Greg, the cost of ownership of commercial verses Open Source is a poor comparision. But here is a comparision of Open Source as compared to commercial solutions as it might be compared to buying or renting a home.
1) Commercial Offerrings are like renting at higher than mortgage rates. When you stop paying rent, they take the lodging away from you and all you have are rent receipts to show for it. Any data you had is now locked up because you no longer have the key to where the data is stored. Hopefully your new landlord will help you load your data into the new rental location (but that will come with a conversion price). Because you are renting, you will not be allowed to customize your rental property much. As your business grows, the application may not and leave you in the hermit crab's dilema, too big for your shell and no place to go...;^). Others may have a key to your data store. 2) Open Source is like buying the house are less than rental prices, but you do have to do the maintenance on the porterty. You can add onto your property any time you wish. No one can take it away from you. Your data is as safe as your commitment to security. No one can take away your access to this data. You can grow and migrate as you see fit. This also means that you need to take the responsibility for knowing about what it takes to support your system. You are a more informed user. Education may be costly, but ignorance is so very much more expensive in the long run. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Woodhouse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net> Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 11:24 AM Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] Importance of Open Source SoftwareUnderscored > > > --- Valerie Harvey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > The news article at > > http://www.hindu.com/2006/06/01/stories/2006060104180200.htm > > my be useful for the Hardhats page. > > > > Valerie > > > > Certainly, there must be some formal studies into cost of ownership. My > own "back of the envelope" estimates indicate that maintaining a VistA > system is by no means cheap. On the other hand, with a proprietary > solution, you'll end up paying for the same thing in the form of > licensing fees, support and upgrades. There doesn't seem to be any > obvious way to estimate the difference in cost of ownership of > comparable (whatever that means) open source and proprietary systems. > > === > Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Metaphors be with you. > > > _______________________________________________ > Hardhats-members mailing list > Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members > > _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
