I'm talking about transition costs. Vendor lock-in is only an issue if you need to move. Microsoft has a BizSpark program that lets you have access to their e

I'm talking about transition costs. Vendor lock-in is only an issue if you need to move. Microsoft has a BizSpark program that lets you have access to their entire suite of development and desktop applications for $100 at the end of 3 years. That's cheap! Almost free. But still, I'm talking about Vendor Lock-In and transition costs. For example, say it takes you 2 years to build your product, you start on Microsoft and then need to transition to Linux. How much would that cost? What if it turns out you just can't find enough developers on OSS to move your product forward or they cost too much and you want to move Microsoft, because all the metrics say the TCO on the microsoft side is actually lower. How much would it cost to escape the OSS lock-in? "Free" OSS is not actually free. The product is free, but services still cost money. The OSS community neglects the services cost from the TCO, but they are very real.