Hi Matthias, On Thu, 2007-11-08 at 13:50 +0100, Matthias Kirschner wrote: > * Alex Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-11-08 11:50:54 +0000]: > > > I also don't believe that free software is always cheaper; I can point > > to many examples where it is more expensive. > > I would be interested in these examples, and the time period of the > measurement.
Well, I can think of a number of projects where the business I work for has put forward a solution and it has been more expensive than the proprietary alternative. That's for a number of reasons, but in general the licensing cost of the software is only a small part of the overall cost, and the other costs involved may not be equivalent. A good example of that is support for free software server applications. I know of one organisation that looked very hard to find a business that could offer them the support contract they needed to implement Samba: they simply couldn't find it, at any reasonable price. Such support is readily available for Windows, and it's cheap. In terms of periods of measurement, I know what you mean, but often it's not possible to look beyond the period of a project for savings. Obvious examples (like 2/3-year MS Office subscriptions) are pretty obviously costly, but more usually it's not possible to use potential savings. So, for example, cost of transition at the end of the project is usable (because you pretty much have to do that), but cross-training people onto a different platform isn't (because you can't guarantee the future use of a platform) - so saying "spend more today for savings tomorrow" doesn't really work, as it's prejudging what is needed tomorrow. Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
