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Agreed, but equally, the cost of Windows products doesn't stop at paying for a license. I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that the cost of using Linux is hig

Agreed, but equally, the cost of Windows products doesn't stop at paying for a license. I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that the cost of using Linux is higher than Windows, and when you throw in licensing and support, Windows is almost certainly more expensive. When you take my full proposal, which is that perhaps 10% of the money spent on Windows were spent on Linux instead, I think that 10% would go very far toward making Linux cheaper than Windows even if you discount fees. Keep in mind that a lot of the money put into developing Windows goes into branding and creating vendor lock-in, which Linux doesn't have any reason to pursue.

UK-AL 10y ago
The fact Microsoft gets money from their customers, makes them extremely interested in making software that's a very good fit for business and end users. Linux other hand is very good for developers, sysadmins and technical people. This is mainly because its created by them for them. Microsoft has added value for business because of this focus.
afarrell 10y ago
I'm not saying that Linux is wrong or higher cost. I can't know enough to make such a claim. I'm merely saying that one cannot dismiss Windows as obviously higher-cost without examination. > goes into branding...which Linux doesn't have any reason to pursue. I strongly disagree, though I suspect we have a different view of what "branding" is. Branding isn't just logos and advertisements. Branding is creating a certain intuitive impression in the minds of prospective customers and partners. This can often involve serious technical investment. To give a specific example, look at the company DigitalOcean. They try to maintain a brand of "easy to get set up and learn how to do stuff". To do this, they pay people to write good tutorials and they spend a lot of effort designing their user interactions. As a result, when run into someone who wants to learn how to set something up on a Linux server, I point them at digitalocean. Yes, their branding involves some nice graphics, but it also involves solving problems for their users. Windows at times spent a lot of effort on solving engineering problems in service of their brand. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html Canonical actually spent a fair amount of engineering effort on branding for Ubuntu, but they just didn't have the resources to create a clean experience around things like wifi and peripherals (at least by 2013, when I switched to OSX).
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  NetworkManager in Linux has been working great for quite some time now. But it's probably not the product of Canonical or any one company, but of efforts from multiple parties, which is where Linux and FOSS in general shines, and is really the whole point of it all.

UK-AL 10y ago

The fact Microsoft gets money from their customers, makes them extremely interested in making software that's a very good fit for business and end users. Linux other hand is very good for developers, sysadmins and technical people. This is mainly because its created by them for them. Microsoft has added value for business because of this focus.

afarrell 10y ago

I'm not saying that Linux is wrong or higher cost. I can't know enough to make such a claim. I'm merely saying that one cannot dismiss Windows as obviously higher-cost without examination. > goes into branding...which Linux doesn't have any reason to pursue. I strongly disagree, though I suspect we have a different view of what "branding" is. Branding isn't just logos and advertisements. Branding is creating a certain intuitive impression in the minds of prospective customers and partners. This can often involve serious technical investment. To give a specific example, look at the company DigitalOcean. They try to maintain a brand of "easy to get set up and learn how to do stuff". To do this, they pay people to write good tutorials and they spend a lot of effort designing their user interactions. As a result, when run into someone who wants to learn how to set something up on a Linux server, I point them at digitalocean. Yes, their branding involves some nice graphics, but it also involves solving problems for their users. Windows at times spent a lot of effort on solving engineering problems in service of their brand. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html Canonical actually spent a fair amount of engineering effort on branding for Ubuntu, but they just didn't have the resources to create a clean experience around things like wifi and peripherals (at least by 2013, when I switched to OSX).

Grishnakh 10y ago
NetworkManager in Linux has been working great for quite some time now. But it's probably not the product of Canonical or any one company, but of efforts from multiple parties, which is where Linux and FOSS in general shines, and is really the whole point of it all.