On 2004.01.25 11:36 John Hebert wrote: > > Quantify "cheaper" and "better". >
OK. Cheaper - it costs less. Better - it does what you want. As the number of participants in free software goes to infinity, the price per participant goes to zero. That's cheaper. This is because free software is properly modularized and easy to modify. While it might take real time to make real changes, the result will do exactly what you want. That's better. Let's look at your particular case. How long did it take you to cobble together those packages? Would you have gotten the same features if you bought the top of the line Microsoft exchange server version for $5,000? eXPensive: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/howtobuy/enterprise.asp Could you have gotten it in the relatively cheaper "standard" version that cost $1,700 before you purchase any $70 "client access licenses"? That's where Microsoft wants to take you when you buy your first desktop and it's all downhill from here. The features you want, though available in the free software world, are not there on that desktop. They want you to pay for every little piece and then pay again three years later. They also have a history of ruining anyone who would also provide those pieces on "their" platform. Each time they do that, the platform declines. Why even start down that road? What you have done will do what your company wants and it won't go away or break anytime soon. If you wanted, you could share it and still make money with it. The next guy won't have to work as hard to get the exact same thing, but how many next guys are there? Chances are, they want something just a little different or will fill in some piece that you did not think about and the project will grow. You are now the expert at getting it done. The kind of person who wants the help the Microsoft promises would be better off going to you. You can now do it better and cheaper. Politics do matter. We would not be here today if it were not for the FSF and their GPL. For a long time, those people put up with many shortcomings. They put up with it because they saw where those first NDAs were going to take them if they did nothing. No one has yet to name any service or program that Microsoft offers that someone else does not do better. Someone mentioned Developer's Studio. For commercial compilers I preferred Watcom's IDE, another ruined Microsoft competitor. Soon the KDE stuff will be better.
