to upgrade Redhat desktop every year, your looking at something like $6,000 / year. So, it’d take what… 66 years of RedHat support and systems to equal ONE year of MS support and systems?
You’ve only included aquisition of software and support. There’s many other factors involved.
Exactly.
I’d like to see some numbers on what costs companies actually have – like downtime, legal actions from customers due to missing or faulty delivery caused by system failure and anything else one could possibly think of.
Data from a few thousand companies could perhaps be enough to give a decent picture of the trend.
1 Redhat AS Server (as many installs as you want) + Premium support. = $2500 / year.
2500 per year for each server if you want support. It would be a violation of your RedHat agreement to try to get support for a non-covered server. And your license gives them the right to do an audit.
Thats 500,000 a year right there.
And we buy about 20-40 servers a year. Which means we pay about 3000-6000 per year for server software total. (K12 discount)
RedHat WS is 299 per desktop for 1 year support. That would be about (3000 * 300) 900,000 per year. The other options only get you 30 days of support.
http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compare/client/
And I think they cost more than we pay for XP or close enough.
RedHat is too damned expensive.
You know, non-commies can do math too.
Most cultists assume people who use Microsoft are too stupid to be allowed anywher near computers.
On the other, we who use Microsoft can usually do realistic math in our heads better than the cultists can do since they live in a kind of never never land where everything is free … except when you actually cost it out.
Edited 2006-11-08 23:33
You know, non-commies can do math too.
More communist talk…
BTW: A license for RHEL costs me around 40$ while I have to pay 300$ for a Windows XP Home license.
BTW: A license for RHEL costs me around 40$ while I have to pay 300$ for a Windows XP Home license.
You must be kidding right?
XP Pro on Amazon is $269.
XP Pro Upgrade on Amazon is $195.
XP Pro OEM on NewEgg is $139.
Charities and K12 organizations pay closer to 70-90$ for XP Pro.
No wonder you have a bizarre sense of costs … you can’t shop.
Edited 2006-11-09 00:51
Or perhaps Microsoft has different policies in Denmark?
But still… 139/40 -> that’s quite a factor.
Or perhaps Microsoft has different policies in Denmark?
But still… 139/40 -> that’s quite a factor.
Not much of one for most people since the cost of software really is a small part of the TCO when dealing with 100s or 1000s of computers. Tools like Active Directory and Group Policy make managing large numbers of PC’s possible.
Especially when charities only pay 80$ of so for XP Pro … not 139$.
And I’m assuming you aren’t getting RedHat WS or any support.
Think about it. Buy a 500$ PC with XP Home on it, and Dell is really charging you 40/50$ for Windows Home(about the same as you claim to have paid for RedHat) and the charity gets support from Dell.
Or you can go for Academic or Charity licenses and buy XP Pro for 70/80$ which is something like 16$ a year over the realistic life of the PC.
In that time RedHat will release a couple more versions for your 279$ a year (or your mysterious 50$ fee) and Windows is still cheaper.
Or maybe you could hire a Linux tech for 50,000 a year (which would buy you a lot of Microsoft software at charity license prices.)
Linux TCO isn’t cheaper for charities.
(about the same as you claim to have paid for RedHat)
I didn’t claim I bought it. I merely said I could buy it for $40, while XP Home was going at $300.
You can’t even quote me correctly. There is nothing mysterious about the 40$ fee (40$, not 50$). It’s for one license for Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS. Quite comparable with XP Pro and XP Home (just cheaper).
I won’t even bother about replying the rest of it. You simply cannot handle statistics correctly, nor can you quote me correctly.
The mere fact you didn’t know about RHEL WS proves, you haven’t done the slightest research apart from being a mindless MS-drone. People like you are actually damaging to Microsoft. MS deserve better than you.
“Linux TCO isn’t cheaper for charities.”
Unless you actually work for a charity in an IT position this statement carries no weight.
Just to counter this broad incorrect generalization:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39166840,00.htm
http://linux.sys-con.com/read/128134.htm
Obviously “Linux TCO isn’t cheaper for charities” is a blanket statement that doesn’t hold (and neither would “Windows TCO isn’t cheaper for charities”).
//XP Pro on Amazon is $269.
XP Pro Upgrade on Amazon is $195.
XP Pro OEM on NewEgg is $139.
Charities and K12 organizations pay closer to 70-90$ for XP Pro.//
Pay 70-90$ per copy.
Ubuntu on here: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/GetUbuntu/download?action=show&redir… is $0 per copy.
Actually, you only need one copy for however many PCs you want to use it on.
“You know, non-commies can do math too. ”
You are a McCartyst looser , your worst then those you attack , you know that Jail time for illegal actions like yours are still in effect today :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
“RedHat is too damned expensive.”
Unlike Microsoft windows who as only one controling company behind it , GNU/Linux as more then Red Hat.
//2500 per year for each server if you want support. It would be a violation of your RedHat agreement to try to get support for a non-covered server. And your license gives them the right to do an audit.
Thats 500,000 a year right there.
And we buy about 20-40 servers a year. Which means we pay about 3000-6000 per year for server software total. (K12 discount)
RedHat WS is 299 per desktop for 1 year support. That would be about (3000 * 300) 900,000 per year. The other options only get you 30 days of support.
http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compare/client/
And I think they cost more than we pay for XP or close enough.
RedHat is too damned expensive. //
Did you ever work out these sums if you replace all occurrences of “RedHat” with “Ubuntu” or “Ubuntu server”?
For example, it would become: “Which means we pay about 0000-0000 per year for server software total. (everypersons discount)”
Go here: http://www.ubuntu.com/support and you will find a lot of free support (especially for charities). Even if there are charges, it does not indicate if these are per-machine costs, I don’t believe they are.
Ubuntu supports sucks big time. When i was installing Ubuntu Dapper Drake, it kepts giving me a corrupt package error even though i downloaded the ISO multiple times and compared the MD5 hash.
Their so called “freakin” free support did not have any answers or suggestion at all. None..nada…zero.
Finally i install Ubuntu 5 and upgraded it to dapper but hey it wasted my 2 days trying to download the ISO multiple times and burning CDs.
So next time don’t give me this crap of free support. As an intelligent person once said, you get what you pay for…well to some extent it is true.
At least if you pay nothing…you get a pile of crap…called things like Ubuntu or FreeSpire.
Edited 2006-11-09 08:10
//Finally i install Ubuntu 5 and upgraded it to dapper but hey it wasted my 2 days trying to download the ISO multiple times and burning CDs. //
My experience is quite different. I have had just one (1) minor problem in about six different versions of Ubuntu. That one problem was for one machine only, and it required all of one (1) hour to come up with a work-around.
BTW, to get a Windows install as functional as an Ubuntu install will typically take a lot longer than 2 days and multiple CDs, it will burn up about $3000 worth of applications (per machine) as well.
Of the many times I have installed Windows (from scratch) onto machines, every single time has been a much larger problem and taken much longer and been infinitely more expensive than the very worst experience I ever had with an Ubuntu install.
Edited 2006-11-09 08:58
Problem is if Redhat were to use Microsoft’s service contract model and charge only by the incident they would have gone bust a long time ago.
“They are very inexpensive as you pay per incident,”
No , they are given to you and come with the hardware.
The service and additionnal software are not discounted as you falsely suggest and is where they make there money.
“the organization I work for has”
How many tech on site for how much each ?
As I’ve said before, the organization I work for has …
What company is that? NorthWinds?
Try looking at the figures for Canonical/Ubuntu. Server support $750/year. OS Licence: $0. RedHat isn’t the only commercial Linux company, only the most expensive. In a competitive market (The Linux OS market) rather than a Monopoly, some products cost more than others. It’s part of what we call capitalism.
Try looking at the figures for Canonical/Ubuntu. Server support $750/year.
Per Server? Ouch! Too expensive. As I’ve said before, we spend between between 1250 and 2500 a year for Microsft support and we have around 200 servers and 3000 desktops.
Right… ’cause MS’s support contracts are free…
I am curious, how many times have you used yours?
Of course you are never forced to upgrade with windows either or install service packs that break something or downtime due to virii or ________
Fire that guy, hire a linux guru and see if linux doesn’t end up being cheaper.
Unfortunately, the conflicting studies on TCO mean that both sides of the argument can back up their position with data, and no real “universal” conclusion can be made. (I feel that this is because there is no “universal” PC hardware/software/function setup, which is really quite obvious)
One point that he made that I disagree with as a reason to shun Open Source is:
He also explained that what is seen as one of the advantages of open-source – that the core code can be examined by anyone – could actually work against the charity.
“We are a funding organisation that ships lb90m around the world – the last thing you want to do is open up your systems to anybody to have a look at to deal with bugs,” he said.
This makes it seem that because the OS and/or apps are Open Source, that your systems and data are opened up to anybody, or that bug maintenance (updates) are awful to deal with. That is simply not true.
(edit made to formatting quoted section of source article for clarity)
Edited 2006-11-08 20:37
Seen “Hacking Democracy”? Diebold CEO used the same argument when the source code for GEMS was left out in a public FTP, as if the system was insecure because the source code became available…
This fallacy seems common to people against Open Source, like this guy. As if he isn’t exposing his data to the world if a 0-day lets someone crack one of his “enterprise machine(s)”…
Ahhhh, these are non tech people that have fallin for the Microsoft line. I have a non profit group I started to give open source software to school, churches etc.
The thing we found is that MS will give people software and computers. Nice of them right? But then when it’s upgrade time boy are they in for a shock. Orrrrrr, they use the same old stuff forever and ever and wonder why it doesn’t work right etc
We go in and hook them up for free, and they pay a small fee for tech support (Almost nothing) In the end if they are smart they save a TON of money over all.
why he is wrong….even if he is a customer and for him Microsoft solutions were less expensive, still let us prove him wrong
This is funny how OSS a..holes react instead of introspection and trying to fix customer complaints…
I have to say I agree, except I wouldn’t tag them as a…oles. Personal attacks don’t form a solid basis for an arguement in my book.
What is very much typical from so many pro-FOSS folk is to immediately attack someone because they believe that from their judgement and experience that a Microsoft solution is cheaper.
The comment above put it exactly how it is.. there is a great deal of data supporting both sides of the debate and for me the bottom line is that neither system will fit all situations perfectly and the most effectively (if that’s a word).
It’s not as if he wants to waste money when he’s running / involved in a charity. Perhaps his problem is support or a lack of skills.
The reality is that the vast majority of people “know” Windows far better than they “know” a Linux based solution. That, as well as many other aspects, has a cost associated with it.
Perhaps instead of just attacking this man, how about taking the value adding approach, see why he felt the way he did in detail and where possible offer an alternative that is more cost effective.
No point in in trying to convince Old Think individuals. If MS’ products rock his boat, let him have it.
GNU/Linux is not for everybody. It’s for those who want it.
fix customer complaints???
and why are you calling peeple names? nobodys giving cause for this kind of comment…
the entire purpose of comenting is to discuss varried opinions, what did you add? even less then what im adding by calling you on it.
This is why I don’t donate to charities.
Stupidity runs rampant.
This is why I don’t donate to charities.
Stupidity runs rampant.
The point of charities is not to champion the cause of GNU/Linux and OSS, but to provide support and or relief to those in need. It sounds as though Christian Aid had at least considered an OSS-solution, but turned it down in favour of something mainstream and — despite what it’s detractors often claim — still works.
At the end of the day, they sat down, crunched the numbers, and an MS-solution appeared to be the way to go. A successful charity like Christian Aid does not succeed by making stupid decisions.
[added the paragraph on licencing and support]
You should not base your decision to donate (or not) on the basis of your opinion of their IT dept but on your belief in whether they can deliver the service they claim to the people they support.
I am the IT Manager at a UK National Charity ( http://www.cafamily.org.uk ) and I would like to distance myself from the views of Steven Buckley as shown here. We use OSS a lot and it is of substantial benefit to us both financially and in terms of our long term IT strategy.
For more on how we use OSS – and this is not intended to be an advert for us – please see http://www.cafamily.org.uk/oss
Open Source has categorically saved us money and enables us and an IT team to deliver services to our colleagues and the people they support in an efficient and cost effective manner. In fact some of the stuff we do would be well beyond our budget had we chosen a proprietary software platform.
With regards to support – I have a mistrust of outsourced supportand hence we employ our own support staff. Because of our use of OSS – we have ensured they either have OS experience or are prepared to learn. Our OSS support costs are peanuts compared to the amount of time we spend on the proprietary software we have. And whilst Microsoft (and others) do offer significant charity discounts this does not avoid the whole problem of having to buy CALs just because you want your client machines to – shock – be served by your servers. Our OSS solutions are scalable with zero outlay on licences. This gives us a bonus in both time and money.
And I haven’t got down to the security and logistical licencing issues involved in proprietary software.
Note: These are my personal views but are based on experience here at Contact a Family.
Edited 2006-11-09 13:31
You should not base your decision to donate (or not) on the basis of your opinion of their IT dept but on your belief in whether they can deliver the service they claim to the people they support.
How clueful their IT support is could be a very big part of deciding “whether they can deliver the service they claim”. It’s safe to assume that if people give money to a charity it’s because they want it to go to the people the charity claims it supports, so if a charity is spending bucketloads on IT solutions (or anything else) they don’t need, at least a portion of the money donated isn’t going where it should be.
The open source philosophy is closer to being in touch with the ideology of most charity organizations. I suspect that, as third world countries begin to develop their IT infrastructure, many of these NGOs will be at war with corporations such as MS, due to the liberties they are bound to take. Also, Buckley doesn’t seem to take into a account the problems to any organization presented by lock-in.
At least with OSS, an NGO is free from any alignment with any corporate interests – a goal that should be a significant part of the IT strategy of any large charity organization.
I think that NGOs of this sort should be a target for organizations such as Ubuntu. A huge, commercial organization such as a bank can perhaps afford to replace each and every machine every four years; however, the economics of a back-water sorting office or a the backroom office area of a charity shop work a bit diferently.
I wonder how his estimations about TCO scale between the main offices and the problems of equipping the backroom office of a charity shop? Often in situations such as that, one has to equip a donated machine with software and to make everything work without using any budget. Open source could be an ideal platform within resource starved environments such as these. But, it’s going to be difficult for a to run Linux in situations such as these while the head office runs MS.
Basically, charity organizations have to do a lot with very little and if you’re tied into MS, you’re always going to be the loser.
Microsoft has a killer program that gives software to non-profit. Check it out at http://www.techsoup.com. Microsoft gives all levels of software away for literally pennies on the dollar. Non-profits can install server software, XP, Office, Sharepoint, Exchange, etc, etc for a few hundred dollars, including all licensing. It’s a killer deal and really softens the price blow to entities with small budgets.
Yes but…
MS software is engineered to be proprietary.
These $100 laptops serve as an example. Is the word processor software going to be 100% compatible with MS Office? Does this mean that an aid worker will have a laptop that is document incompatible with with a $100 laptop? How about at the base office?
One of the beauties of a lot of OSS is that it uses open file formats – you’re not locked into any platform. So, for example, you don’t HAVE to run Linux at home because you have Linux at the office.
I’m sure that MS are aware that NGOs are increasingly embracing IT in the field and would be an ideal breading ground for OSS adoption. As big-hearted as I’m sure MS are, I’m surprised that they don’t pay the NGOs to use their software. It would be well worth it for them.
//Microsoft has a killer program that gives software to non-profit. Check it out at http://www.techsoup.com. Microsoft gives all levels of software away for literally pennies on the dollar. Non-profits can install server software, XP, Office, Sharepoint, Exchange, etc, etc for a few hundred dollars, including all licensing. It’s a killer deal and really softens the price blow to entities with small budgets.//
Even on this comparison a Microsoft solution is expensive compared to, say, Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS. There is no “price blow” at all for Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS.
It is horrendously more expensive to run Microsoft software if you factor in the downtime due to malware, which Microsoft-sponsored TCO studies never do. Nearly all malware is found only on Microsoft platforms.
// It’s a killer deal and really softens the price blow to entities with small budgets. //
The charity discount does not avoid the licence headache for charity IT Managers ( I know I am one ). For example having to buy new CALs just to allow one more client machine *than you currently have licences for) to your Exchange box.
It is here that Microsoft and their like make their “killing” – once you have your Exhange you have to keep going back to them as your organisation grows (never mind the forced upgrades).
For my OSS solution I have no such worries – it has 100% zero cost scalable in terms of licencing and no additional hardware costs beyond a proprietary solution.
End result – we spend less on licences and more on helping people.
“It is here that Microsoft and their like make their “killing” – once you have your Exhange you have to keep going back to them as your organisation grows (never mind the forced upgrades).”
Never experienced that. We went back for more and they were happy to take that application on and provide more items.
You’re not doing your charity a good enough service if you’re not asking and just paying.
// Never experienced that. We went back for more and they were happy to take that application on and provide more items.//
Actually we use MS Office as part of a select agreement specifically for Charities through an umbrealla org we are part of (in common with other charities in the UK).
I have requested from several suppliers under this agreement what the costs would be and have been informed several times that we would need to buy further CALs if we wished to extend beyond our original licences.
//You’re not doing your charity a good enough service if you’re not asking and just paying. //
I am not just paying and I do ask. On the basis of responses to those questions – from various suppliers – I make my decisions. In fact we don’t use Exchange or any other MS server product because I don’t want to be locked into any vendor and want the scalability, extendibility, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of all those that using an OSS solution gives me.
Time to get your hands dirty in your own tech support.
If your people would mine the open source community for support and RTM instead of suckling at the MS teat-bank you wouldn’t need outside support for much and you’d save a lot of donated money to put back into your charity where it should be.
Support yourself for a change.. Hello – It’s open source – You have the code in your hands. You also have plenty of security options freely available to you.
The kind of overhead that is incurred by this Corporate hand holding mentality – and other mis-management of funds in NP’s – is the reason why a lot of us would rather put our donations directly into the hands of needy people and avoid the middleman!
Get a grip human.
Y’know, it always baffles me as to why the open source community believes that ‘having the code in your hands’is some kind of advantage for everybody
So my mother calls me and says that there’s something wrong with her Linux installation; so what do I say:
“C’mon Mom, you have the source code; fix it yourself.”
Perhap like 99% of the computer using public, these charity folk actually don’t see computers as anything other than a tool to get something done. They don’t have the time or the inclination to dig around in someone else’s code.
‘Fix it yourself?’
Nope, they’ll just use Windows. No source, but less hassle.
But you know what? Forget it? Rather than accept that there may be reasons for not deploying Linux, that can easily be fixed; it’s much easier to just brand folk who have legitimate reasons for not using it, as stupid.
So what do you do when your mother calls you and says that there’s something wrong with her Windows installation?
Reboot
Do you reboot your own machine or hers?
Anyway, rebooting seldom works. When Windows fails to recognize a webcam it seldom works with rebooting. Usually it will never get to work. If it doesn’t work in the first attempt, it’s most likely never going to work.
good one!!!!!
I think your argument and the article,is largely irrelevent. having the source code isn’t the point. No one ..and i mean NO ONE outside of developers and project specific developers at that, really care if they have the source code or not. The fact is that many open source software are free, entirely reliable, and cost effective.. The whole idea of digging around the code to find a problem is ludicrous as applied to a user. And you know it. The whole idea of the open source code thing is.. well.. go look up some of RMS’s writings.
No, but when I am developing something system-level and I find an un-documented feature, on Linux/OSS I can call up the source and make my software bug-free by implementing it correctly.
With MS, If it’s undocumented, I have to guess (or pay an exhorbitant Partner program licence fee) and that means that my software is going to be less stable when working with $M products
Of course a number of these charities will have some in house developers hired to run various things, custom access and .NET based data related junk, based on something non free by MS, resold as something non-free by someone else and then finally hacked at by their overpaid inhouse dev team, surely if you’re going to do this kind of thing then starting on a Free and Open platform and getting techies who can cope with this idea isn’t such a bad move?
As long as the likes of Steven Buckley happen to prefer the idea of big name branded software products i guess all of your donations to christian aid will undergo a small Microsoft Tax, I suppose its up to us to boycott these charities if they don’t work in a way that we feel is acceptable, if they want support all they need do is ask the community, if they are too proud or stupid to do so then just pass them by.
Of course RH, Novell, etc, all need to wake up and realise that providing free or low cost support to charities would be a very sensible move, though they may not be quite as well able to afford it as Bill, and maybe they can make ridiculously over the top donations to charity the same way Mr and Mrs Gates do too.
But what you’re suggesting is pricely the problem for many organisations. They already have a skill base developed either intentionally or though users running Windows at home themselves. The already have an investment here which they just cannot throw away.
That aside, you shouldn’t have to “mine” for support, nor should you have to wade through user manuals or seemingly endless (and frankly fragmented) Google pages or study the source code to find a solution.
Yes Red Hat and others do provide paid support, which is great and it certainly has its place, but realistically it all comes down to a dollar value which is measured in far greater terms than just the aquisition of the software, the hardware and the support contract.
Productivity, learning curves, training, developing internal support, aquiring alternative software solutions and just transition alone all add up to varying degrees of value to each organisation.
There’s no denying that there are, in many people’s opinion, great benefits of using open source software, but you have to take a step back and understand what this all means for organisations. There’s a risk involved in just dropping Microsoft based solutions.
There is in reality absolutely no solid tangable proof that open source software will be cheaper, easier, better and increase producivity (which drives in many ways profitability). There are too many arguements on both sides of the debate here to say one is better than the other.
With every release of Office and Windows the exact same could be argued, however the advantages Microsoft have are history and a very well established experience base among both internal support and even the most non technical of users (who support themselves to a degree). This has a real tangible effect on profitibility in my view.
Does that mean this is right for all organisations? No, of coarse not but at the same time it is nieve to think that all of the organisations who are using Microsoft technology are so daft as to just blindly accept whatever marketing campaign Microsoft beats.
To me it’s actually beyond nieve.. it’s just plain ignorant.
Edited 2006-11-08 22:38
The real heart of it is here:
But Mr Buckley said that Linux is not widely-used enough for the charity’s staff to be proficient at it, meaning that there is a cost to the organisation in terms of skills.
He has people who know Windows, he has to hire people who know Linux. If you have people who know both, or if you have to hire it out no matter the OS, the equation becomes very different.
Linux takes far less manpower to admin, and maintain, but if the option is more work for people you already have, or hiring out the work to people you don’t have, that skews things. Maybe he would have been best off to look at where he could get the services free or discounted. Many LUG’s have people who do support for charities for free.
Most of the time they don’t have to be proficient with Windows as much as they have to be proficient with a certain Web-App or a certain “Specialized” app made for the organization. Show them Firefox, Evolution, and OpenOffice… there shouldn’t be that much of a conversion problem over from the various versions of IE and Office they’re all used to (remember, each version changes).
Firefox and Evolution, sure. Comparing OO.o to MSO? Surely you jest.
Maybe I should welcome you in the wonderful new world. I work as support/sysadmin on various jobs, and I have seen few places, if any at all, where you could really phase out Windows. Companies, government and education most always depend on specialized software that just isn’t available in the open source world.
People need:
– CAD applications (AutoCAD, Solidworks, Pro/E)
– Proper graphics software (no the GIMP doesn’t cut it for companies)
– Proper video editing software
– Excel and Word (WITH all those Access based macros that are prevalent in most companies)
– SPSS
And schools need to run the software that is provided with books, that is just available under windows.
I really like linux and Open Source, and will get some linux certifications in the future, but common sense and my employer tell me to obtain at least a MCSA before doing that.
Our school district runs diskless Linux clients in all the elementary school labs (30 – 60 computers per elementary * 37 elems).
We also have one complete secondary school without *any* Windows computers. The entire school runs diskless Linux clients. We have several other secondaries in the planning stages for moving toward the same setup.
The hardest part was getting teachers out of the “we have to teach the programs that are used in the business world” mindset and into the “we need to teach concepts not software” mindset. Once that happened, the move to OpenOffice.org was easy.
Our IT department was filled with Novell certified techs. Most of those certifications have expired, and we are all now LPIC-2 certified (Linux Professional Institute Certification).
There are several other school districts in the province that have looked at our setup, and have started to use similar setups (LTSP thin clients and diskless clients).
We used to have an annual IT budget over $4 million CDN. That was the year I was hired, 5 years ago. Since then we’ve had the budget chopped almost in half every year (our current budget is $200,000). And yet we have the lowest student to computer ratio in the province. Have fully operational labs in every school. And have students that are actually excited about using the computer labs. We’ve received several comments from new secondary students wondering why they can’t use Linux in the secondaries.
While it is great that you have the luxury that you can switch to FOSS, I can hardly imagine that the school where I currently work switches to linux/open-source. There are some 40 programs that come with educational methods, or that are used as resources in the education programme, that aren’t offered by the publisher under linux. It really is a chicken/egg problem, and for publishers there is no compelling need to be flexible.
We have a very pro-OpenSource school board, all the way to the Superintendent. As such, one of the primary criteria for any software purchase is “will it run on FreeBSD or Debian?” If it won’t, then we ask if it will run on RedHat? If not then we look around the marketplace to see if there are any alternatives that could be used instead. Finally, if there is nothing else that can be used, and it is absolutely critical that we have this software, then we’ll look at getting a Windows server for it. So far, we have only two pieces of major critical infrastructure software running on Windows servers (our library software Follett Destiny, and our Heating maintenance software).
Without the top-down support, though, I could see it being difficult to use non-Windows or non-OpenSource (we’re not so-called Free Software fanatics, and actually prefer BSD software) software. I hear horror stories from IT people in other districts where a teacher wants to use OSS to save money, and the school board going behind their backs to spend money they don’t have on a Windows solution.
Granted, we also have a “build knowledge capacity inhouse” attitude, so we support all our own systems, only contracting out for hardware support. If we can’t find the time to learn enough about a system to support it, we won’t implement it. And we certainly won’t buy something we can’t support.
It’s really a mindset thing … and we have the people above us with the correct mindset.
Many non-profit organizations can get lots of different commercial software, including MS software, for little or no cost. When you consider the fact that most of them also don’t have in-house IT and that per-visit support is often less expensive for Windows than for Linux, it takes a lot more to convince a non-profit to use Linux or other open source software (even if Linux allows them to be more productive or costs less in the long-term).
I dealt with a non-profit that actually was considering open source, but they were will to pay a minimal cost to go with something familiar rather than the unknown.
IBM will sell you a support contract for Windows, Red Hat, or SuSE. You can find local companies that will support these products as will. When you pay Lots of money to MS for their products – that only includes the most basic of support. I know – I have had to get support for MS products in some cases only weeks old and had to pay for it because it was not an install problem. So paying that large sum up front does not guarantee any prepaid support down the road.
It costs about $200.00 to have a local Linux support person come in and install cent OS Linux on a server and set it up. It costs about $200.00 to have the local Windows guru to install Windows 2003 plus the cost of the Windows license. In that I will be going back to these people for most of my support – I see no reason in either case to pay some major national firm to supply support for my systems and once set up I will make fewer support request call for Linux on a ratio of about one Linux request for every three Windows request – one must wonder why you must have a contract with a large national firm why not just pay as you go, it will cost you far less in the long run.
What is missed in this article is that 1. Buying stuff form Microsoft does not include any fix full support period – yet the Red Hat price is in fact a full support package. 2. Purchasing a full support package from a national support firm – is always expensive. 3. If cost is so important – get Open SuSE or Cent OS and purchase only the help you need when you need it – be prepared to do all the simple stuff yourself and you will have good reliable systems and spend a lot less doing it. 4. If you want the full paid support – then don’t complain that it cost money and be sure that what you are comparing apples to apples when comparing the cost of a full service contract to something else.
Now don’t even get me started on copier service contracts.
two words: Bone head. he obviously doesn’t know of the thousands of us running ‘nix/bsd for years with no service contracts.. talking about uninformed.
He needs a throat to choke, when something screws up. It is more convenient to point at MS, than to say that in house support is trying to fix the problem with the OSS solution.
there are some sad truths in that article.
first of, there are more people out there with some sort of hands on experience with MS products. the question is, what level of competency are we talking about.
if its just about turning the box on, logging in, firing up whatever program your after (maybe a spreadsheet), enter whatever data that needed entering, then logging of and shutting down.
id say most anyone can do that just as well on a preconfigured linux box as they can on a preconfigured windows box.
however, ones you go beyond that, to configuring and installing, things become vastly different in terms of numbers.
and as some posts here point out, there is a question of scale walking around to. when you can no longer manage the day to day tech support with the local linux geek and friends, and a couple of gray box donations the local businesses was trowing away anyways, one may find that a proper tech support deal with windows or a linux distro may cost just the same.
thats just the thing, linux works wonders for home and soho use. ie, low scale where more often then not you don’t call microsoft when something goes blue. you call the local geek kid or similar.
its on the mom and pop level that linux could get in some nice punches. but more often then not microsoft have a solid lock because of one thing, games. and by the looks of it, games are whats going to leverage vista onto the home desktops (this based on directx 10 not being available on xp or older).
still, there is some interesting stuff happening. in norway there is a linux distro in the works aimed at schools. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/
its supposed to have a simple installer that can set up a thin client terminal, a workstation or a server from the same cd.
should be a nice basis (at least) for building a distro for organizations that need a solution.
How does one charity organization preferring MS become “Charities Shun Open Source Code”?
Mr. Buckley doesn’t speak for any other organization than Christian Aid so extrapolating that into charities in general shun OSS code is quite a reach.
Edited 2006-11-09 04:22
//How does one charity organization preferring MS become “Charities Shun Open Source Code”?
Mr. Buckley doesn’t speak for any other organization than Christian Aid so extrapolating that into charities in general shun OSS code is quite a reach. //
Exactly.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39166840,00.htm
I agree. http://www.socialsource.org.uk
http://www.cafamily.org.uk
I know several charities that use OSS and indeed would not be able to do as much as they do if they had to sheel out (even a discounted amount) for software and support unsecure applications.
but hey, they believe in supernatural entities as well…
figures…
btw. how many oss projects have paid support ? close to none.
Ignore charities and disabled organisations when it comes to using open source software.
Microsoft gives a ton of software to these organisations to make absolutely sure that Microsoft is the only software they know, and that Microsoft is charity and disability friendly. Remember how easily Microsoft managed to get blind and disability groups to kick up about a move to ODF compatible office suites in MA?
These organisations and people are unibonded to the hip to Microsoft when it comes to what software they use. Ignore them. If Microsoft disappears tomorrow, or desktop Linux by some miracle becomes what everyone else is using, they’ll use that.
I am the IT manager at a UK charity (national) for parents of disabled children. I think therefore we fall very neatly into your list of charities to ignore.
We have and continue to successfully deploy OSS in our organisation – see http://www.cafamily.org.uk/oss for details. I am by no means swayed by the charity discounts as they come with strings I am not prepared to tangle with. That said we do use proprietary software in some places (although we are looking to avoid the next upgrade of these and move to OSS in those cases too).
I am aware I am in a minority but it is a growing one and is growing very fast. Don’t be so quick to judge us _all_ as being unibonded to Microsoft’s hip.
Note: the views above are my own but are based on experience at Contact a Family
(Edited – still cannot type…)
I work for a registered charity. I am in touch with other bodies who are less well-resourced than we are. I mention the possibility of open source solutions for their problems.
However, these solutions would really require, for them to be both cost-effective and tailored to their situations, IT support. A lot of such charities or small organisations run on voluntary lines do not have the HR back-up to a)identify what would be required of any appointee to do such work, b) would find it difficult to manage that person to be effective (because of their own lack of IT knowledge c) the readies anyway be able offer enough to be attractive to potential candidates.
Now, I may be behind the times here, and folk can correct me, but it appears that not so long ago there was a glut of qualified computer scientists and programmers (in the UK): these folk could be a potential pool to give such support – what would it take to bring them (glut or no) into the charitable sector?
There are organisations out there that are designed to help charities to identify OSS solutions to their IT problems but these in my experience tend to focus on functionality know-how for users regarding ‘enterprise ready’ OSS products, rather than on questions to do with cost, HR overgeads and management of that type of new person in their organisation who could get OSS really moving for them. Again, I may be out of touch here in the UK – and any advice would be welcome.
Still, that’s how I see it – no HR = no OSS solution = sucking at that MSoft teat, as someone put it…
Edited 2006-11-09 11:32
There are a lot of CS and just general capable IT people around, you just need to ask for them, of course i can understand that trying to hire that first someone is going to be tricky when you don’t have anyone in the company experienced enough to interview them.
In the UK there are now circuit riders – rolving IT support people who share their costs between sevealr orgs in one region.
Perhaps these are a solution for the smaller guys.
http://www.lasa.org.uk/circuitriders/
There’s also an organisation called IT4Communities who hook up IT volunteers with charities – not usually for ongoing support work but certainly for one-off projects.
http://www.it4communities.org.uk
hope this helps.
P.S. I’m the IT Manager for Contact a Family ( http://www.cafamily.org.uk )
Crimperman – nice one, these look like damn good resources I reckon I will be calling on – thanks a lot for the informed response!
And we contacted Microsoft to get assistance from one of their programs (at the time it was called eMpower) and they were fantastic.
They provided lots of software and client software basically for us at no cost and only asked that we publically acknowledge the sponsorship (which means for those that don’t know they can’t claim a tax benefit from it; so they’re not in it for the money)
So yes, I can understand why charities would use Microsoft software rather than Open Source equivalents.
Maybe other charities are too polite but I was quite happy to contact any software or service vendor of *any* bit of software/service we needed and say “please donate” and I’d say at least 75% of the people I did this with were happy to provide it free, gratis, in perpetuity and with no strings.
The rest either would provide no free or some discounted rate and I would move on to the next choice in those cases.
So this characterisation of Microsoft (and proprietary software in general) as being bad for charities totally flies in the face of my experience; having set one up from scratch and run it for years.
My experience of this is that the number of licences provided on a free basis is minimal (too minimal for our needs). In some case this was fine as we only needed three copies and not 100 but where we needed the 100 copies the costs were instead discounted.
Whilst I would always advocate asking instead of just accepting what the vendor says I have found that OSS is more cost effective in the long term for a mid-size organisation like ours. Since I started here we have increased staffing levels by about 80% and – in IT terms – the siginificant cost for us has always been in extending licences for proprietary products.
Example? Our virus software vendor gives us a hefty charity discount but we still have to pay for each. Our OSS mail server uses an OSS version and catches almost all mail-borne viruses at server level. There are no per-user licences for this and it grows with us.
I am aware there are good free (as in cost) anti-virus packages but they are IME for personal use only and thus no good for us. Also our particular product was chosen on performance and not costs alone. :o)