Free is too expensive (Economist) [LWN.net]

Free is too expensive (Economist)

Posted Apr 1, 2012 18:19 UTC (Sun) by Del- (guest, #72641)
In reply to: Free is too expensive (Economist) by khim
Parent article: Free is too expensive (Economist)

"What disaster?"

The disaster is that practically all software categories end up with one dominating vendor, also known as monopoly. Notably, games still have numerous vendors, but they enforce the monopoly on the desktop. Have a look at win7, it contains practically nothing, and costs more than a $100 in the cheapest stripped down version. It is a tragedy (or disaster if you like).

"I think is the point after which the discussion becomes pointless."

That is up to you, I simply informed you that some of your prime examples have proved messy environments for programmers and users. Changing API's and web-developers who only cater to a subset of browsers. Thanks to the open model you seem to detest the web has improved tremendously over the last years, but it has at least as long to go as the linux desktop before it can be considered a stable environment. You are not alone though. Everything on the web seems to be the new mantra, it will fail as badly as similar foolishness before it.

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Free is too expensive (Economist)

Posted Apr 1, 2012 21:34 UTC (Sun) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Windows 7 allows to run other programs. And users are more than happy to pay for this.

I've actually tried to migrate a couple of mid-range (50-100 users) organizations to Linux. We've tried pilot projects with just a few users. Invariably, it turned out that some small but critical app they are using since 90-s can't work in Wine. Then they try do arithmetic:
> 1) Maintaining Windows + Office licenses costs $100 per year per user.
> 2) Writing a new application costs $10000 - that's 3-4 years of Windows 7 licenses.

Large companies might decide to go on with the migration. Small companies usually just continue with Windows.

Free is too expensive (Economist)

Posted Apr 2, 2012 7:43 UTC (Mon) by Del- (guest, #72641) [Link]

You really do open up new topics as we go along here. Migrating company desktops to linux is indeed challenging. Mostly because of lock-in. Sure, there are applications, some places more than other places. In HPC related industry you frequently have the opposite, applications, yes even proprietary ones, are often only available on linux. Guess what, proprietary 3D viewers are abundant on linux.

Start a new thread and I can join you in this discussion. For this thread we have already expanded the capabilities of LWN.