hi.
On Jan 27, 2010, at 1:44 PM, Stanley Brinkerhoff wrote:
Thanks all. I had dinner with my state Reps last evening (vt
house), and
was referring to this bill, and its potential for evaluation as a cost
savings tool. I suggest others contact their reps or more importantly
legislators with your interest and belief in the savings.
Indeed!
Nota Bene: I have found that the argument of lower licensing cost is
not as persuasive as a Moral Stance, or the overall cost of a software
product over the course of the life of that product vs licensing cost.
For Government that stance might look like this: Taxpayers have a
right to benefit directly from the products of Government, thus
software projects paid for by the People should be licensed in the
Public Domain or under a variety of Free Open Source Licenses. (Or
something similar, that last statement is a bit polemic).
The argument of lower licensing cost, is, as Stallman remarks, the
weakest of the motivations for Free Software and Open Source. Many
other, much stronger motivations exist. I've posted on this topic
before. Please read the following for a primer on those motivations:
Community
Cost Externalization
Robustness
Cost
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
Local Control
No Fealty to One Proprietary Way
Local Economic Stimulus
Draw and keep talent in town
http://lmaugustin.typepad.com/lma/2008/09/commercial-open-source-in-europe-verses-the-us.html
Total lifecycle cost of a software product is large. Of that cost,
perhaps 30% will be licensing cost. The rest is maintenance cost.
FOSS can substantially lower maintenance costs.
http://www.interweft.com.au/papers/coopetition.html
The EU is pouring resources into FOSS as a competitive alternative to
Microsoft's Monopoly, among other motivations.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/ssai/foss-home_en.html
YMMV. Happy reading. Anyone know of better resources? These are
looking a bit "old" in Internet Years. Philosophy doesn't age as
quickly as software tools, but many readers may not be so persuaded of
that idea.
have a day.yad
jdpf
