Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think
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Looking at licensing and seeing how open source isn't just less costly to procure by why, specifically around Windows and Linux, why it is cheaper to maintain and support long term.
When free isn't free, but actually PAYS YOU in comparison to the non-free alternative. Cheaper to acquire, no licensing overhead or risk, safer to use, cheaper to maintain, cheaper to keep, cheaper to expand.
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Good video. Possibly another video idea, if you want to get into it, is a break down on how you make the decision on what operating system or software to use and how to run the numbers. I hear that a lot and I personally would not know how to do this reliably. Maybe others would not either .
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@jmoore said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
Good video. Possibly another video idea, if you want to get into it, is a break down on how you make the decision on what operating system or software to use and how to run the numbers. I hear that a lot and I personally would not know how to do this reliably. Maybe others would not either .
Good idea.
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"Large well supported, Linux is cheaper to support well, takes fewer people less time, and Linux has a denser admin to server ratio"
I think in a lot of SMB's they are just well below the threshold for automation on density having any real benefit (they don't need 200 servers!). The efficiencies of scale arguments also carry a lot of weight in other elements of deployment (People with less staff should take more serious getting same day parts support, buying from Tier 1 vendors for added support and validation vs. being their own integrator of solutions etc). Maybe you might add "If you are below the density point for Linux admins and other things making sense then maybe you should be shifting more things to MSP's, SaaS and get rid of the IT position.
The other thing is in large enterprises they often have dozens (or hundreds) of business units and Silo's and IT organizations that effectively push them down to SMB the density of systems. The Federal government and military is a huge example of this.
I do agree it's a huge gap Microsoft has in that they don't bundle support with software licensing (vs. Every other Enterprise vendor). SQL is cheaper than Oracle, but one of them will pick up my calls on Memorial Day while the other will open a ticket take my credit card number and call me back the next day.
Beard, Smug statements, Hawian shirt. UNIX ADMIN DETECTED.
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
I think in a lot of SMB's they are just well below the threshold for automation on density having any real benefit (they don't need 200 servers!).
You missed the talk two hours ago at MangoCon where we discussed why this was a misunderstanding of good systems administration. In the same way that virtualization isn't about consolidation, neither is good administration. Virtualization has benefits from abstraction, good management is the same.
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@scottalanmiller It's OK I got this!
Gentoo - The distro for people who like to beef up 15 year old Honda Civics with fancy lights because blue makes them go faster.
Ubuntu - The distro for people who like artisanal hand crafted coffee and cool backgrounds with each release.
Redhat/CentOS - For Grown ups who just want shit to work.
SuSE - Same as Redhat but for German's and Austrians for some reason.FreeBSD - For the paranoid
NetBSD - For your weird tin foil hat neighbor who wants to run something on his toaster.Windows 2000-2008R2 - For someone who likes to click next a lot
Windows 2012R2-2016 - For the people who like writing the longest possible CLI commands (Seriously Powershell!)MacOSX 1985 - 2009 - HIppies. Damn Dirty Hippies.
Mac OS X 2010 - current - Network and Unix administrators who hated putty, and wanted something as stable as their server to run as their desktop OS.
Linux on Desktop - For masochists who somehow lack my burning hatred for SystemD.
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
Windows 2000-2008R2 - For someone who likes to click next a lot
Windows 2012R2-2016 - For the people who like writing the longest possible CLI commands (Seriously Powershell!)Extra upvotes just for this!
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
The efficiencies of scale arguments also carry a lot of weight in other elements of deployment (People with less staff should take more serious getting same day parts support, buying from Tier 1 vendors for added support and validation vs. being their own integrator of solutions etc). Maybe you might add "If you are below the density point for Linux admins and other things making sense then maybe you should be shifting more things to MSP's, SaaS and get rid of the IT position.
Right, the SMB gets this value of scale by using MSPs or similar. Which I've pointed out previously. If you are hiring staff at 40 hours a week for a job that needs 20 minutes a week, that's a major problem. A Linux server is ideal for this kind of situation. Very easy to get third party support and that's really the point - you always need to leverage scale.
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
@scottalanmiller It's OK I got this!
Gentoo - The distro for people who like to beef up 15 year old Honda Civics with fancy lights because blue makes them go faster.
Ubuntu - The distro for people who like artisanal hand crafted coffee and cool backgrounds with each release.
Redhat/CentOS - For Grown ups who just want shit to work.
SuSE - Same as Redhat but for German's and Austrians for some reason.FreeBSD - For the paranoid
NetBSD - For your weird tin foil hat neighbor who wants to run something on his toaster.Windows 2000-2008R2 - For someone who likes to click next a lot
Windows 2012R2-2016 - For the people who like writing the longest possible CLI commands (Seriously Powershell!)MacOSX 1985 - 2009 - HIppies. Damn Dirty Hippies.
Mac OS X 2010 - current - Network and Unix administrators who hated putty, and wanted something as stable as their server to run as their desktop OS.
Linux on Desktop - For masochists who somehow lack my burning hatred for SystemD.
Where is OpenBSD?
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@john-nicholson I find it funny but Linux on the workstation has been much more stable then any of our OSX laptops.
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@coliver said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
@john-nicholson I find it funny but Linux on the workstation has been much more stable then any of our OSX laptops.
When your best app option is TuxRacer, this doesn't surprise me. I used Linux on the desktop in college because it limited hugely what I could do and that provided more stability than anything.
My OS X laptop hasn't been rebooted in 2 months so I'm not sure what your doing wrong with your mac's but stop doing it!
@Scott - OpenBSD are the guys who like singing funny songs about CARP. For this reason, I like them for firewalls, and if you want Linux on the desktop hate systemD and don't like Debian it's an option?
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@coliver big apple fan, but post Steve jobs so many things seem to have suffered. Still the best phone hardware, but not always for OS.
My last MacBook was solid for a couple years and then a disaster possibly because if a video card recall. I doubt I'll ever spend $5500 again in a laptop though.
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
Mac OS X 2010 - current - Network and Unix administrators who hated putty, and wanted something as stable as their server to run as their desktop OS.
For me MacOS was a jumping off point to learn Linux and CLI stuff and is the gateway for me to jump into a full on Ubuntu based desktop OS for my day to day work, though with the Cinnamon UI.
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
@coliver said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
@john-nicholson I find it funny but Linux on the workstation has been much more stable then any of our OSX laptops.
When your best app option is TuxRacer, this doesn't surprise me. I used Linux on the desktop in college because it limited hugely what I could do and that provided more stability than anything.
My OS X laptop hasn't been rebooted in 2 months so I'm not sure what your doing wrong with your mac's but stop doing it!
@Scott - OpenBSD are the guys who like singing funny songs about CARP. For this reason, I like them for firewalls, and if you want Linux on the desktop hate systemD and don't like Debian it's an option?
Just generic unprivileged users. App crashes and system crashes are fairly common.
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@coliver Sounds like you have bad apps?
The only issue I have is Outlook crashes one a day, Skype 4 Buisness is unusable (but that's true on Windows) and Onedrive is a giant turd.
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
Linux on Desktop - For masochists who somehow lack my burning hatred for SystemD.
The only thing I don't like about SystemD is the logging. But parallel execution is so much nicer than alphabetized init scripts.
I use Linux on the desktop but I don't have a lot of app requirements. 90% of what I'm doing is web based and the other 10% is done in Git, Atom, or sometimes other utilities like Inkscape.
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@john-nicholson said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
@coliver Sounds like you have bad apps?
The only issue I have is Outlook crashes one a day, Skype 4 Buisness is unusable (but that's true on Windows) and Onedrive is a giant turd.
It's reported that the new OneDrive client is much better. Have you tried it?
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I have no problems finding apps for my Linux Desktop. What are the apps that everyone can't find for Linux?
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@penguinwrangler said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
I have no problems finding apps for my Linux Desktop. What are the apps that everyone can't find for Linux?
Ya idk. I've never had issues either. But then again I'm not a pretend graphic designer who "needs" every Adobe product ever created.
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@stacksofplates said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
@penguinwrangler said in Why Free Open Source Software Is Cheaper Than You Think:
I have no problems finding apps for my Linux Desktop. What are the apps that everyone can't find for Linux?
Ya idk. I've never had issues either. But then again I'm not a pretend graphic designer who "needs" every Adobe product ever created.
Hey, quit talking about me! I don't need every one... Only all the obscure ones you've never heard of, ha ha.
