very true! On 6/6/07, Subir Pradhanang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > <http://www.jejik.com/authors/sander_marechal/>"Story of a startup FOSS > SME and cost comparisons" - Taken from iosn.net > > > http://www.jejik.com/articles/2007/06/linux_making_small_businesses_possible/ > > (Hope the formatting doesn't get jumbled up. If so, go to the above link > directly ;) > > --- > > Linux: making small businesses possible > by Sander Marechal <http://www.jejik.com/authors/sander_marechal/> > > Here at Lone Wolves we do more than just blog and write open source > software <http://www.jejik.com/pages/projects/>. We have a small > company<http://www.jejik.com/pages/webdevelopment/>as well and we build > websites <http://www.jejik.com/pages/pastwork/> for equally small > businesses in the area. It's nothing big, not even full time, but it pays > for this website and the servers we need to keep our projects running. It's > Linux that made this possible. If we would have been stuck on the Windows > platform there is no way we could have done what we do because it would > simply have been too expensive. > > I'l admit that our company is a bit of a special case so I'll give some > background first. Skip this paragraph if you are just here for the gory > details. When we started this company we had two requirements. The first was > financial independence. We did not want the company income added to our > personal income for tax reasons. The second requirement was that it had to > be cheap. Here in The Netherlands the cheapest financially independent > company form (a so-called B.V.) needs EURO 18.000,- starting capital. > Other forms are usually considered ill-suited to run a company and make > money. But making money was not what we were after. We just needed a way to > pay the bills for our hobbies. In the end we settled for a Foundation. It's > cheap to set up, financially independent and it's able to make money. It's > just not able to give away the money to stakeholders, that's all. Perfect > for us! > > Enough of the boring background and back to the money. We had about EURO > 1.500,- to set up our company, buy the hardware and software we needed and > get going. We managed, thanks to Linux. We would have needed at least 3-4 > times the amount we had if we were stuck on Windows. Our setup isn't too > complicated. We have two desktop PC's that we use to build websites, one in > each of our homes. We also each have one server. They are used as > development server, as webserver for the applications we cannot put on > shared hosting (such as subversion <http://svn.jejik.com/> and > bugzilla<http://bugzilla.jejik.com/>and we use them as backup servers. They > are also each other's failover. For > this comparison I am leaving out anything that would have been the same in > either scenario, such as the shared hosting, hardware, domain names, > etcetera. I am also leaving out the work we put in--the fabled "TCO". The > time we put in is free and no matter what environment we would use, it would > have taken time to implement. TCO is interesting for companies that pay for > maintenance. We don't. > > I am going to give you three scenarios. The first one will show the cost > if we would have drunk the kool-aid and bought the latest and greatest of > anything we needed and Microsoft or it's preferred ISVs offered. The second > scenario shows a more realistic Windows setup that we would use on a tight > budget. The third scenario is what we actually use: Linux. > Scenario 1: Bill Gates and partners are my heroes Scenario 1 software > listing 2 x Windows Vista Business EURO 820,- 2 x Windows Server 2003 > EURO 1.200,- 2 x Office Professional EURO 1.240,- SQL Workgroup Server > 2005 OEM EURO 600,- Symantec AV Business Pack 5 EURO 300,- 2 x Visual > Studio Standard EURO 760,- 2 x Adobe Photoshop C3 EURO 1.000,- Visual > SourceSafe EURO 520,- Total EURO 6.440,- > > We love Bill Gates and anything he cares to sell us. And sell us he will. > A hefty EURO 6.440,- towards his pockets. More than four times our entire > starting "capital". See the sidebar for the exact list of software we would > have bought in this case. One server would get MS-SQL to run the development > sites. One server would get SourceSafe and run our code repository. It's not > entirely true to our current setup because the servers cannot use each other > as a failsafe. We would need to double-up on SourceSafe and SQL server > licenses for that. Also, I have no idea how CAL's work so that might have > further driven up the cost of a public code repository. Notice that under > "We love Bill" we would be programming .NET sites. > Scenario 2: A realistic Windows shop Scenario 2 software listing 2 x > Windows XP Pro OEM EURO 320,- Windows Server 2003 EURO 600,- Windows > Server 2003 SBS EURO 500,- 2 x Office Professional OEM EURO 700,- MySQL > Community Server 5.x EURO 0,- Symantec AV Business Pack 5 EURO 300,- 2 x > Zend Studio Standard EURO 200,- 2 x Paint Shop Pro X EURO 180,- Subversion > EURO 0,- Total EURO 2.800,- > > In this scenario we owe Bill and his band of brothers only EURO 2.800,-. > Less than half the previous scenario but still well over our total starting > budget. We replaced Vista with XP. Replaced the development enviroment with > PHP and it's associated tools and replaced one server with a cheaper SBS > edition. In this scenario the failsafe problem from the previous scenario > solved because the code repository and the SQL server are open source > software. The added cost of one regular 2003 server over the SBS server is > because the SBS license only allows one SBS server. All other servers need > to be regular 2003 servers. If I had to design a webdevelopment shop based > on Windows, this is how I'd do it. Maybe I would add EURO 320,- to replace > one Paint Shop Pro with Photoshop, but only if the developer makes use of > the extra features. > Scenario 3: Our Linux shop Scenario 3 software listing 4 x Debian Etch > EURO 0,- 2 x OpenOffice.org EURO 0,- MySQL Community Server 5.x EURO 0,- > DenyHosts > + RootKit Hunter EURO 0,- 2 x Bluefish EURO 0,- 2 x Kate EURO 0,- 2 x GIMP > EURO 0,- 2 x Inkscape EURO 0,- Subversion EURO 0,- Total EURO 0,- > > Here is the setup we are currently using. Everything runs Debian Etch > GNU/Linux. We use Bluefish and Kate for programming, and GIMP and Inkscape > for graphics. Backups are done automagically with > rsync<http://www.jejik.com/articles/2006/07/easy_local_and_remote_backup_of_your_home_network/>. > It's all open source software and all pretty standard stuff at that. Because > it costs nothing we were able to spend our entire starting capital on > registering the company, buying hardware and getting hosted. I was able to > cheaply get a second hand HP ProLiant from my old boss, who also donated > some even older HP NetServers (hat-tip to DHL <http://www.dhl.com/>). > > In short, without Linux, our company, our self-financed hobby would not > exist. I am sure the same is true for many start-ups. Hardware prices have > been going down over the years but the cost of proprietary software has only > risen. Start-ups need much more of an IT infrastructure to get going and the > license costs are dragging them down. How much more capital would be > invested in actually useful things if open source software was the norm > instead of the exception? It is no coincidence that virtually all the > successful start-ups of today are powered by open source software. Without > it, I would still be sitting in the basement, wondering how I'm going to pay > for another year of webhosting. > > --- > > > >
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