Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> __/ [ John Bokma ] on Thursday 02 March 2006 17:15 \__
>
>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> ICO comes with a Google search bar, judging from what I could gather
>>> when my sister used it (I first used ICQ when I was 15). It makes it
>>> somewhat balanced, but then again, ICQ is not bundled to an
>>> operating system, to which many people's data is lock.
>>
>> A common misunderstanding: everybody's data is locked to some OS. For
>> example, my documentation is mostly locked to OOo Writer. If I want
>> to unlock it, I need to dive into the XML format. Do I have the time
>> and money to do that?
>>
>> Most Linuxfanboys have no idea of the costs of migration. In short,
>> if there are no tools, you're fcked. Hiring people to maintain,
>> reverse engineer (name one OS project with good documentation at a
>> developers level), and hack OpenSource is way more expensive compared
>> to kiss the ass of MS for the next 10 years.
>>
>> I know, because I have been using mixed environments for over 12
>> years. And Open Source wasn't called that, it was just GNU.
>
> I take your point and agree to an extent. The difference in my mind is
> dependency upon licences and the issue of costly upgrades.
The costs of all the licences are extremely low compared to my other
costs. But the whole vendor-lock-in story is just FUD. Open Source uses
often it's own file format. A nice example: the history file format of
Firefox. I needed it some time ago for some reason. Give it a try.
> I am not a
> miser, but I learned from some past mistakes
One day you will learn that OS en CS both have plenty of troubles. For
many companies it doesn't matter if they have to reverse engineer a CS
file format or an extremely badly documented OS file format. Use the
source is a joke. In both cases aforementioned company can hire someone,
or has to give up. I doubt if there is a big difference in the price for
such a person.
I pick tools because of what they do. If they are Open Source, I am more
happy about the low costs, but I don't mind paying for a good tool. I
mean, I pay for the computer as well.
The dumbest thing one can do, especially when running a company, is
spending a lot of time on trying to glue OSS together in a way close to
what can be bought off the shelve.
I just read a that someone, with his co-workers, decided to replace a
chip on a motherboard. Price of the chip: 5 USD. It took them one day.
Price of a new motherboard at Dell: 1100 USD.
The look on their faces when they got the math right?
Pricesless.
--
John Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Textpad quick reference card (pdf): http://johnbokma.com/textpad/
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