Microsoft: An Open Source Windows Is ‘Definitely Possible’

[DeltaLover]

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/microsoft-open-source-windows-definitely-possible/

M$ finally seems to realize that open source is the future when it comes to horizontal developement (operating systems been the most extreme of them)...

[Hoofless_Wonder]

Well, even if M$ does allow Windows to become open source, the problem is.....it's still Windows. And what flavor? XP? :)

This also seems to contradict the approach M$ is considering for Windows 10, where they want to lock the boot loader to one o/s on the hardware....

It's interesting times in IT. I can't believe how quickly IBM has nose-dived, and how they're still struggling with so much dead wood in middle management. The future belongs to the nimble and the cheap, and historically that's not been M$. As more businesses port their desktops to the cloud or run converged infrastructures in co-los, , then you'll really start to see the revenue stream dry up of the biggest players.

Of course, I've been wrong before - I thought VMWare was a fad.....

[Robert Goren]

Isn't "open source" anti-capitalism? just asking!

[DeltaLover]

Isn't "open source" anti-capitalism? just asking!

Quite the opposite (http://www.cnet.com/news/sorry-socialists-open-source-is-a-capitalists-game/)

[Dave Schwartz]

DL,

I do not understand what is so great about that link you posted. It basically says, "Open Source is Capitalism" but with no explanation why.

Can you explain why it is capitalism?



Please understand I am not saying it is anything else, I simply do not see anything of value in the article.

[wilderness]

Dave,
just do a google on 'open source license', which DL's link mentions.

[DeltaLover]

DL,

I do not understand what is so great about that link you posted. It basically says, "Open Source is Capitalism" but with no explanation why.

Can you explain why it is capitalism?



Please understand I am not saying it is anything else, I simply do not see anything of value in the article.


Open Source transforms software more to the vehicle rather than the destination.

OS is beneficial for the free economy and capitalism, since it tends to level the inequalities that are produced by large enterprises, essentially blocking their evolution to monopolies.

High quality and no licensing fees are the main reasons why the vast majority of start-ups are basing their implementations on OS platforms. Keeping infrastructure cost as low as possible is one the most fundamental rules of any business but when it comes to a start up is what makes the difference of life of death. It is not a coincidence, that almost all of the successful giants of the contemporary Web are still using OS, exactly as they did from their humble beginnings and of course this will not change any time soon.

What is great about OS, is that it usually is backed from huge companies (Google, IBM, Oracle, Facebook just to name a few), something that is continuously improving its quality attracting even more small players who will try to get a market slice, keeping pricing low and evolution quick and always beneficial for the end user..

Capitalism and open source software are completely aligned and as time goes by, we will only have more and better OS platforms, while the proprietary vendors will continue to loose ground and market share.

[Dave Schwartz]

In your post you stated why it is great but did not mention the mechanism of producing money.

How does a small software company monetize itself if it produces OS software for the customer (as opposed to B2B)?

Please note: Not trying to be argumentative in any way. Just need a little help understanding this. I have never gotten how it works.

[DeltaLover]

In your post you stated why it is great but did not mention the mechanism of producing money.

How does a small software company monetize itself if it produces OS software for the customer (as opposed to B2B)?

Please note: Not trying to be argumentative in any way. Just need a little help understanding this. I have never gotten how it works.


There are many ways to make money from open source software. Some of them are as follows:


Dual-licensing
SaaS
Consulting
Workikng as a developer for a funding organization
Direct donations
Bounties
Advertising
Proprietary Extensions

[DeltaLover]

Recent example of a $9K python bounty:

$9000 bounty paid for Python bug

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9327394

The Internet Bug Bounty

https://hackerone.com/internet-bug-bounty

[DeltaLover]

An example of dual licensing:


Alfresco Community Edition

http://www.alfresco.com/products/community

Alfresco One (with a paid licence)
http://www.alfresco.com/products/compare/details

[DeltaLover]

Example of direct donations

http://www.vim.org/sponsor/index.php

[DeltaLover]

magento

Open Source

http://magento.com/products/overview#community

Enterprise Edition
http://enterprise.magento.com/

Certifications
http://magento.com/training/catalog/certification

Courses
http://magento.com/training/catalog/developers

[DeltaLover]

Rabbit MQ

Open Source
https://www.rabbitmq.com/download.html


Training - Consulting
https://www.rabbitmq.com/services.html

[Dave Schwartz]

DL,

I am sorry but I must respectfully disagree with the examples you gave. I do not see a single one that shows capitalism in action for anything but a large company.

None of these (as far as I can see) represent a company selling to consumer. They are almost all business-to-business, and a couple are jobs.


Dual-licensing - That is not to customers, that is to companies.

SaaS - This one has promise, but then it isn't really open source if you are charging. I mean, Microsoft can't very well ask for a monthly fee for Excel and give it away at the same time.

Consulting - B2B not B2C

Working as a developer for a funding organization - That's a job.
Direct donations - That is not capitalism
Bounties -That is not a growth model for a company.
Advertising - How does a small company generate revenue to the consumer?
Proprietary Extensions - Again, the customer does not purchase these.



Could you see a way for YOU to sell to consumers?

[DeltaLover]

mongo

Open Source
https://www.mongodb.org/

Consulting
https://www.mongodb.com/products/consulting

Training
https://university.mongodb.com/private_training?_ga=1.205465872.1220174508.142861 3155

Development Support
https://www.mongodb.com/products/development-support

Managed Services
https://mms.mongodb.com/?_ga=1.143515957.1220174508.1428613155

[DeltaLover]

You mean that consulting time, training or an enterprise version is not B2B?

[DeltaLover]

Could you see a way for YOU to sell to consumers?

As I said above, you can sell to consumers: consulting time, support, training, hosting etc I recall working for a company who was using alfresco community edition for several years that eventually decided to move to its enterprise version based on an yearly licensing plan.. Also, I know many developers who are using the community edition of pycharm while some of them are deciding to use the paid edition... Same thing, applies to MySql, I recall starting a large scale development which eventually ended up using the enterprise version of it, just a few years later...

[Dave Schwartz]

You mean that consulting time, training or an enterprise version is not B2B?

I was saying (or at least meaning) that B2B can work but B2C is going to be very difficult.

[tupper]

There are successful small outfits selling open source items, but the items are usually hardware.

Directly selling open source software is somewhat of a paradox, but there are many who do so -- they sell their compiled binaries, while the source code remains open and free. This scenario is found with certain large sets of software and with a few special Linux distros, as most folks don't want to take the time/effort to compile an entire distro, so they pay a small fee for the binary.

Funds generated from open source software mostly come from associated services/hardware/advertising.

Proprietary software makers often have a hard time competing with the large open source projects, not just because the open source software is free, but also because open source software often has rapid, continual development by a group of enthusiastic developers, and, thus, it is usually more secure and cutting-edge than the proprietary competitors, contrary to popular notions.

[Dave Schwartz]

Tupper, that is how I see it as well.

The biggest issues with Linux is that the end user has to be willing and able to spend a couple of hours or more getting things to work all over again when there is a major upgrade.

Most people - and certainly most small businesses - just do not have the personal or the time to do that.

In my area, Linux experts are difficult to find. Contractors typically get $175 per hour. Fixing what is broken after a major release often carried with it a price tag of $400-$500 for me.

The alternative is to fall behind in upgrades which is equivalent to falling behind in security.

Had to let it Linux go, even though it was so much more stable and safe than Windows.

[tupper]

The biggest issues with Linux is that the end user has to be willing and able to spend a couple of hours or more getting things to work all over again when there is a major upgrade.No.

Not sure what you mean by "major upgrade," but I can click a mouse and upgrade a rolling distro within seconds, or with a few mouse clicks I can completely reinstall a distro within 15 minutes and everything works.


Most people - and certainly most small businesses - just do not have the personal or the time to do that.Part of the beauty of open source is that the "businesses" don't need to have the personnel in house nor do they need to spend a lot of time coding on their own. Popular open source projects develop themselves, usually with advanced innovation.


In my area, Linux experts are difficult to find.Your coders probably don't need to be in close physical proximity.


Contractors typically get $175 per hour.Hmmm...


Fixing what is broken after a major release often carried with it a price tag of $400-$500 for me.Not sure what is meant by "fixing what is broken" nor by "major release." Do you mean recompiling after a new kernel version is released?

Again, any such upgrades almost always happen at no cost with active open source projects.

[Red Knave]

I was saying (or at least meaning) that B2B can work but B2C is going to be very difficult.Why would you say that B2B isn't capitalism?

[Dave Schwartz]

I didn't say that. I said that living on donations was not capitalism.

The question I asked, is how does the B2C model work for open source?

I have not seen any examples (ever) that made sense for a small business dealing directly with consumers.

[Red Knave]

I didn't say that. I said that living on donations was not capitalism.Well, okay, but you also said ...
I am sorry but I must respectfully disagree with the examples you gave. I do not see a single one that shows capitalism in action for anything but a large company.
None of these (as far as I can see) represent a company selling to consumer. They are almost all business-to-business, and a couple are jobs.Selling to "consumers" is not the definition of capitalism.
Are you equating consumerism and capitalism?

[DeltaLover]

I think that open source it all about capitalism. Not because of selling it to consumers of course, which is exactly the opposite of what is supposed to be, but because it gives the chance to the small guy to compete against the enterprise.

Every time you are posting a google query, you are becoming a client of an open source platform, which although it was never sold to you directly, it still is enough to generate billions for its developer... I think this is a good enough proof, that OS is pro-capitalism and certainly has the potential to create wealth...

[Dave Schwartz]

Selling to "consumers" is not the definition of capitalism.
Are you equating consumerism and capitalism?

Absolutely not.

The question was purely selfish on my part. I was trying to see a way for ME to use it.

Have been trying for years.

I think that OS is a wonderful idea for B2B. Always have. It opens up so many new avenues, as Delta Lover explained earlier.

It is the equivalent to giving away the razors and selling the blades; a concept that has been gone from shaving for about 40 years. (On THAT topic, I just cannot get a good shave these days. Seriously.)

[Red Knave]

Absolutely not.

The question was purely selfish on my part. I was trying to see a way for ME to use it.
Okay, selfish I understand. :)
OS just doesn't work quite the way you want it to. Or me either. However, I see how useful it can be as Delta Lover has said. I use a lot of OS stuff.

On THAT topic, I just cannot get a good shave these days. Seriously.Ditto. Maybe we need some open source razors? ;)

[Greyfox]

When it comes to computers and servers and systems, I'm still in the Stone Age with my development.

But reading this thread and what you guys are saying I'm wondering:

"How do these guys ever stay on top of all this computer geekology?
It seems to me that by the time you move on to something new, what you've moved on to is already starting to be obsolete.'

Is that a faulty observation?"

[DeltaLover]

When it comes to computers and servers and systems, I'm still in the Stone Age with my development.

But reading this thread and what you guys are saying I'm wondering:

"How do these guys ever stay on top of all this computer geekology?
It seems to me that by the time you move on to something new, what you've moved on to is already starting to be obsolete.'

Is that a faulty observation?"


As you now computing industry moves faster than any other domain of human knowledge. The progress it went through last seven decades, is probably way more than any other sector of the technology has gone through in time spans that can be measured in thousands of years.

Please note that I am referring to the technology part of computing and not computer science which does not move that fast (or fast at all!)..

Depending on the nature of the technology, it is quite possible by the time you become an advanced user of it, you discover that something newer and more innovative has been created and you start again as a 'novice' to learn the new stuff.. Of course, this does not apply across the board, as there are domains where knowledge last for longer periods of time and there also some others that remain the same for many years. Still, if you want to remain competent as a computer geek and professional, you certainly cannot afford to not follow the evolution as close as you can, at least on the fields where you specialize more..

[Dave Schwartz]

Depending on the nature of the technology, it is quite possible by the time you become an advanced user of it, you discover that something newer and more innovative has been created and you start again as a 'novice' to learn the new stuff.. Of course, this does not apply across the board, as there are domains where knowledge last for longer periods of time and there also some others that remain the same for many years. Still, if you want to remain competent as a computer geek and professional, you certainly cannot afford to not follow the evolution as close as you can, at least on the fields where you specialize more..

Amen to that!

DL, do you find (as I do) that technology seems to make a giant leap (like speed, connectivity, memory, etc.) then things plateau while techniques (programming, data mining, etc.) catches up - taking advantage of the newer technology.

Then the entire process repeats itself?

[DeltaLover]

Amen to that!

DL, do you find (as I do) that technology seems to make a giant leap (like speed, connectivity, memory, etc.) then things plateau while techniques (programming, data mining, etc.) catches up - taking advantage of the newer technology.

Then the entire process repeats itself?

Absolutely!

Still, there exist some domains where knowledge does not change so fast but the higher we move in the pyramid of applications the most volatile things are becoming as we continually discover new ways to implement more efficient and comprehensive.

As an example, my UNIX / LINUX knowledge has very little been changed since I was first introduced to it thirty years ago, while in the same period, I had to re-learn many times the GUI approach, starting from plain vanilla character based interfaces, going to fat desktop clients using MFC, WinForms and WPF and most recently to wxWidgets, jQuery, angular, backbone and today to react and iOS8... This race never ends and this is part of its beauty!

[Hoofless_Wonder]

....The biggest issues with Linux is that the end user has to be willing and able to spend a couple of hours or more getting things to work all over again when there is a major upgrade.

Most people - and certainly most small businesses - just do not have the personal or the time to do that.

In my area, Linux experts are difficult to find. Contractors typically get $175 per hour. Fixing what is broken after a major release often carried with it a price tag of $400-$500 for me.

The alternative is to fall behind in upgrades which is equivalent to falling behind in security.

Had to let it Linux go, even though it was so much more stable and safe than Windows.

These examples are what I've seen with a lot of open source implementations. Maintenance is a pain. Even though I'm a UNIX bigot with 25 years experience in test and app support, when it comes to the business environment I much prefer to work on AIX or Windows instead of Linux.

Upgrading my Linux Mint desktop is a snap, but it's a far cry from a business related app that's customized and integrated within the o/s. Often, upgrades of Linux o/s components will break the custom apps - and rolling back without an easy way to generate a bootable image (on a physical host) is no picnic.

One of my customers at Caterpillar once remarked, "At the end of the day, all solutions cost the same...." In the past this has been true for software, but not the tide seems to be shifting and it's getting commoditized like hardware. Open source solutions by themselves may not provide significant savings overall, but the agility that integrators can provide - if it includes stable rollouts with excellent support - will be real game changers. And not good news for M$, unless they adapt.

[Dave Schwartz]

Delta Lover,


As an example, my UNIX / LINUX knowledge has very little been changed since I was first introduced to it thirty years ago, while in the same period, I had to re-learn many times the GUI approach, starting from plain vanilla character based interfaces, going to fat desktop clients using MFC, WinForms and WPF and most recently to wxWidgets, jQuery, angular, backbone and today to react and iOS8... This race never ends and this is part of its beauty!

Grasshopper, you speak the truth! :lol:

And those GUI changes in Windows are not always a step forward. Just look at "My Computer" in Win8 vs Win7. I have really come to like the Win7 interface, but, all of a sudden, I am searching all over for the the back button and the "up-a -level" button doesn't even exist.

I admit to being an "old-time programmer type" that loved the simplicity of DOS, where there was no such thing as an executable becoming corrupt just by running it. LOL

I do admit that I like the connectivity and sharing capabilities that Gates & Co. gave us. But, oh what a price we paid!



Hoofless,

One of my customers at Caterpillar once remarked, "At the end of the day, all solutions cost the same...." In the past this has been true for software, but not the tide seems to be shifting and it's getting commoditized like hardware. Open source solutions by themselves may not provide significant savings overall, but the agility that integrators can provide - if it includes stable rollouts with excellent support - will be real game changers. And not good news for M$, unless they adapt.

Stable roll outs in Linux. There are some legendary YouTube videos that discuss that very issue. I recall one that says something like, with every major release, one can expect to spend a couple of hours finding updates for video, sound and a few other drivers.

To the "typical" consumer user that is just a deal breaker. More than anything else, this prevents Linux from EVER being considered in the consumer field.

But it doesn't end there. When those "consumers" go to work, they can typically walk in and run a whole bunch of software - like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. - and many others that follow at least the basic Windows paradigm: i.e. events driven by user choices (as opposed to programmer choices, like in the DOS days).


BTW, I think if you search for "Why I hate Linux" you will find some great explanations of the issues. That is, as I recall, an annual video put out by guys that actually LOVE Linux and want to further its cause by being honest about what needs to change.

In fairness to Linux, I have heard that in recent years those big releases - Distros, right? - have gone a lot smother, but it is still common to find that a driver for that the snazzy new display adapter you just bought does not yet exist for your particular flavor of Linux.

[DeltaLover]

Delta Lover,




Grasshopper, you speak the truth! :lol:

And those GUI changes in Windows are not always a step forward. Just look at "My Computer" in Win8 vs Win7. I have really come to like the Win7 interface, but, all of a sudden, I am searching all over for the the back button and the "up-a -level" button doesn't even exist.

I admit to being an "old-time programmer type" that loved the simplicity of DOS, where there was no such thing as an executable becoming corrupt just by running it. LOL

I do admit that I like the connectivity and sharing capabilities that Gates & Co. gave us. But, oh what a price we paid!



Hoofless,



Stable roll outs in Linux. There are some legendary YouTube videos that discuss that very issue. I recall one that says something like, with every major release, one can expect to spend a couple of hours finding updates for video, sound and a few other drivers.

To the "typical" consumer user that is just a deal breaker. More than anything else, this prevents Linux from EVER being considered in the consumer field.

But it doesn't end there. When those "consumers" go to work, they can typically walk in and run a whole bunch of software - like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. - and many others that follow at least the basic Windows paradigm: i.e. events driven by user choices (as opposed to programmer choices, like in the DOS days).


BTW, I think if you search for "Why I hate Linux" you will find some great explanations of the issues. That is, as I recall, an annual video put out by guys that actually LOVE Linux and want to further its cause by being honest about what needs to change.

In fairness to Linux, I have heard that in recent years those big releases - Distros, right? - have gone a lot smother, but it is still common to find that a driver for that the snazzy new display adapter you just bought does not yet exist for your particular flavor of Linux.

Modern versions of ubuntu install like a charm, absolutely no prob with drivers.. Extremely easy...

[Robert Goren]

I still do not see how Microsoft is going to make money by making Windows open sourced. Open sourcing helps people who want to build on the work of others without paying the original developer. How does that put money into the hands of the original developer? Capitalism, I thought, was all about getting paid for your work. Of course, as a liberal, I may not understand how capitalism really works or so I have been told. :rolleyes:

[tupper]

These examples are what I've seen with a lot of open source implementations.Those examples were addressed earlier in the thread, and they don't really hold water.


Maintenance is a pain.A single mouse click to upgrade an open source OS is a pain?


Even though I'm a UNIX bigot with 25 years experience in test and app support, when it comes to the business environment I much prefer to work on AIX or Windows instead of Linux.Interesting... considering that Linux dominates the enterprise server market and especially considering that the open source BSD unixes probably have several fold more installations than all of their proprietary Unix counterparts combined, including AIX.

By the way, the popularity of the open source BSDs has significantly accelerated in the last year, due to the encroachment of Systemd into the major Linux distros. Lot's of system admins have jumped ship (but as a "Unix bigot" of 25 years, you were probably already aware of this phenomenon).


Upgrading my Linux Mint desktop is a snap, but it's a far cry from a business related app that's customized and integrated within the o/s.Any OS is a far cry from a "business related app."

However, are you implying that it is easier to "customize" and/or "integrate" apps within proprietary OSs (such as AIX and Windows)?


Often, upgrades of Linux o/s components will break the custom apps - and rolling back without an easy way to generate a bootable image (on a physical host) is no picnic.Huh? What custom apps? To which Linux distros do you refer?

Are you saying that you have created apps and compiled them for a particular Linux distro, and then compiled/ported them for AIX and/or Windows, and you had fewer problems with the proprietary OSs?

What are these "business" apps that need to be "integrated" with the OS?

Also, I am curious as to how these apps were "integrated" into proprietary OSs in which the manufacturer only supplies a binary blob.

You see, one of the many advantages of open source is that one has access to the source code (not just binary blobs). So, any individual or large corporation can truly tailor an open source OS to one's "custom" needs, and "integrate" the entire OS to smoothly and efficiently run a special application. This is done all the time with Linux and the BSDs where the OS can be scaled from microscopic embedded devices all the way up to the fastest super computers in the world.

Proprietary OSs don't make their source code available, so how can superior "integration" be achieved with a proprietary OS?

[tupper]

I still do not see how Microsoft is going to make money by making Windows open sourced.Microsoft could make money off of open source Windows in the same way that the Red Hat corporation makes money off of Red Hat Linux.


Open sourcing helps people who want to build on the work of others without paying the original developer. How does that put money into the hands of the original developer?Most open source projects start out "open," so the "original" developer doesn't necessarily do most of the development work.

The original developer benefits tremendously from the work of those who improve and refine the software later.

Also, money is often not the main motivator with many open source projects, which is why the software is so secure and innovative. A lot of open source developers do the work because they are keenly interested in advancing the software, as opposed to just wanting a paycheck.


Capitalism, I thought, was all about getting paid for your work.Lots of money is being made off of open source software. Merely consider Android (a version of Linux).

Furthermore, capitalism is all about fairness and a level playing field in which any individual or company can advance -- a scenario which open source readily provides.

[Red Knave]

Capitalism, I thought, was all about getting paid for your work. Well, partly.
Capitalism is a system that allows any entity with 'capital' (i.e. brainpower, a pool of labor, money, land etc.) to use it for any legal purpose they choose.

Of course, as a liberal, I may not understand how capitalism really works or so I have been told. :rolleyes:Maybe ...
"Being a Liberal" helps people who want to build on the work of others without paying the original developer.FTFY.

I still do not see how Microsoft is going to make money by making Windows open sourced.They make money by being able to direct their resources to other endeavors rather than maintaining any hold on an ancient O/S.

[Hoofless_Wonder]

Those examples were addressed earlier in the thread, and they don't really hold water.


A single mouse click to upgrade an open source OS is a pain?


Interesting... considering that Linux dominates the enterprise server market and especially considering that the open source BSD unixes probably have several fold more installations than all of their proprietary Unix counterparts combined, including AIX.

By the way, the popularity of the open source BSDs has significantly accelerated in the last year, due to the encroachment of Systemd into the major Linux distros. Lot's of system admins have jumped ship (but as a "Unix bigot" of 25 years, you were probably already aware of this phenomenon).


Any OS is a far cry from a "business related app."

However, are you implying that it is easier to "customize" and/or "integrate" apps within proprietary OSs (such as AIX and Windows)?


Huh? What custom apps? To which Linux distros do you refer?

Are you saying that you have created apps and compiled them for a particular Linux distro, and then compiled/ported them for AIX and/or Windows, and you had fewer problems with the proprietary OSs?

What are these "business" apps that need to be "integrated" with the OS?

Also, I am curious as to how these apps were "integrated" into proprietary OSs in which the manufacturer only supplies a binary blob.

You see, one of the many advantages of open source is that one has access to the source code (not just binary blobs). So, any individual or large corporation can truly tailor an open source OS to one's "custom" needs, and "integrate" the entire OS to smoothly and efficiently run a special application. This is done all the time with Linux and the BSDs where the OS can be scaled from microscopic embedded devices all the way up to the fastest super computers in the world.

Proprietary OSs don't make their source code available, so how can superior "integration" be achieved with a proprietary OS?

I work as a storage consultant supporting all sorts of vendor's products and hardware types. Driver updates for tape drives on Linux are not trivial. On AIX or Windows, I get a compiled and TESTED piece of code on a stable o/s, not source which I need to compile or a tar file of code that only works with the exact same kernel as the machine it was built on. Not everyone includes rpmbuild on a Red Hat server.

Even installing code with GUIs often requires tracking down and putting on the pre-requisite libraries, which is usually not an issue with proprietary o/s's. Then we get to deal with the "golden" images that the sys admins have seen fit to roll out, often which don't contain all the packages needed for specialized apps. Then we get more fun when the support team applies their fixes, and breaks the install (i.e., tape devices, shared memory settings). Business apps I've seen break include IBM's TPC, TSM, and lintape drivers, EMC's DPS products, and their reporting tools, as well as Netbackup (now owned by Symantec. We should also probably toss in the numerous issues with the Linux based switch o/s's due their sensitvity to java while we're at it.

I won't argue the popularity of Linux is growing, and HP-UX, Solaris and AIX are quickly going away. But the fact remains, at least in the case of IBM, they're charging significantly more for AIX versus Linux when it comes to running on their power hardware. Why do you think they can do that? Why does Commvault, one of the most popular data management solutions for open systems require that their server code be installed on a Windows host? Because that way they can integrate all their code on the same o/s as what's out in the field. Not an o/s that's "sorta close".....

A couple of years ago I completed a contract at a large insurance company where we rolled out over 100 Red Hat servers to replace a similar number of AIX machines during a 15 month long effort. The driving force behind the project was from the Intel team wanting to standardize hardware used in the data centers. The money saved from the hardware side was chewed up by the additional manhours spent tweaking, testing and troubleshooting within the first few months. Admittedly, I was surprised at how Red Hat had improved and the machines were more stable than even a few years earlier, and how much data throughput the machines could achieve. But it's no fun to configure some devices to a server and then not have it boot, due to a rather simple spacing bug in a driver. Especially when that machine is in production.

The bottom line is that support on any o/s requires some skilled people to keep things running - and either you have to hire smart people to do it, or you have to pay more for an o/s that a vendor supports and does it. And it sure would be nice to see a bootable image from Linux - like mksysb. And maybe we run in different IT circles, but I'm not seeing the people with the skills that Delta Lover has - more and more I'm seeing the person who was the janitor the week before or helping make lunches in the company cafeteria now trying to run things - due to layoffs or other cost cutting measures. Maybe on the development side you're seeing the hotshot skilled folks who can work with any o/s and various tool sets, but I'm not seeing that on the support side.

The examples that Dave Schwartz provided still hold water - or at least the one for the $175 hourly rate. That's less than what we charge....and we have plenty of work....

[DeltaLover]

Open Source Coding Can Give Your Career an Edge (http://www.monster.com/technology/a/open-source-coding-can-give-your-career-an-edge?wt.mc_n=CRM_US_B2C_LC_TWOM_Tech_150424)


Open source software has evolved from an oddball notion to a business powerhouse. Open source projects are attracting legions of programmers and demand for code warriors continues to climb. Students can ride this wave to make their resumes stand out when they finish their studies and prepare to enter the world of work. They can do this by contributing code to open source projects while still enrolled in undergraduate programs....