Cost-Conscious Companies Turn To Open Source 249
Martyr4BK writes "BusinessWeek has a slew of special reports today on open source software discussing the benefits for buyers who are cost conscious and open source being the silver lining for the economic slump. They even have a slideshow of 'OSS alternatives' like Linux, Apache, MySQL, Firefox, Xen, Pentaho, OpenOffice.org, Drupal, Alfresco, SugarCRM, and Asterisk. These are all good examples (we use a bunch of them already); what other open source software can I use to drop my company's IT costs, and maybe get a decent bonus for the year?"
Couldn't find the slideshow mentioned... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do they mention anything about project management? Even on linux, the free stuff I've found can't compete with the uber-expensive proprietary stuff. Am I just looking in the wrong places?
Corporate Bureaucracy (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not to much that they're opting for free, it's just easier to download and install something that's free to use than to go through the corporate bureaucracy of requesting a software license. I've been waiting 3 months for Dreamweaver (we migrated to Macs and no one thought to think that the licenses weren't transferable from PC's...) and had to find free alternatives to get some damn work done.
Re:Web Filter (Score:2, Insightful)
You weren't paid?
Obligatory question (Score:5, Insightful)
And what about the _total_ cost of ownership?
I'm all for open source software, don't get me wrong, but switching from a known solution that Works For You(tm) even though it's horribly expensive to a $0 one but with a steep learning curve can be disastrous.
Would you replace Oracle with PostgreSQL if "all" you had in house were Oracle gurus?
I know, this is one example, others may not be that extreme. But taking this kind of decision has to be done with some caution.
Re:Would love to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hire some developers and put them to work then release the software under the GPL. :)
Free doesn't always mean free as in beer.
The idea is that once you make the investment you will get others improving your software.
But for somethings like CAD I just don't think you will ever find a FOSS solution as good as what you pay for. But I think ProE run on Linux
Re:TCO not always lower (Score:4, Insightful)
When you start digging down into niche software that serves a tiny market segment you're getting into an area where few people are interested in using it and even fewer are interested in contributing. I do agree that these areas are currently best served by commercial apps. The whole FOSS thing works because so many people are contributing and it's easy to get support from one of the masses of people using it or working on it. On smaller projects you find yourself doing your own support - which isn't necessarily awful, it's just a real time sink.
What non-free software do you have? (Score:4, Insightful)
Without telling us what non-free applications are currently being used, it's a very difficult question to answer.
If I were starting a business tomorrow, I can't think of a single piece of commercial software I'd standardise on.
Partly because I'm stingy when it comes to software. Partly because I don't want license management to become a headache as the business grows.
Re:Obligatory question (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you replace Oracle with PostgreSQL if "all" you had in house were Oracle gurus?
I'd view that as being similar to replacing AIX or Solaris with Linux -- and that's something that plenty of companies have done successfully.
It does require retraining, it may involve buying support contracts, but it's proved worthwhile for many companies.
Re:I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Would love to... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Couldn't find the slideshow mentioned... (Score:1, Insightful)
GanttProject is not bad. Simple but usable.
Re:Would love to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Would love to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just goes to show that anything can be implemented badly...
Where i work we have 2 separate networks serving different parts of the company, one is all OSS while the other is primarily MS based.
The OSS one is faster, has better uptime, cost very little to build (runs entirely on hardware that was discarded by the MS oriented staff), and requires minimal maintenance. Users don't really notice any difference until something goes wrong, which happens far less frequently on the OSS network. The bean counters notice because of how under-budget the OSS based network is.
The MS guys are jealous of some of the fancy kit we have to play with, but we've still spent a lot less overall.
Re:Would love to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly, it's the same problem I have come across in science staff - good, relevant experienced management is hard to come by - nearly all are excellently qualified granular-focused folk who unfortunately don't understand the bigger business picture. Doesn't mean they can't do a job, just not a management job.
Re:Couldn't find the slideshow mentioned... (Score:1, Insightful)
What is it with Sun Microsystems and interface design? You guys manage to make everything look very ugly, not what I'd expect from a company capable of hiring decent UI designers.
Even if you can't afford UI designers, tell the people who're trying to do the job that, in design: less is more.
Get rid of those awful gradients, horrible bullet points, weird bulgy header (just make it a box, FFS!), the blurry logo and the overly-complicated 'Beta' sign (never try to use real-world elements as part of a design, e.g. torn paper, notebook spirals etc.; it takes a very good designer to make it work). Oh, and make sure your text is always left-aligned, browsers still can't make justified text look good.
Tech support? What support? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, you've never worked for a corporation using commercial software. Try emailing, for instance, Oracle's tech support. At one time, it took me *two months* to get the response I needed from Oracle. Or rather, a response that *didn't* solve my problem: "that feature has been deprecated since Oracle 8i". It took them two full months just to find that an obscure feature that was essential to my work wasn't supported anymore.
Based on my 25+ years of experience of using software, both commercial and free, today I'd rather have Google and the source code than any paid tech support.
Re:How about GIMP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry for the bluntness, but... holy crap! not The Gimp Thread Again. It boils down to:
1) Gimp is nice
2) Gimp gets better with time
3) Gimp's interface is horrible
4) Gimp's interface gets better with time
5) Gimp doesn't have CMYK support
6) This is not important to a whole lotta people
7) But it is a show stopper for some
8) iterate until hell freezes over
There, one less gimp thread!
Re:hidden costs (Score:3, Insightful)
There is still no substitute for doing your job. You still have to evaluate the software.