Re: [chat] Re: [SLUG] Windoze XP "registration" procedure

[Jobst Schmalenbach <jobst@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 11:21:53AM +1100, invisible ink (jdub@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> begin Jobst Schmalenbach quotation:
> 
> > If every company in the world would spend some time writing, enhancing or
> > bug-reporting we would not need ANY BROAD RANGE software companies
> > (meaning office suits, OS's etc stuff that everyone needs) AT ALL.
> 
> In my own little world of Free Software, this may be true. In the real
> world? Probably slightly short of bloody ridiculous.
> 
> Discuss.
> 
> ;)
Dont need this one for the "discuss" hehehehe


I know that what I have said sounds strange, but remember what the guy 
from oracle said which sounded like "... too much value put on software ...
its only something driving hardware ... ".

I can only say what I see everyday doing it MYSELF. I own the place I work
for and I use linux on all my servers (and currently setting up a samba 
machine to get rid of my last NON linux server), so calculating at the end 
of the month I can see for myself what money went out, what money I spend 
in MAN hours but also what money I saved doing things the "easy" way with
respect to system administration, or the hours I didnt need to spend
because of upgrades to M$ based products (viruses,ISS,exchange,proxies,
you_name_it).

The next problem is that M$ already goes into this strange upgrade cycle 
that only 1 (maybe 2) service packs are made for one particular OS 
(see Win2K) so if you want a "fix" you need to pay for as you need to buy 
the next  upgrade (this looks sadly fairly the same as all those heroin 
addicts).

So by spending my time developing/writing/enhancing/bug-reporting
on Linux based products I HAVE to spend time doing it, but that
is fairly minimal compared to the money I had to spend to buy
the next version of YYY[1] or loosing money because people cant
use the computer system writing proposals or whatever
due to bugs or viruses.

Thats is what IT managers need to realize, and I can see its happening.
Spending that little bit of extra time for the development of
software (eg kernel,utils,star-office) will yield money
at the end of the months .....

That is *WHAT* counts, and that might break M$'s neck.



jobst




[1] any upgrade of M$ products.



-- 
Educational software is like Science Fiction. It doesn't have to work, just look good.

             __, Jobst Schmalenbach, jobst@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Technical Director
   _ _.--'-n_/   Barrett Consulting Group P/L & The Meditation Room P/L      
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