How useful are 'proprietary vs. open source' TCO studies? (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

NewsForge talks with David A. Wheeler about the usefulness of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) studies. "NewsForge: Who can we trust to do independent studies? Is anyone truly independent and unbiased? Wheeler: In the end, the only way to be really sure that you have unbiased results is to do the comparison yourself -- which you have to do anyway, because some measures like total cost of ownership (TCO) and performance are incredibly sensitive to specific environments."

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How useful are 'proprietary vs. open source' TCO studies? (NewsForge)

Posted Apr 8, 2004 18:22 UTC (Thu) by davidl (guest, #12156) [Link]

No, because some of us run open source and proprietary systems. If you're talking about Windows and Microsoft software as the proprietary system - well, anything is better than it.

TCO wise, Microsoft is right. Software licenses should be a small part of the cost. With Microsoft software, that just doesn't end up being the case though. Windows and Office at the client end leads to Windows at the server end, then you buy Exchange, SQL Server etc. Then there is client access licenses for them, then you need to install and administer them (no easy task, whatever anyone says), and then you get the viruses, so you need anti-virus software, then you need to spend time effort and resources getting all this right. Even then, Microsoft software doesn't do what it should do out of the box, which is designed to create opportunities for Microsoft Gold and Silver Certified Partners. Microsoft Certified Partners, are in general, a totally uselesss bunch of people.

All in all, you have something where licenses should be quite a small cost, but one thing leads to another and you have to spend time effort and resources getting the setup right. Then the system doesn't do what it should do and you spend time, money and expertise getting it to do what it should be doing with a custom solution or buying yet more software. An entire cottage industry of absolutely useless software has grown around Windows, and most of it is total rubbish.

That is my TCO analysis, and it is not sensitive to any specific environment. It happens everywhere.

How useful are 'proprietary vs. open source' TCO studies? (NewsForge)

Posted Apr 8, 2004 21:35 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

A good example, but they are not the only ones who do this kind of thing. In my long experience with this industry, I've learned that the general rule (with definite exceptions) is simple: the richer they are, the greedier they get, and they start sucking in clients like giant vacuum cleaners. Then they attach one tentacle after another, until the only way the client can escape is to cut all the tentacles off at once.

*Do not* rule out the possibility that commercial Linux may eventually wind up like this. It could, if people aren't vigilant, and if people are willing to continue electing leaders who make vendor lock-in easier for the greedy.

Without going into specifics, I'm saying this today because I've had this thrown in my face just over the past few days from an "open" software vendor, and I suspect my bosses are perfectly happy with the situation.

I think what it comes down to is this: most of the really painful suffering caused by this kind of greed winds up with the system administrators and maintaners, and nobody gives a damn about them anyway.

The greedier people get, the higher TCO will go, no matter in what systems. For instance, what's going to happen now tha Sun and Microsoft are nosing each other?

The only solution to this is to stand up and fight against the greed (and not put anything into the greedy pocketbooks in the first place.)

This is a hard lesson to learn, and no matter what you do, there will be many, many traps. I know, because I've fallen in some myself, and seen other people *walk into them willingly.*

How useful are 'proprietary vs. open source' TCO studies? (NewsForge)

Posted Apr 9, 2004 14:55 UTC (Fri) by bubbacode (guest, #14855) [Link]

I find them to be usefull only to a point and that is to look at what cost factors they used to calculate TCO. In other words, what factors can contribute to the TCO.

The "independent" conclusions IMHO are worthless from the start becuase they usually include factors you don't want included or don't feel need to be included and exclude important factors that are important to your needs.

The most important "costs" are the costs of getting a system to do what you need it to do and the costs of developing or deploying the software that is special to your companies needs (such as CRM, ERP, in house software, etc.).

The lack of license hasle and the low cost of development tools is what really makes Linux and open source so much more atractive than Windows for certain applications.