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Advocating Linux / OSS to Management.
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Aug 05, 2007 08:19 AM
from the don't-envy-that-position dept.
from the don't-envy-that-position dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I'm the Senior Developer at a fairly large agency, we're currently a 100% LAMP shop, but I've heard a reliable report through the grapevine that the management a few levels above our office wants to standardize our region on MS .NET. As I'm sure most of you can appreciate, to do such a thing would be... counterproductive, and I could really do with a hand conveying this to a manager whose only real knowledge of Linux is "if it's so good, why would you give it away for free"?"
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Created with love (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Created with love (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Created with love (Score:5, Informative)
So it will be an uphill battle to get managers to see this other 'work-for-fun' worldview. It is best to altogether bypass that explanation and go straight to stuff like 'saving money' or 'security'. The security aspect is good to mention when choosing an OS. The argument is that critical components of a system such as the 'operating system' should be open and not controlled by any single company. It is also useful to point out the deficiencies of open source such as many incomplete projects with lacking documentation, but it is good to mention this only when choosing an already established open source product that is complete, stable and has good documentation
Parent
Your are extremely ignorant wrt business school (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually most managers do not have an MBA. Many have undergraduate degrees in science and engineering. Also, I'm in an MBA program right now and there is no shortage of engineers and IT (including admins) in my class. Some of my professors who have decades of real world experience in strategy and marketing at major corporations have undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, etc.
They probably don't understand why someone would work for free or why someone would volunteer at a soup kitchen.
That is an extremely ignorant statement. There is a lot of charitable work being performed by business schools, fund raising, volunteering, etc. Additionally, a couple classmates actually work at non-profit research or charitable organizations. I know several that made donations of their time to various charities before entering business school, and who have also continued to make such donations despite having far less spare time now that they are back in school. The school also maintains a list of local charities that could use help in some area of business.
You are engaging in the same ignorant stereotyping that many around here complain of with respect to how geeks, and technical issues/people in general, are portrayed on TV and movies.
Most of the managers would never think that work could be fun unless it payed lots of money. Manager-types chose business school just as a way to get more money, it was a pretty good shortcut -- you go to school, pick business as your major, party for 4 years with buds, and then one of their dads hires you as a manager -- the system works great
That is also a fairly ignorant statement. I have BS and MS degrees in CS. Except for 2nd year calculus and theory of computation I am routinely using more advanced math in marketing classes. Yes, I was completely shocked. Yes, I used to hold the same arrogant and erroneous opinions you now hold.
Developers became developers because they like to write software. Most found ways to get payed for it, but they didn't dream of reaches first, then thought that becoming a developer would get them there and chose 'computer science' as a major in college (those that did do that, probably ended up switching to 'communication', 'business administration' or 'comparative literature' before the 2nd year.)
Bull. The vast majority of CS graduates that I have interviewed basically got into it because someone told them it was a good career path. It is difficult to wade through the applicants and find those truly have an interest in the work. Also, donating time to an open source project does not necessarily identify those with an interest. Some of the more savvy career path types realize that this is an easier way to get something on the resume outside of classwork.
Also, some individuals donate time to FOSS for non-altruistic reasons such as ego, improving credibility/reputation, getting some experience in an esoteric area before applying for a job, etc. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this. Just that your are romantically naive about FOSS developers.
Parent
Exactly (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is: you only pay for open source if you have needs that go beyond work that has already been done.
The key business advantages of open source are:
1) Greater business freedom (no software licenses restricting business use, except in the case of the Affero Public License).
2) Greater control over one's own infrastructure, less dependence on outside vendors if things go badly. For example, if you have a major problem in
Don't be fooled, it's the FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be fooled by management's official reasons why they don't go with Linux or other open source software. It really just boils down to FUD.
There's still a prevalent image of Linux and other open source software out there as just hobbyist software. The reason I hear most often cited for not considering open source software at my company is, "There's no one to hold accountable if it breaks." Even when I point out companies that offer paid support--people to be held accountable for making sure the software works--they still chant the "hold accountable" mantra. Those companies aren't big enough, they may go out of business any minute now, blah blah blah.
It's really disgusting sometimes. I've seen software come into our environment that I know for a fact and can demonstrate is crap, and offered alternatives for it. I'm told, "That's all fine and good, but when the software we're going to use breaks, we'll have someone to sue over it." Of course, that doesn't really happen, we always just end up suffering for several years until the next version comes out or some other closed-source competitor comes in and convinces management that they're the way to go instead. Having people to "hold accountable" (which they never are) is more important to my company than having something that actually works.
I don't know what to suggest. Another trait of large companies is that they won't do something until everyone else in the world is doing it. Once a company reaches a certain size, there's no longer a culture of trying new things and trying to separate yourself from the competition; it becomes an unrelenting strive for mediocrity. Right now, everyone else is moving to .NET, so that's probably where you'll end up, regardless of what is best for your company. About the only chance you have is to put together a pretty Powerpoint presentation showing that switching to .NET will cost a billion dollars. Make costs up if you have to. The problem is that if you show it will only cost a million, they'll still do it anyway just to be on that magical .NET bandwagon, and you'll need a ridiculously large cost to justify not doing so.
Just a note (Score:5, Insightful)
MS's licenses specifically state that the operating system is not guaranteed to work for any purpose. You could at least write an angry letter to Linus Torvalds and he'll usenet how stupid you are.
I like Linux, btw.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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In a big company, you don't have a choice. When it comes to FUD versus real information, FUD will always win, no matter what. It's how big companies work. They don't ask, "How much could this make our company better" to make decisions, they ask, "How much could it cost me if it screws up?" Why do you think FUD is such an essential strategy in Microsoft's marketing campaign?
So what I'm saying is that the choice comes down to either fighting fire with
Re:Don't be fooled, it's the FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
People think that because you pay for it you get support or compensation when it goes wrong but you don't. You cannot do anything, when you agree to that EULA you agree that it isn't a perfect solution, it may screw up and your business might lose billions because of it. If that happens tough luck, you c^Hshould have bought Enterprise Edition and had a clustered solution
Saying that I don't hate MS. For some thing Windows is fine and I am happy to use it just as I am happy to use Linux or Solaris or AIX.
At the end of the day if the company you work for wants to change to MS that is up to them, if you feel it is a bad move for the company explain why. If they still switch to MS you can always find another job if you hate it that much. Their are plenty of FOSS based companies around.
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Perceptions (Score:5, Interesting)
Having people to "hold accountable" (which they never are) is more important to my company than having something that actually works.
There's something to that observation. If management spends millions on Microsoft products and something stops working, there's the convenience of blaming Microsoft. Strangely, that appears to work. There's no accountability assigned to the people suggesting they spend millions on products that require near constant tweaking to keep working right. Or that a less expensive and more reliable solution was overlooked.
I'm a hired gun so I'll use whatever the customer wants. It all pays the same whether I'm setting up a LAMP server or 2003. I do make certain to present both alternatives, so when the costs of the Microsoft environment balloon out control I can point back to the fact that they made the choice.
They just never seem to learn. Once in a while the light bulb comes on. I have one small office customer replacing his laptops and workstations with Macs. Not all at once, just as the machines are due for replacement. Many of those office workers would have been fine on Ubuntu, but he just wasn't ready to go that far yet. Another mid-size customer lost their Windows-or-die admin and want to talk about replacing the 20 seats in their call center workstations with Linux. That's pretty much a slam dunk since the call center apps are all web-enabled.
Some signs of progress. :)
Parent
Re:Don't be fooled, it's the FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer I always give for that is "WE can fix it, we have the source"
Then I ask if there is a bug in any closed-source software they use (usually Microsoft) and they ALWAYS answer "Oh yeah! There is a bug in Outlook|IE|Word etc..."
So I ask "Is provider X (usually Microsoft) aware of the bug?" "Yes - but it's been open for about three years now and they still haven't fixed it"
So I end by saying "We have programmers here that could fix it, if only we had the source..."
That usually brings them around.
If you are betting your business on software, you better have the source, otherwise you are a hostage.
Parent
It's the support (Score:4, Insightful)
That won't work in any environment I've worked in, and I work in higher-ed. In my experience, upper management doesn't care so much about bugs - unless it's a customer-critical bug (system down, or business impacted) in which case the vendor provides some kind of fix. Provided you're on a support contract of some kind, of course. Other bugs, and my management has usually responded "all software has bugs". (And certainly, management doesn't want to get into the business of providing fixes for someone else's bugs - you're committing developer resources that are probably needed elsewhere.)
Here's an example: It was a challenge to deploy Linux and other OSS at the enterprise level at the Big-Ten university where I work. What did I do to get "open source" supported by upper management? Support. We purchased RHEL entitlements, and the director and CIO were reassured that we'd get patches, etc. Since we're in higher-ed, we purchased RHEL-Academic entitlements for about half the systems we run (anything where we have pretty much own the core application stack - we run a lot of web applications, for example.) Academic doesn't give us the ability to call in for help - but again, we own the core application stack, so bugs tend to shake out during testing, or else are identified as a bug in application and fixed by our own developers. But we do get patches, updates, etc. In the case where we run full RHEL (not Academic), we're running applications delivered by third-party vendors (PeopleSoft, IBM, etc.) We never wanted to run into a situation where the third-party vendor says "this bug isn't caused by our app, it's in our OS - call your OS vendor", then we have no one to turn to. With full RHEL, at least we can call Red Hat to open an incident.
What mattered to upper management was support. The fact that, we've only ever opened like 3 support calls doesn't matter to upper management. They still wanted (and want) to see a support contract somewhere. And they don't mind paying a reasonable fee for it. And it's good to support vendors like Red Hat and IBM, who support OSS.
Another example: we once tried to set up a fax gateway service that would support something like 20 faxes a day. Not a high-volume thing, so we had looked at some very nice fax software that we found as open source / free software, but didn't come from Red Hat (i.e. not supported there) and didn't have a support contract offered anywhere else that we could find. Response from upper management: no. Not because it was "open source" but because it didn't have a vendor supporting it.
Parent
Don't even bother pointing out costs. (Score:5, Insightful)
The theory that big busineses are all about reducing costs is an oversimplification. Some small businesses worry about keeping costs as low as possible, but generally this is not a major issue for the big ones because they essentially control their markets and can charge whatever they want. The consumer is picking up the tab, so who cares about costs. Take the US telecoms market for example. Does anyone honestly think they're trying to control costs. If so, then why is the US so pathetic in comparison to the global market. Large corporations are just as wasteful as the large governments that they've taken over for in so many industries like telecoms that used to be heavily regulated. There's no efficiency added in this transition, just a new social model. What big businesses do is not to cut costs at every corner. No, what they do is whatever is best for the business ecosystem that they are a part of.
To know what that is, you need to understand some of the core principles of business. There are two particularly important categories of costs from a business perspective regardless of size and those are labor costs versus capital costs. Theses costs are not of equalent from a business management perspective. Labor costs are under constant pressure because they drag businesses down. Labor costs are the enemy of business and as a manager you always look for ways to reduce labor costs so as a worker you might get the idea that cost controls are what business is all about. But that's only half the picture. The other side of the coin is capital costs. Capital costs, on the other hand, are actually a good thing if you run a business. If you understand this you understand that there is a genuine fundamental resistance to open source in business for reasons that are much more complex than simply whether or not it costs more. Open source cuts capital costs and empowers labor which is not a good thing from a business leader's perspective.
And I'm not blaming the managers here. The people who make decisions in a company are just as much trapped in the game as the lowest level janitorial employees. They have to compete against other companies using the rules that companies play by and thus they need to make their decisions according to the laws of capital and not according to what makes sense or what they think is right or wrong. Often times business decisions do not make the slightest bit of sense from a practical perspective and yet they work from a business angle.
So arguing about whether Microsoft costs more is really not going to make much of a difference. The point is: even if Microsoft does costs more, it can cost a thousand times more and still make sense from a business perspective because it is counted as a capital cost and capital costs are good from a business perspective. Look at how US telecoms are still committed to an extremely costly ATM infrastructure in an on-going effort to block out VoIP. Clearly, reducing costs, especially capital costs, is not a major goal for large corporations. Labor costs, on the other hand, those make sense to cut. Ask your boss if he would like you to take a cut in your wages and I'm sure he'll totally see your point.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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There's still a prevalent image of Linux and other open source software out there as just hobbyist software.
Does the "hobbiest" lable describe IBM?
The reason I hear most often cited for not considering open source software at my company is, "There's no one to hold accountable if it breaks."
Every software license I have seen explicitly disclaims liability if something goes wrong. THe reality is, this is par for the course in the software world.
If you want someone to hold accountable if it breaks, hire your own maintenance code staff. If it breaks, you can then hold *them* accountable if they can't fix
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One upgrade, I reported (scratch that, I had to explain it to the call center guy) 3 bugs in their software. I have waited for support for over an hour before I hung
Re:Don't be fooled, it's buggy. (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a lot of differences to consider when considering MS and OSS. I think among the differences that I think is the most significant is the local company's intelligence required. With Microsoft's software, the batteries (brains) come included. With OSS implementations, the people putting it together need more collecting intelligence and understanding of what they are doing.
The consequences that befall afterward, however, are quite well illustrated in history... worms and other malware spreading wildly because of default configurations and all that. (This is not limited to Microsoft... put an idiot behind the wheel of a Linux box and it'll suffer too!)
It's not that people are smarter when they use Linux, it's that smarter people who see things as they really are choose Linux.
Parent
The real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Who gives a fuck? (Score:5, Informative)
Linux is not going to go away simply because a few chowder-head PHBs don't know anything about it. If that were true it would never have gotten established like it has.
If YOU want to use Linux, install it at home and use it there. Let the employer have whatever s/he wants, the employer IS the one spending money, not you. It isn't your job to go on a crusade to change their minds.
When your shop will have spent lots of money to convert from your current set-up to whatever they want and you wind up with more problems to boot, THEN they might start looking for solutions and be more open to something other than
There is nothing less attractive than people trying to force things on you, don't be one of those people yourself.
As the world continues to explore and adopt Linux, things will change, but there will still be people running archaic outdated and sub-par systems, even when Linux will dominate.
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But it isn't your job to be frustrated, it's your job to roll out whatever management decides to go with, you're being paid to do that.
If there were no alternatives, you'd go with whatever was available and live with it, right?
A lot of this "frustration" comes from thinking you need to steer the company. You don't.
If whoever in charge ASKS you for your opinion, you should give it, but never mind tilting at windmills trying to convert peop
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he cares about the company he works for? Maybe he, like most of us, just gets irritated with doing something that is detrimental to everyone simply because he is told to by someone with less understanding than he has. Who are you to tell him that either of those is wrong?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not pro-Microsoft. I'm pro-do-your-job.
ALL the points you made are valid, and between you and me, I'd rather use Linux.
In fact I use Linux exclusively at home. It IS better, and I should know: they used to call me Mr. Windows. I've developed device drivers for every version of Windows from 3.1 on up to Windows 2000, also services and regular GUI apps. I'm a master of Win32 programming.
Up until a few years ago, I was TOTALLY ignorant of Linux, but then I noticed a trend; as time
Actually, you should point out it *isn't* free (Score:3, Insightful)
That you have N hundred thousand (million?) dollars worth of developer, administrator, user skill, experience, time, training invested in he current (working) solution and any change would have to take account of requirement to re-spend that N hundred thousand (million?) dollars worth of money. This being over and above the capital cost of the new standard and the cost of the implementation project.
Then, as a shareholder (you are a shareholder as well, aren't you?) you ask if that's the best way to spend the IT budget by replacing a system which seems to be doing the job with already sunk costs.
Spending on this kind of standardisation effort is rarely worth it. Basically, for a 10% profitable company, the savings would have to be 10 * more than simply not spending the money in the first place.
A few simple business reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
2) If it works, why fuck with it?
This will put the onus on your manager to explain why he wants to use so much money to move to windows. Any reasons he can give at that point should be easy to shoot down.
Re:A few simple business reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Find and address his fears (Score:5, Insightful)
Question: Ask him if he charges his children for the parenting he gives them? Must be worthless, then, right?
Question: Ask him how it is in the company's best interests to spend money on something you can get for free?
Question; Ask him how much he thinks it would cost to convert over, and then give him an estimate of what you could do with the money on your existing LAMP platform.
My guess: FEAR. It seems to me he's afraid that *something* *will* go *wrong* and he wants to be able to Cover His Posterior. (See: Sarbanes-Oxley Act [wikipedia.org].) Address his fear by pointing out the REALITY of what happens WHEN something goes wrong.
Of course, he could mention about coding a work-around, but that holds true for either platform. It's a non-factor.
It might help to also point out that with LAMP, it is possible to be pro-active and actively search for vulnerabilities. Seeing as others would have the same interest in safety, this has already been done to a some extent, but you still have the option of doing this yourself. With MS .NET, you're screwed. It's closed source and there's no way to investigate what problems are there. Security by obscurity? Right.
Testing for vulnerabilities: There's a big difference between what is POSSIBLE with: Black Box (.NET) [wikipedia.org] vs White Box (LAMP) [wikipedia.org].
Still, with a bug in .NET the manager can say it's a bug with Microsoft and wave his hands around it. Sounds good, but in the meantime, his hands are tied, and
the brown stuff is still hitting the spinnie-thingie. With LAMP, he CAN do more than just wait for a fix... and any fix that can be implemented in less than a month is a win compared to Windows.
I know I waved my hands around some in the preceding, but the manager really doesn't care HOW your code works, or even WHAT your code is written in. He's just looking at an abstract "applications that do FOO". Speak to him at his level. Get him to be specific about his fears. For each one, address what could be done with either platform. Provide a reasonable time line. Keep harping on having to wait for MS to get back to you with a fix, while, with LAMP, you could have already constructed one.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Fix the bug, move along, and watch someone down the line get royally screwed when they update a component of the LAMP stack, and find that the bug fix doesn't easily port to the new version, and so they have to choose with staying with the homegrown fork or going with the latest vendor update, which fixes a major security bug but brings back the bug.
It takes a lot of discipline within an organiza
"if it's so good, ... (Score:4, Funny)
Very valid argument. Incidentally, any of you with girlfriends that are providing you with free sex should carefully consider this. The streetwalkers in your nearest city must be better because otherwise they would not be able to charge for it. While your girlfriend might be OK for some amateur playing around, if you are looking to become serious and marry, you need to find someone who is professional about this.
stick it out, try to hold on to some linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Moving to Microsoft takes a big decision, and a big investment. A lot of things tend to go wrong along the way. The LAMP option meanwhile can sit on a back burner until either the MS solution doesn't live up to it's hype, or the cost of ownership starts to impact your business and you start looking at other options.
LAMP can also be a great integrator. We use Apache in places as a reverse-proxy for various IIS servers running proprietary commercial software. While the IIS server is still vulnerable to attack on port 80, all other attack vectors on that platform are cut off. The Apache web server in the front also allows for central (and extremely customizable) logging and better error reporting & handling.
There are ways to keep LAMP in the MS shop, and generally when the money counters DO realize the difference in the cost of ownership, LAMP (in one fassion or another) tends to succeed in the long run.
Prepare a proposal (Score:5, Insightful)
Its simple. I helped a friend do it at his company. We took about 10% of the infrastructure - the cost came out to be around 250K in hardware and licenses and about 1.6M for porting. Of course it was denied. Then, a few weeks later the official directive came in and my friend responded with something like "ok, I'm confused. I just got turned down for a small portion, 10% at a little less than 2M, and now you want me to do everything?" Never heard from them again
Too bad I can't take credit for that idea - I got it from a bunch of guys that did the same where they worked and their proposal cut the whole talks about a transition short... Important thing is you show you looked at it before you were asked to on your own will. Otherwise you'll just be pushed aside as a Linux fanatic or something like that. But if they see you already looked at it and management already said it is too expensive, things look very different.
Peter.
Make your case (Score:3, Insightful)
Will, for example, you have to hire people to provide maintenance and troubleshooting ? Also talk about security.
Most windows shops I know wind up devoting more and more of effort into security, and thius is also a part of the TCO.
Use your industry knowledge (have your competitors been recently compromised or hacked ? Did the OS play a role in that ?).
You also need to figure out how much more things will cost after the transistion and make a case for those moneys too, in case things don't go your way.
Be realistic and objective, and make your case. Good management will appreciate this, even if they don't agree with you. You will probably learn a lot
about the hierarchy in your company by the reaction you get, and that may be useful in your planning for the future as well.
In Boss Speak. (Score:3, Interesting)
2. By making it as Free as possible you lower the entry barrier to a vast international body of security researchers and software developers to both audit and improve the codebase of software they are dependent on.
Advocate a hybrid solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Do not mention "freedom," or any of the FSF's rhetoric as one of Linux's supposed "strengths," because it isn't. Mentioning it will only cause you to be perceived as wierd and probably threatening, and will alienate whichever muggles [elsewhere.org] you attempt to speak to about it. People want to be able to perform computer-related tasks. They generally do not want to become political activists. End of story.
Realise that although you yourself might be an ardent Marxist, most muggles aren't. What that means is that if something is considered valuable, they expect a dollar value to be assigned to it. Don't attempt to fight this, either, because doing so will simply mean again that you are seen as weird, and the person you're talking to is alienated from Linux. Instead, tell them about one of the companies that have put Linux in a box, but that aren't signatories to a Microsoft agreement, (Red Hat comes to mind) and explain that said company offers support as well, so that management won't feel as though installing Linux means trying to do something that they have no knowledge of, alone.
Try to figure out how to come across as normal in general. That means that you're clean, that the FSF doesn't get mentioned, and that none of the other meaningless abstractions that you might foam at the mouth about (but which normal people again don't care about) don't get mentioned either.
If you focus purely and solely on what Linux can do for management on a technical level in a few key areas, you will have a chance to sell it to them. Forget the rest, (in terms of philosophy/politics etc) because management will only view that as bullshit, which, (despite what you might think) it genuinely is.
Financial justification / TCO comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
You will need the initial investment cost for each option, including the LAMP setup even though it is already in place, and you will need all the ongoing expenses over the projected life of the systems you put in place. Make sure you include EVERYTHING. The easy parts will be licensing costs for each software package and any CALs required for connections to the servers, service subscriptions, training, hardware, etc. Some areas can get tricky such as the cost of support infrastructure such as network, power, air conditioning, floor space, but do what you can to collect the numbers.
If possible your objective should be to produce a cost metric based on the service provided, i.e. $/page served, $/transaction, etc. That would help create an accurate comparison in the event there are significant performance differences in the choice of hardware/software.
But keep in mind, if your management is on a religious jihad driven by misconceptions and fraudulent claims about open source you will lose no matter how obvious it may appear that switching to another platform will have no financial benefit. Considering the huge cost and risk involved in swithing an existing platform and IT department over to
As a senior developer it probably isn't a bad idea to go through the financial process just to get a handle on some of the terms the management and financial departments throw around like IRR, ROI, Hurdle Rate, etc.
Show them the Money!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
As a manager, I'm interested in two things - cost and productivity. If I can use a piece of software and get the job done faster and cheaper, I'll use it. End of story.
There are no other variables.
Now, as a technology geek - I have two 24" monitors on my desktop (running XP) and a 17" laptop (running SUSE) with me all the time - I want to use OSS because it is cool and because I despise Microsoft's business model. However, that philosophy will not fly with executives. They simply want to know how I'm going to save money and get stuff done faster. They don't give a sh-- about Linux vs. Microsoft.
One other thing. I personally have a $7M budget for FY 2007/2008. About $1.5M of that is for software services and supplies and another $2M is for hardware. That means the majority of my "expenses" are for personnel. Again, executive management wants to know how to make things cheaper / faster / better. If I need to spend more on personnel to get an incremental savings in software, it ain't gonna look good.
Why It's Free (Score:5, Informative)
While I can't help much with the advocacy side, I may be able to help you with this one.
If your manager went to business school, he probably took price theory. If he did that, the question above is very easy to answer. Just ask him, "In a free-market capitalist society, what is the efficient market price of a mass market good whose marginal cost of production is zero?"
WARNING: If he has not taken price theory (and even if he did but did not really "get" it) and you present this to him, chances are he will not understand. In that case, he may react much like a gorilla presented with a clear box full of fruit that is closed with a latch that he does not understand.
Price theory says that the efficient market price of any mass market good is equal to the marginal cost of production. The marginal cost of production is the difference in cost between producing the first unit and producing the second unit (it's a little more complex than this, because marginal cost tends to not be a straight line curve, but it is a flat straight line with operating systems, so it works). With something like an operating system, the marginal cost of production is zero - once you make the first copy, the second copy costs nothing to produce. Therefore, the efficient market price of operating systems is zero.
The following is from the Wikipedia entry for price [wikipedia.org].
Theory of price asserts that the market price reflects interaction between two opposing considerations. On the one side are demand considerations based on marginal utility, while on the other side are supply considerations based on marginal cost. An equilibrium price is supposed to be at once equal to marginal utility (counted in units of income) from the buyer's side and marginal cost from the seller's side. Though this view is accepted by almost every economist, and it constitutes the core of mainstream economics, it has recently been challenged seriously.
In short, the more interesting question is, "Why would any corporation in a free market capitalist society pay for an operating system?" It makes sense to pay for service because the marginal cost of an hour of technical support is significantly non-zero. It does not make sense to pay for an operating system.
There's been a lot of (fairly negative) replies (Score:4, Insightful)
Firstly, I'm going to discount the "fancy lunches" thing. I don't think it's as prevalent as some on here would have you believe, and even if it is in this case it's not the kind of thing you can easily fight against. This leaves us with "managing the business properly".
Any (sane) business owner/high level manager doesn't spend any serious quantity of money unless there is a clear business benefit. Remember those words: "Business benefit".
Now, a business benefit boils down to one of two things:
1. Helps the company make money.
2. Helps the company save money.
Every other reason, once you've drilled down far enough, ultimately boils down to this. For example, "Reduce risk to the business in the event of trouble" is just another way of saying "There's a strong chance that if something goes wrong, it will cost us a small fortune. This purchase either reduces the likelihood of something going wrong, or it reduces the size of that "small fortune". In other words, it saves money."
This, by the way, is precisely why management often have trouble understanding why software would be given away for free ("where's the business benefit?") and also why most of Microsoft's FUD has been along the lines of "Windows costs less than Linux".
Understanding this means that you can now ask yourself/your manager what the perceived business benefit of such a move would be. There is a possibility (unlikely but not entirely unknown) that there is a genuine business reason you haven't considered which, with the best will in the world, does provide a solid business reason. If this is the case: live with it or leave. You were employed to do a technical job, not preach a religion.
If not: get organised. List the pros and cons of each solution (including your current one), emphasising the things which are likely to be of concern to those higher up than you.
Getting upset and having a moan on
Because it's free is what makes it good (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of OSS is donated time; there isn't a strict corporate deadline to meet where things get duct-taped just to keep PHB happy and get the project done.
2) Peer review
If something sucks, it is noted. Even when something doesn't suck, people will say it sucks and many eyes will be on it.
3) Source code
You get full access to the source code to PROVE how it is handling your company's assets. If you don't like it, you can presumably change it, when you want it changed.
4) Robust development base
Typically, people working on OSS software do it because they love the work - not the pay. This equates to a system where people have a vested interest in how well the system works.
This isn't about .NET vs LAMP (Score:5, Insightful)
Start looking around for other jobs.
The issue here isn't about .NET vs LAMP, or proprietary vs open source. I would give the same advice if the decision had been the reverse, ie switch from 100% .NET to LAMP.
Basically your company's upper management is going to make a huge decision without any input from developers. If senior developers like yourself weren't consulted before the change, it's unlikely they have a migration plan that is more detailed than "1) Switch from LAMP to .NET 2) ???? 3) Profit!". Is this a company you want to stay in?
Free? (Score:4, Funny)
Step 2: pocket $150 a license.
Step 3: profit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's attitudes like yours that are gradually sinking all aspects of the engineering industry, not just software. Forget actually coming up with a system that works, just make sure it's cheap an
Re:Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
" a manager whose only real knowledge of Linux is "if it's so good, why would you give it away for free"?"
"Because the best things in life are free - you PAY for crap like Windows."
Ask him is he things solaris or java or aix are "unprofessional" products. Versions of all those available for free downloads - heck, Sun sent me the install dvds for opensolaris for free. Then ask him why he thinks that a few thousand programmers working at Microsoft can beat out a world-wide network of programmers, many paid by industry leaders like IBM and Novell, whose work is peer-reviewed!
Would he feel confident if his doctor started recommending non-peer-reviewed cures and drugs? Does he like the idea doing away with the notion of a fair trial by a jury of his peers? Would he trust an airplane, a nuclear power plant, his fridge or toilet if they ran Windows?
Then tell him that he really needs to get with the times - his attitude is stuck in the '80s. - that's 1380, when everything was run by guilds with "secret knowledge." Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863, and since then, people want more and more of that "freedom" in all parts of their lives.
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A better answer (Score:5, Interesting)
The fundamnetal difference between open source software and Linux is not whether people pay but rather who pays for what when. Microsoft pays developers to build software and absorbs all of the costs themselves. They then charge license fees to recoup those costs and make a profit. Open Source software costs money at the development stage too, but only the people or businesses that need those changes enough to pay for them must do so. Consequently the difference is that open source software spreads the cost of development around up front on an on-demand basis, while Microsoft charges in arrears and must control certain aspects of the use of that software to make money.
As a result, moving to Microsoft software would require:
1) paying license fees
2) paying someone to track software licenses
3) a move from a solid, peer-reviewed codebase where users and developers actually talk to eachother to one where marketing runs everything.
4) scrapping all existing code and building everything from scratch.
5) The loss of a large measure of control over your own existing infrastructure.
Furthermore, Microsoft tech support is pretty much worthless these days.
Additional points the management should consider if there are concerns about Linux:
1) IBM is far larger than Microsoft and is putting substantial development effort into Linux. Linux is no longer the hobbiest operating system and there are a lot of people working on making it work well on high-end hardware.
2) If
If they are not convinced, take a look at my web page and call the sales number
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't suggest arguing on the "doesn't cost anything" path, since, as you've pointed out, many PHBs don't understand the concept of a quality product that someone gives away. As a matter of fact, I would recommend pointing out that current software distribution models are such t
Re:Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect upper management is more concerned about basing a business on software that has no support, and that seems like it could go off in any direction on the whim of its authors and the company would be left in the dark unable to do business.
Most corporate types want assurances. they want to know that they will be able to get supply of the things they need (in thise case: OS, computers, developers).
From their limited knowledge they aren't certain that Linux will support computers that come in next year, then what do they do, base their business on older stuff and try to migrate over to something else at the last minute. The aren't sure that the guys working on Linux might just decide it's boring and quit working on it, suddenly there is no more free OS anymore. again they have to adapt the business at the last minute.
none of this is true of course, but this is the sort of impression I have gotten talking over with business types that didn't want to adopt linux or wanted to switch away from it.
There is a feeling that Microsoft will always be there, and that they will always be ready to sell you the software you need for your business. which is somewhat true, but not entirely so.
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