5 ms·

I don't agree that it is mostly culture (and "ego"). Purchasing/licensing software is always a hassle. Even aside from the monetary cost, you need to decide wh

by azakai 15y ago

I don't agree that it is mostly culture (and "ego"). Purchasing/licensing software is always a hassle. Even aside from the monetary cost, you need to decide which to buy, go through the purchase process, and sometimes you also have some activation hassle. With open source software, you just download it and use it. If you decide to change to another version of the software or different software entirely, you just do that. Startups are hard, removing anything that takes time or effort is a good thing. But even with this, cost is still an issue. Yes, salaries are the biggest cost, but in a startup, you might be working for yourself, so no salaries are being paid. Having to shell out any money at all becomes something you avoid. (Yes, there are Microsoft programs to give you Microsoft software at very low prices. But the procedure for those programs is always more complicated than "download and run".)

commandar 15y ago
>Purchasing/licensing software is always a hassle. Even aside from the monetary cost, you need to decide which to buy, go through the purchase process, and sometimes you also have some activation hassle. This. Navigating MS licensing is an absolute headache inducing time vampire for smaller organizations.
- mw63214 15y ago
  What I hear you saying is: "There could/should be a better way to do it". Adding ", hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...." to the end of that statement may be of some use to you or others, financially.
  - commandar 15y ago
    The problem is that this is really an internal problem at Microsoft. They have so many licensing programs targeted at different industries that even trying to figure out who you need to be talking to can be a nightmare. Sometimes you'll be directed to a program like BizSpark, sometimes you have to go through a reseller like CDW, some industries have specific third-party programs that make the most sense, e.g. TechSoup for non-profits. Navigating MS licensing is the software equivalent of navigating the US tax code. Why would you willfully subject yourself to that when you could be getting things done?
  - mw63214 15y ago
    3 downvotes? really? How are TurboTax and TaxSlayer doing? I would guess they make a bit of profit.
diminish 15y ago
Very good point; the cost consideration. In addition; 1. While building software architecture and designing features day by day, no startup wants to consider licensing schemes of proprietary software as a factor. 2. No startup wants to consider bullshit sales-minded product versions (professional, enterprise...) 3. No startup wants the over-paid software sales people to chase their profits tomorrow by inventing licensing schemes per user, cpu, expires in x years etc. Startups want flexibility and freedom while innovating. Open Source (for example, Linux, MySQL Server, Rails/Ruby) give all those freedoms. And innovation requires freedom while thinking. Edit: I am a former MS solutions architect/programmer who built large web applications using .Net, Commerce Server, Sharepoint and various MS products between 2001-2005. Since 2006 I build exclusively using open source alternatives; and God, what a relief.
jablan 15y ago
> If you decide to change to another version of the software or different software entirely, you just do that. I think this is the main point here. Especially in startups, parts get written and rewritten many times. Ruby backend too slow? Rewrite in Scala/Java/C++. Relational database doesn't quite fit? Extract a part of it into MongoDB etc. Besides, the community behind all these tools is healthy and responsive. Example: we had a stupid problem with Redis, asked on the forum and the guy who wrote Redis responded in matter of hours. Hell, maybe he even reads these words right now (hi!). Call it cultural, call it technological, but there is quite a difference between two worlds.
gm 15y ago
Really people? You guys are engineers by trade (and good engineers, at that, no?) and you find licensing daunting? Let's assume you are out of BizSpark, which gives you what you need for free. Now you have a list of licenses to acquire. What I did last was to call CDW, they put me in touch with their MS licensing guy which actually looks at this stuff full time, he took our info down and simplified our options and it was a quick decision after that. This is just superfluous complaining, IMO. It's not that hard. And activation was not a big deal with volume licensing. Plus activation issues are a one-time things.
- cbs 15y ago
  Its not that they're hard per se, they're just another pain in the ass, especially when the alternative is a proven technology obtainable with a no-bullshit grab from a repository and then can be used whenever wherever for whatever.
  - gm 15y ago
    Exact same thing can be said about "just start to use right away" by experienced .NET people. Which is the point of the article: It's much more culture than actual tangible differences/superiority.
- robocat 15y ago
  I am an engineer, and a founder of a small company using Windows and SQL Server. The licences are a time sucking headache - mindless legal crap, hidden liabilities, and confusing interdependencies. The BizSpark stuff is the worst (read it carefully: what you can do with it is VERY limited compared with what the marketing materials imply you can use it for).
  - gm 15y ago
    Admittedly when things got stupid (as they can with SQL Server CALs) we just bought CPU licenses and moved on. Anyway, I still don't see licensing as that difficult. Maybe just a difference of opinions, which is ok. In the grand scheme of things (IMO again) licensing costs are infinitesimally small compared to, say, choosing the wrong system architect, or not taking into account scale requirements, hiring an idiot programmer, etc.
powertower 15y ago
The licensing costs for VS.NET, MSQL, and related products are a rounding error compared to the cost of salary paid to a 3-7 man team. Using open-source tools to save a few dollars is a sure sign of either incompetence or inexperience, and a soon-to-fail project.
- robocat 15y ago
  The costs are significant for a ramen profitable startup. For example production licences for MSSQL are not cheap. Each virtual machine for a dev is a problem. For a small startup, the cost is the time it takes to try and understand your licencing agreements - it wastes a lot of time...
  - powertower 15y ago
    If it takes a developer so much time to understand the licensing terms, or to activate a Microsoft product, ... that it cuts into their production time, they don't need to be messing with anything other than PHP.
    - dextorious 15y ago
      You mean the language that powers the biggest social website of all time, Facebook, plus around 40% of the web? What exactly have you built in .NET that is greater?
      - powertower 15y ago
        That's turned out so well for Facebook that all they kept of PHP was the syntax (too much of it to get rid of it, and esay to find people that know it) and threw away the rest. And the other 40% of the web ... well, it's cheap and has low barriers to entry. That does not mean it's great.
        dextorious 15y ago
        """That's turned out so well for Facebook that all they kept of PHP was the syntax (too much of it to get rid of it, and esay to find people that know it) and threw away the rest.""" For one, PHP (any language actually) is it's syntax and libs. So, that they "threw away the rest" is not an argument against PHP. People also run Rails on different rubies (JRuby/Rubinious/Ruby EE etc), so what? And they "threw" those for performance reasons, not for some better, purer language. If they had enough problems with PHPs performance to write a C++ compiler for it, you think they would have faired better if they started with something like Rails? Second, yeah, with multi billions revenue and nearly a bln users, yeah, I'd say it turned out pretty well for them. Proves that you can get pro --it doesn't get any more pro than FB in the web business-- without using expensive tools or the language du jour. """And the other 40% of the web ... well, it's cheap and has low barriers to entry. That does not mean it's great.""" There are Drupal/Wordpress sites that are among the best of the world... I don't know what you mean by "cheap" in this context. Is whitehouse.gov cheap?

by azakai 15y ago

commandar 15y ago

>Purchasing/licensing software is always a hassle. Even aside from the monetary cost, you need to decide which to buy, go through the purchase process, and sometimes you also have some activation hassle. This. Navigating MS licensing is an absolute headache inducing time vampire for smaller organizations.

mw63214 15y ago
What I hear you saying is: "There could/should be a better way to do it". Adding ", hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...." to the end of that statement may be of some use to you or others, financially.
- commandar 15y ago
  The problem is that this is really an internal problem at Microsoft. They have so many licensing programs targeted at different industries that even trying to figure out who you need to be talking to can be a nightmare. Sometimes you'll be directed to a program like BizSpark, sometimes you have to go through a reseller like CDW, some industries have specific third-party programs that make the most sense, e.g. TechSoup for non-profits. Navigating MS licensing is the software equivalent of navigating the US tax code. Why would you willfully subject yourself to that when you could be getting things done?
- mw63214 15y ago
  3 downvotes? really? How are TurboTax and TaxSlayer doing? I would guess they make a bit of profit.

diminish 15y ago

Very good point; the cost consideration. In addition; 1. While building software architecture and designing features day by day, no startup wants to consider licensing schemes of proprietary software as a factor. 2. No startup wants to consider bullshit sales-minded product versions (professional, enterprise...) 3. No startup wants the over-paid software sales people to chase their profits tomorrow by inventing licensing schemes per user, cpu, expires in x years etc. Startups want flexibility and freedom while innovating. Open Source (for example, Linux, MySQL Server, Rails/Ruby) give all those freedoms. And innovation requires freedom while thinking. Edit: I am a former MS solutions architect/programmer who built large web applications using .Net, Commerce Server, Sharepoint and various MS products between 2001-2005. Since 2006 I build exclusively using open source alternatives; and God, what a relief.

jablan 15y ago

> If you decide to change to another version of the software or different software entirely, you just do that. I think this is the main point here. Especially in startups, parts get written and rewritten many times. Ruby backend too slow? Rewrite in Scala/Java/C++. Relational database doesn't quite fit? Extract a part of it into MongoDB etc. Besides, the community behind all these tools is healthy and responsive. Example: we had a stupid problem with Redis, asked on the forum and the guy who wrote Redis responded in matter of hours. Hell, maybe he even reads these words right now (hi!). Call it cultural, call it technological, but there is quite a difference between two worlds.

gm 15y ago

Really people? You guys are engineers by trade (and good engineers, at that, no?) and you find licensing daunting? Let's assume you are out of BizSpark, which gives you what you need for free. Now you have a list of licenses to acquire. What I did last was to call CDW, they put me in touch with their MS licensing guy which actually looks at this stuff full time, he took our info down and simplified our options and it was a quick decision after that. This is just superfluous complaining, IMO. It's not that hard. And activation was not a big deal with volume licensing. Plus activation issues are a one-time things.

cbs 15y ago
Its not that they're hard per se, they're just another pain in the ass, especially when the alternative is a proven technology obtainable with a no-bullshit grab from a repository and then can be used whenever wherever for whatever.
- gm 15y ago
  Exact same thing can be said about "just start to use right away" by experienced .NET people. Which is the point of the article: It's much more culture than actual tangible differences/superiority.
robocat 15y ago
I am an engineer, and a founder of a small company using Windows and SQL Server. The licences are a time sucking headache - mindless legal crap, hidden liabilities, and confusing interdependencies. The BizSpark stuff is the worst (read it carefully: what you can do with it is VERY limited compared with what the marketing materials imply you can use it for).
- gm 15y ago
  Admittedly when things got stupid (as they can with SQL Server CALs) we just bought CPU licenses and moved on. Anyway, I still don't see licensing as that difficult. Maybe just a difference of opinions, which is ok. In the grand scheme of things (IMO again) licensing costs are infinitesimally small compared to, say, choosing the wrong system architect, or not taking into account scale requirements, hiring an idiot programmer, etc.

powertower 15y ago

The licensing costs for VS.NET, MSQL, and related products are a rounding error compared to the cost of salary paid to a 3-7 man team. Using open-source tools to save a few dollars is a sure sign of either incompetence or inexperience, and a soon-to-fail project.

robocat 15y ago
The costs are significant for a ramen profitable startup. For example production licences for MSSQL are not cheap. Each virtual machine for a dev is a problem. For a small startup, the cost is the time it takes to try and understand your licencing agreements - it wastes a lot of time...
- powertower 15y ago
  If it takes a developer so much time to understand the licensing terms, or to activate a Microsoft product, ... that it cuts into their production time, they don't need to be messing with anything other than PHP.
  - dextorious 15y ago
    You mean the language that powers the biggest social website of all time, Facebook, plus around 40% of the web? What exactly have you built in .NET that is greater?
    - powertower 15y ago
      That's turned out so well for Facebook that all they kept of PHP was the syntax (too much of it to get rid of it, and esay to find people that know it) and threw away the rest. And the other 40% of the web ... well, it's cheap and has low barriers to entry. That does not mean it's great.
      - dextorious 15y ago
        """That's turned out so well for Facebook that all they kept of PHP was the syntax (too much of it to get rid of it, and esay to find people that know it) and threw away the rest.""" For one, PHP (any language actually) is it's syntax and libs. So, that they "threw away the rest" is not an argument against PHP. People also run Rails on different rubies (JRuby/Rubinious/Ruby EE etc), so what? And they "threw" those for performance reasons, not for some better, purer language. If they had enough problems with PHPs performance to write a C++ compiler for it, you think they would have faired better if they started with something like Rails? Second, yeah, with multi billions revenue and nearly a bln users, yeah, I'd say it turned out pretty well for them. Proves that you can get pro --it doesn't get any more pro than FB in the web business-- without using expensive tools or the language du jour. """And the other 40% of the web ... well, it's cheap and has low barriers to entry. That does not mean it's great.""" There are Drupal/Wordpress sites that are among the best of the world... I don't know what you mean by "cheap" in this context. Is whitehouse.gov cheap?