FOSS and the election

[Tony Abou-Assaleh]

At CEOS'05 (http://www.dal-acm.ca/CEOS05), a number of CEO's of software
companies (2-4?) expressed serious concern with using FOSS in their
products and working with FOSS in general. This concern was related to
licensing. They figured that it is cheaper for them, in the long run, to
develop their own code (reinvent the wheel), than have to deal with
interpretation of the licences and all that jazz that may come later.

Picking on words is this discussion is not very useful. I don't even know
the difference in meaning between 'may' and 'might' when it is used to
refer to events in the present or future. The point is, the cost greatly
depends on the context and circumstances. In the case of Linux vs.
Windows, OpenOffice vs. MS Office, and other general purpose applications,
there is little disagreement that FOSS costs less. But in other more
specialized applications, the cut is not so clear.

... Even within those who strongly believe in FOSS as a philosophy, there
are those who believe GPL is the way, and those who believe that GPL takes
away freedom. When speaking of FOSS, it goes way beyond replacing
existing proprietary software in use with FOSS equivalents. What tools you
use to develop new products (software), what code do you reuse, and what
code you release to the public are all far more important issue for
software companies. In fact, the licensing cost that we use as our primary
weapon is insignificant for most companies. Once again, it all depends on
the context.

Happy holidays,

TAA

-----------------------------------------------------
Tony Abou-Assaleh
Lecturer, Computer Science Department
Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada, L2S 3A1
Office: MC J215
Tel:    +1(905)688-5550 ext. 5243
Fax:    +1(905)688-3255
Email:  taa-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org
WWW:    http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~taa/
----------------------[THE END]----------------------

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005, Robert Brockway wrote:

> On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Tony Abou-Assaleh wrote:
>
> > There is a cost associated with using FOSS, and in many cases it may
> > exceed the costs of commercial software.
>
> Hi Tony.  This isn't a personal attack at all but I have to say I really
> dislike this sort of phraseology.  The use of the words "in many cases"
> makes it sound like a strong statement but it is cut down by "may" thus
> rendering the statement largely inert.
>
> Of course FOSS _might_ cost more in many cases but does it?
>
> According to much independent literature on the subject, the answer is no,
> FOSS does not cost more in the majority of cases.  The costs are sometimes
> comparable to commercial software but are often much less.  The cases
> where FOSS costs more are much rarer.
>
> Of couse the issue of costing is a complex one.  I work almost
> exclusively with FOSS.  On the few occassionsl that I use commercial
> software I find licencing, and dealing with it annoying.  In terms of
> commercial software, anything except site licencing requires signifcant
> human effort to manage from year to year.  This is a hidden cost few
> companies consider.  Lost productivity when a licencing system breaks is
> another hidden cost - this happens more often than it should too.
>
> Rob
>
> --
> Robert Brockway B.Sc.		Phone:	+1-416-669-3073
> Senior Technical Consultant	Email:	support-wgAaPJgzrDxH4x6Dk/4f9A at public.gmane.org
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