On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:36, Patrick Dunford wrote: > I can't answer spurious reasons given when pursuing an ideological > crusade, which is what some of the answers in this thread strongly > resemble. Whether you like it or not, most people out there run Windows. > They are not going to install Linux just because some people think Bill > Gates is the antichrist. The current church I attend is a smaller one > about 200 in size. They don't have a lot of money, but were able to come > up with enough to buy the PC, projector and Windows software they > needed, because it represented about one or two weeks' offerings. Now > maybe a church of 50 would have a little trouble but with such a small > number of people a projector is a gross overkill anyway. A big TV with a > VGA to TV adapter would do for such a small group
Well if you join a linux list you will get evangelism as well as help for your technical problems. Get used to it :-) Linux will give most people a cost saving. That has been justified to you a number of times in this thread. If you can't see it think again. Either you pay licensing fees (be they minimal or substantial) or you don't. With MS products you do, with the equivalent open source products, for the job we are discussing, you don't pay. full stop. This does assume a level playing field on hardware costs, ie transparent OS and bundling pricing. However I see at least one local supplier offering new computers at very good prices. In reasonably large letters they offer windows as an additional price, about $200 for XP Home IIRC. In the second hand market it is more difficult as its pretty hard to know you are getting valid licenses if you buy out of the paper. Shops should be more honest, but sometimes aren't. Of course there may be time costs in upskilling to a new program, and you cannot forget that. I still believe the TCO would be less under open source. Oh and don't forget, win 98 support has a limited time. Then you don't get updates to address new vulnerabilities. Whatcha donna do then? Upgrade to XP? oops it will not run on this hardware, oops it doesn't have drivers for our printer. oops i just spent a whole lot more weeks of offerings. I know what you are saying, I entirely understand legacy programs, legacy users, etc. But as I said, you are going to get evangelism as well as help here :-) Welcome to a linux list Patrick. I hope you stay and learn. It akes a while, and a mind shift. Regards, Nick.
