Comments on: Is there a price to pay for free software? http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/is-there-a-price-to-pay-for-free-software/ Share the experience Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:39:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Russell Plummer http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/is-there-a-price-to-pay-for-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-131 Russell Plummer Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:08:34 +0000 http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/?p=108#comment-131 Tim, I agree with your views around the supportability of the open source products you mention, and I think it is good to see the availabilty of open source software putting pressure on established vendors to produce and support better products. What I was trying to highlight is that it is quite reasonable for IT people to get to grips with the differences between open source products & the established vendor offerings. However the world of business is not 100% populated by IT people & we have to accept that the majority of users will need some support (learning & usage assistance) in mastering those differences. It is the cost of providing that usage support that tends to be overlooked. Tim,

I agree with your views around the supportability of the open source products you mention, and I think it is good to see the availabilty of open source software putting pressure on established vendors to produce and support better products.

What I was trying to highlight is that it is quite reasonable for IT people to get to grips with the differences between open source products & the established vendor offerings. However the world of business is not 100% populated by IT people & we have to accept that the majority of users will need some support (learning & usage assistance) in mastering those differences. It is the cost of providing that usage support that tends to be overlooked.

]]> By: Tim Regester http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/is-there-a-price-to-pay-for-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-52 Tim Regester Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:53:16 +0000 http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/?p=108#comment-52 I have been supporting SMEs for 6 years now, I have been successfully installing and supporting Open source products in several clients for many of them for most of that time. I take issue with the complaints about lack of support on this simple basis, Microsoft do not supply free support for their products throughout the product lifetime and in that six year period I have had no more issues with Openoffice, Firefox, Scribus and Thunderbird than I have with my microsoft dependent clients, indeed I have had very few occasions to actually seek fixes and workarounds for either. I wish the same could be said of the operating systems, Windows XP and Server 2003 are prone to equal amounts of periods of stability and instability whereas the Linux clients and servers suffer no such problems. The savings on open source software are real and quantifiable, sure if a client needs complex macros and integration between apps open source is a difficult solution and Microsoft would be better, but if the open source apps are used as is they work fine. More than that though is that Openoffice has moved up 2 whole versions while MS Office has lurched from the bug ridden XP to the stable 2003 with 2 service packs to the dumbed down mess that is 2007. Openoffice has a clear upgrade path with no costs, Staroffice is a supported version of Openoffice the kernel being the same, I have never encountered any other office package in use in the last six years so cannot comment on them. Usability is an overblown issue in my experience, MS has removed usability whereas Openoffice has the potential for it to be added. Conversion was easy with a few questions but that is it. I have never had to cross-train anyone. Open source is here to stay and hooray for that. If someone was to start a business tomorrow I would probably suggest a completely open source solution, after all why waste money in tough times. Any good IT support person does both, only the trained chimps cannot get their head around linux and openoffice, it is not rocket science. I have been supporting SMEs for 6 years now, I have been successfully installing and supporting Open source products in several clients for many of them for most of that time. I take issue with the complaints about lack of support on this simple basis, Microsoft do not supply free support for their products throughout the product lifetime and in that six year period I have had no more issues with Openoffice, Firefox, Scribus and Thunderbird than I have with my microsoft dependent clients, indeed I have had very few occasions to actually seek fixes and workarounds for either.

I wish the same could be said of the operating systems, Windows XP and Server 2003 are prone to equal amounts of periods of stability and instability whereas the Linux clients and servers suffer no such problems.

The savings on open source software are real and quantifiable, sure if a client needs complex macros and integration between apps open source is a difficult solution and Microsoft would be better, but if the open source apps are used as is they work fine.

More than that though is that Openoffice has moved up 2 whole versions while MS Office has lurched from the bug ridden XP to the stable 2003 with 2 service packs to the dumbed down mess that is 2007. Openoffice has a clear upgrade path with no costs, Staroffice is a supported version of Openoffice the kernel being the same, I have never encountered any other office package in use in the last six years so cannot comment on them.

Usability is an overblown issue in my experience, MS has removed usability whereas Openoffice has the potential for it to be added. Conversion was easy with a few questions but that is it. I have never had to cross-train anyone.

Open source is here to stay and hooray for that. If someone was to start a business tomorrow I would probably suggest a completely open source solution, after all why waste money in tough times. Any good IT support person does both, only the trained chimps cannot get their head around linux and openoffice, it is not rocket science.

]]> By: John Gladman http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/is-there-a-price-to-pay-for-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-36 John Gladman Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:39:25 +0000 http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/?p=108#comment-36 I hope I am not going to be controversial here as we are a software developer and obviously I am biased!! The benefit for me of paying for software is mainly around trust, support, documentation and development of the product. Free products may have bugs that will never be fixed, incompatability issues and also you don't always know what may be hidden in the code. Questions to ask: Who wrote it and are they reliable? Can you take a chance with your business with free code? What is the cost if there is something hidden in there that causes system problems? If I have problems, how do I get support? I am not against free software and I have researched companies and used their software, but not in a commercial environment. As an example primo pdf is a brilliant piece of software for creating PDF's and Adobe Acrobat is very expensive for the same task. However, creating a pdf document is a little different to using a piece of software that is either business dependant/critical or customer facing that may have adverse impact on a customer experience. What is the cost of that? The learning a new piece of software as a reason to not use free software is valid for both free and paid software, so it's validity as an argument is negated. I hope I am not going to be controversial here as we are a software developer and obviously I am biased!!

The benefit for me of paying for software is mainly around trust, support, documentation and development of the product. Free products may have bugs that will never be fixed, incompatability issues and also you don’t always know what may be hidden in the code. Questions to ask:

Who wrote it and are they reliable?
Can you take a chance with your business with free code?
What is the cost if there is something hidden in there that causes system problems?
If I have problems, how do I get support?

I am not against free software and I have researched companies and used their software, but not in a commercial environment. As an example primo pdf is a brilliant piece of software for creating PDF’s and Adobe Acrobat is very expensive for the same task. However, creating a pdf document is a little different to using a piece of software that is either business dependant/critical or customer facing that may have adverse impact on a customer experience. What is the cost of that?

The learning a new piece of software as a reason to not use free software is valid for both free and paid software, so it’s validity as an argument is negated.

]]> By: Russell Plummer http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/is-there-a-price-to-pay-for-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-33 Russell Plummer Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:35:30 +0000 http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/?p=108#comment-33 It's a good point Richard, especially taking the viewpoint of a home user. However, I was trying to give a perspective on the learning effort as one of the cost factors that you need to consider. others include cost of finding support, potential business risk of using software that possibly hasn't been subject to the same rigourous testing that a more mainstream product would recieve. I've had quite a few experiences of seeing small businesses look at product X at cost £ABC; and then at free product Y; and decide that they can save £ABC, then later ask why they are not getting that saving. If you are a large company and can afford to develop the training & support infrastructure then you can make savings with free or open source products. Smaller companies on the other hand cannot, and the publicly available support (local colleges providing trained folks familiar with Microsoft products for example, and local PC shops with a small tech support service for Microsoft Office) isn't available for the non-mainstream products. I think the summary was that £ABC vs £0 spend was not necessarily going to give a saving of £ABC. Regards Russell It’s a good point Richard, especially taking the viewpoint of a home user.

However, I was trying to give a perspective on the learning effort as one of the cost factors that you need to consider. others include cost of finding support, potential business risk of using software that possibly hasn’t been subject to the same rigourous testing that a more mainstream product would recieve.

I’ve had quite a few experiences of seeing small businesses look at product X at cost £ABC; and then at free product Y; and decide that they can save £ABC, then later ask why they are not getting that saving.

If you are a large company and can afford to develop the training & support infrastructure then you can make savings with free or open source products. Smaller companies on the other hand cannot, and the publicly available support (local colleges providing trained folks familiar with Microsoft products for example, and local PC shops with a small tech support service for Microsoft Office) isn’t available for the non-mainstream products.

I think the summary was that £ABC vs £0 spend was not necessarily going to give a saving of £ABC.

Regards

Russell

]]> By: Richard Downer http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/is-there-a-price-to-pay-for-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-32 Richard Downer Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:07:00 +0000 http://blog.eclipse.net.uk/?p=108#comment-32 I think what you are actually talking about is replacing software from the incumbent supplier with *any* alternative, rather than just an open source alternative. I assume that the problem your family had with OpenOffice isn't that it's free, but that it's not Microsoft Office. They would presumably have exactly the same problem with StarOffice, or Ability Office, or Corel WordPerfect Office, all of which are commercial paid-for software. So it's a bit unfair to pitch this as a problem with open source, when it's pretty much a problem for the whole of the software industry outside of Microsoft and other monopoly players. I think what you are actually talking about is replacing software from the incumbent supplier with *any* alternative, rather than just an open source alternative. I assume that the problem your family had with OpenOffice isn’t that it’s free, but that it’s not Microsoft Office. They would presumably have exactly the same problem with StarOffice, or Ability Office, or Corel WordPerfect Office, all of which are commercial paid-for software. So it’s a bit unfair to pitch this as a problem with open source, when it’s pretty much a problem for the whole of the software industry outside of Microsoft and other monopoly players.

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