4 ms·
I think what people get wrong with FOSS is, they assume that it's free as in beer. If I was a big company or national government planning on moving to FOSS I w
by shubb 5y ago
I think what people get wrong with FOSS is, they assume that it's free as in beer.
If I was a big company or national government planning on moving to FOSS I wouldn't count on a cost saving at all. Instead I'd take all that licence money 'saved', ring fence it, donate half of it to the opensource projects being used (to pay full time developers to maintain them), and half to a contract developer house to create and contribute the features that turn out to be missing.
Secure software that works well and does boring useful things costs money. All FOSS does is let you choose who you pay to do that work.
Unfortunately, due to how organisations work, it is much harder to create and defend this 'optional' expenditure into the future than it is to just keep paying software subscriptions that turn the lights out if you stop.
- echelon 5y ago> All FOSS does is let you choose who you pay to do that work. Until Amazon makes it available as AWS and corners the market. Then you're paying the largest vendor again. The only reason this hasn't happened to desktop linux is because the market share is so small. (Oh wait -- Red Hat, OpenSuse, etc.)
- boomlinde 5y agoThose are all just buyers themselves in the context of FOSS. They invest in open source software, which everyone can benefit from. To them, it's a cost of the products and services they sell.
- AdamN 5y agoThat's all risk and no gain. If you're successful you've saved no money and just moved platforms. If the community thinks FOSS is an end in and of itself you've accomplished something but only if the community thinks so.