[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > ---- Matt Sealey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I disagree. As someone once said, Linux is only free if your time has no >> value. You may save money by downloading Free software (or even Free >> Software or even open source software or Open Source software - take >> your pick :) but sometimes, and most often, it takes a lot more effort >> to get it to the point where you can integrate it into your organisation. >> This is especially true if you are NOT on a Linux development team helping >> to code and produce the software at hand :) >> > > And commercial software requires no time to install and configure? Once the > cash is exchanged everything just works?
It depends what commercial software. When kids go to school these days they are taught how to use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. When they go to work in the real world, unfortunately they don't seem to have real computing skills, but just "how to use keyboard shortcuts and where the menus are in Word". Training them to use OpenOffice, or building infrastructure to support their weird needs in migrating from the defacto standard Office package to something else costs money. You can buy Office 2007 and have them sit down and not whine, or you can download OpenOffice 2.3 and they will be phoning you every 10 minutes about which menu operation they're after and why you disabled X feature. Commercial software like Lotus is another example; software which purposefully wants to supplant Microsoft's - and it comes with rafts upon rafts of compatibility features, help files and directions on how to make it act like Office apps always did. IBM have pre-sorted it for you. And you pay for that privilege. If you read PAST the paragraph above you'll see I said all that already. Different strokes for different folks, everyone has a difference experience. I don't think you can simply "correct" someone in a single email to say "open source is easy" or even "easier", when it plain, matter of fact isn't for a lot of people. To find out which camp you're in you have to spend the money and find out. I know just as many companies and organisations who have successfully rolled out Open Source replacements, than have decided it's costing too much and causing too many problems and gone back to commercial licensing for very valid reasons (i.e. not because Microsoft offered them a deal, although I do know a couple of those..). > Linux is free whether or not you value your time. The other meme is counter > productive flamebait. The "someone" was likely trying to sell something. The someone was a Netscape engineer in times gone by, he wasn't trying to sell me a thing. Linux is free as in freedom, it is not free as in beer, not even the download is free (you do pay your ISP don't you?) and the time spent compiling the kernel costs money, installing the distribution and doing your own bug triage when a release comes out. Linux implies community involvement, and if you do not want to be part of the Linux community.. what then? What if you don't have time to look for all these bugs and then file bugs on bug trackers and hope that someone will hear your problem and fix it up? What if you don't have time to engineer a solution to it? Maybe they could BUY a Linux - Red Hat or SuSE Enterprise would be good choices. Then, you can call Red Hat and they have to do it for you 'cos you paid for the support contract. But, how is that free as in beer? -- Matt Sealey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Genesi, Manager, Developer Relations -- edubuntu-devel mailing list edubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel