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At least this you are not afraid to open a whole new can of old worms on this one! This subject has so many variables that you will never decide on a correct course of action unless you make some absolute assumptions about many things using insufficient data. And those points will never be agreed on with the group that reads these discussions. The term that comes to mind on calculating these items is SWAG. My input is to build in a lot of FLEX on the budget when you set it based on the ROI & TCO study you do because you will always get a surprise on the project.
Don't take Tony's reply personally. He is an extreme detailer and serious information sponge. But hey someone has got to be.
Don't take Tony's reply personally. He is an extreme detailer and serious information sponge. But hey someone has got to be.
Here's me an open source proponent who wants to show that my argument is correct.
What do we get to choose from in 'serious' studies of the situation though?
We are right by Microsoft or we are right be Open Source.
Say what you like about the closed source crowd they aren't going to be convinced by this sort of superficiality, anymore than I am by MS FUD.
This was just a waste of phosphenes
While we have so many intangibles in the equation, proponents of either methodology will always be able to 'prove' they are right and we are wrong or vice versa, so why don't we look at the grey fuzzy areas and try for a bit of differentiation.
What do we get to choose from in 'serious' studies of the situation though?
We are right by Microsoft or we are right be Open Source.
Say what you like about the closed source crowd they aren't going to be convinced by this sort of superficiality, anymore than I am by MS FUD.
This was just a waste of phosphenes
While we have so many intangibles in the equation, proponents of either methodology will always be able to 'prove' they are right and we are wrong or vice versa, so why don't we look at the grey fuzzy areas and try for a bit of differentiation.
Tony said:
"While we have so many intangibles in the equation, proponents
of either methodology will always be able to 'prove' they are
right and we are wrong or vice versa, so why don't we look at the
grey fuzzy areas and try for a bit of differentiation."
It's worse than just the "intangibles" ... the costs matrix differs
for every shop. The picture for a Windows shop with mostly
'new' systems is quite different from that of a mixed-platform
shop with mostly older systems. A Windows shop generally can't
go to Sun, Linux, or Mac without a lot of training (or new-hire)
expense while a mixed-platform shop can shift their make-up
with much less training cost. Likewise, a shop with mostly newer
Windows servers gets no hardware discounts by switching while
those with older servers can extend the life of that hardware
essentially for no cost.
Each situation is different. In some cases one solution is obvious
and sometimes it's close enough that 'personal opinion'
becomes as important a deciding factor. You can't REALLY make
a decision based entirely on TCO, ROI and the company's "five
year plan" are possibly more important. TCO should be no more
than a guide.
"We are right by Microsoft or we are right by Open Source."
If you are being honest, you will be 'right by the facts'.
Sometimes Windows IS the best choice, based on costs.
"While we have so many intangibles in the equation, proponents
of either methodology will always be able to 'prove' they are
right and we are wrong or vice versa, so why don't we look at the
grey fuzzy areas and try for a bit of differentiation."
It's worse than just the "intangibles" ... the costs matrix differs
for every shop. The picture for a Windows shop with mostly
'new' systems is quite different from that of a mixed-platform
shop with mostly older systems. A Windows shop generally can't
go to Sun, Linux, or Mac without a lot of training (or new-hire)
expense while a mixed-platform shop can shift their make-up
with much less training cost. Likewise, a shop with mostly newer
Windows servers gets no hardware discounts by switching while
those with older servers can extend the life of that hardware
essentially for no cost.
Each situation is different. In some cases one solution is obvious
and sometimes it's close enough that 'personal opinion'
becomes as important a deciding factor. You can't REALLY make
a decision based entirely on TCO, ROI and the company's "five
year plan" are possibly more important. TCO should be no more
than a guide.
"We are right by Microsoft or we are right by Open Source."
If you are being honest, you will be 'right by the facts'.
Sometimes Windows IS the best choice, based on costs.
Windows will never be cheaper in the long term, unless of course they change their cost and business model radically.
However we are presenting to bean counters, the good ones can actually see a whole year in advance sometimes. Five years , not happening, too many tabs on the worksheet, besides they'll have moved on by then.
The points you raise are the intangibles.
Wha't exactly is the cost of retraining your professionals and users or buying in new talent.
What's the cost of keeping them upto date and certified.
What's the cost or porting inhouse software, office automation.
What's the cost of fixing it when those gits at MS break it with a new version, or add more spangly features which you just gotta have.
What's the cost of disruption while you implement
What's the cost of minimising said disruption ?
Think of some numbers and prove your contention.
One thing I've often noticed is many present this as an all or nothing choice, yet there are many businesses with mixed environments.
In fact it's in the interest of all businesses to have mixed environments, it gives them options.
Another option for businesses, is to employ people with skills in more than one OS, we aren't that rare and it's not that difficult to do if you remember that it is a different OS.
However we are presenting to bean counters, the good ones can actually see a whole year in advance sometimes. Five years , not happening, too many tabs on the worksheet, besides they'll have moved on by then.
The points you raise are the intangibles.
Wha't exactly is the cost of retraining your professionals and users or buying in new talent.
What's the cost of keeping them upto date and certified.
What's the cost or porting inhouse software, office automation.
What's the cost of fixing it when those gits at MS break it with a new version, or add more spangly features which you just gotta have.
What's the cost of disruption while you implement
What's the cost of minimising said disruption ?
Think of some numbers and prove your contention.
One thing I've often noticed is many present this as an all or nothing choice, yet there are many businesses with mixed environments.
In fact it's in the interest of all businesses to have mixed environments, it gives them options.
Another option for businesses, is to employ people with skills in more than one OS, we aren't that rare and it's not that difficult to do if you remember that it is a different OS.
Well said. Our government agency is a seriously mixed environment. I give more leeway than most in allowing a user to choose their operating platform providing that they can justify it. That does trim a little off of the user training issue. While I prefer the Linux/MAC systems I will spend the money for a Microsoft system for a user. Training can be an expensive item these days.
What my ?bean counters? are finding is that Linux and MAC are show the lower TOC. Since I have 2 finance departments, State and the Feds, following up on this in great detail with their audits. As such I get an independent study from 2 groups every budget year. This gives me a good balance.
The interesting thing from our last PRISM inspection was when the team audited our training and qualifications program. The new users were performing their standards far better on Linux than on Windows. The MAC users were about equal to Windows but then they are still getting used to the Tiger OS. This surprised us since it has been said that the familiarity of Windows was and edge in user training and support.
Going one step closer to the new user group our classroom kids overwhelmingly prefer the Linux systems over Windows. They say it works better and their teachers don't have to call the ?janitors? in to fix them. Out of the mouths of the babes comes truth!
Again most pro Microsoft people forget that most of us who use Linux now have very deep experience in Windows. I find it amusing when they forget that fact and try to re-enforce the ROI & TCO ?sales? pitch to us. They really do forget that we (pro Linux) are more required to support Windows than they (pro Windows) support Linux simply due to the numbers. Some of us learn from our experience and some don't.
Strike that last paragraph it goes to another discussion. I patiently await the ?fallout? from saying it
What my ?bean counters? are finding is that Linux and MAC are show the lower TOC. Since I have 2 finance departments, State and the Feds, following up on this in great detail with their audits. As such I get an independent study from 2 groups every budget year. This gives me a good balance.
The interesting thing from our last PRISM inspection was when the team audited our training and qualifications program. The new users were performing their standards far better on Linux than on Windows. The MAC users were about equal to Windows but then they are still getting used to the Tiger OS. This surprised us since it has been said that the familiarity of Windows was and edge in user training and support.
Going one step closer to the new user group our classroom kids overwhelmingly prefer the Linux systems over Windows. They say it works better and their teachers don't have to call the ?janitors? in to fix them. Out of the mouths of the babes comes truth!
Again most pro Microsoft people forget that most of us who use Linux now have very deep experience in Windows. I find it amusing when they forget that fact and try to re-enforce the ROI & TCO ?sales? pitch to us. They really do forget that we (pro Linux) are more required to support Windows than they (pro Windows) support Linux simply due to the numbers. Some of us learn from our experience and some don't.
Strike that last paragraph it goes to another discussion. I patiently await the ?fallout? from saying it
I've had to remind others here at TR many times, when they speak to me as though I know nothing about Windows and am speaking from ignorance, that I'm Microsoft certified and have worked professionally with Windows at least as much as with Linux (though I'm hoping the trend continues and I find myself forced steadily less often to deal with Windows). Almost all professional Linux sysadmins and netadmins came from professional system and network administration of Windows first, and more often than not still deal with Windows professionally.
I found your explanation of circumstances with the systems you oversee to be an interesting case study, by the way. I haven't had the luck to be able to get a clear evaluation of user skill development and platform preference the way you have. Instead, my experience has mostly taught me that people who have worked with Linux and Mac systems for a while threaten to revolt whenever management starts making noises about moving them back to Windows, that my productivity is far greater on Linux than either Mac or Windows desktops, and that my time spent maintaining systems and putting out fires is far greater per Windows system within my area of responsibility than per Linux system (I haven't had Macs inside my area of responsibility enough to really comment personally).
I found your explanation of circumstances with the systems you oversee to be an interesting case study, by the way. I haven't had the luck to be able to get a clear evaluation of user skill development and platform preference the way you have. Instead, my experience has mostly taught me that people who have worked with Linux and Mac systems for a while threaten to revolt whenever management starts making noises about moving them back to Windows, that my productivity is far greater on Linux than either Mac or Windows desktops, and that my time spent maintaining systems and putting out fires is far greater per Windows system within my area of responsibility than per Linux system (I haven't had Macs inside my area of responsibility enough to really comment personally).
"Windows and Solaris"...
Solaris has been open source for the best part of a year, and is as free (as in beer and freedom) as Linux.
Solaris has been open source for the best part of a year, and is as free (as in beer and freedom) as Linux.
OpenSolaris is open source, and for the x86 platform only. Sun Solaris is still proprietary, commercial, closed-source stuff.
There is so much mis-conception on this. OpenSolaris is *not* a distribution. It *is* the Solaris source code. As such, it compiles on x86, x64, *and* Sparc.
From Solaris 10 onwards, Solaris code is open source, and free-of-charge.
From Solaris 10 onwards, Solaris code is open source, and free-of-charge.
My pleasure...
From www.opensolaris.org/os/about
"The OpenSolaris source code will find a variety of uses, including being the basis for future versions of the Solaris OS product"
From www.sun.com/software/solaris/
"Sun offers an alternative to Windows with the Solaris Enterprise System, a unified platform of Solaris 10, Java Enterprise System, developer tools, desktop infrastructure and N1 management software. Pay only for the support you need."
FAQs: www.sun.com/software/solaris/faqs/general.jsp
From www.opensolaris.org/os/about
"The OpenSolaris source code will find a variety of uses, including being the basis for future versions of the Solaris OS product"
From www.sun.com/software/solaris/
"Sun offers an alternative to Windows with the Solaris Enterprise System, a unified platform of Solaris 10, Java Enterprise System, developer tools, desktop infrastructure and N1 management software. Pay only for the support you need."
FAQs: www.sun.com/software/solaris/faqs/general.jsp
1. The quotes you provided mean nothing about what is or is not open source. Re-read them if you have to: noen of them say anything in particular is "open source" or "free software".
2. The pages at http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ and http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/faqs/general.jsp don't say anything useful about what was or was not open-sourced in terms of the OS. They talk a lot about the "enterprise system" and some Java tools, some of which is clearly open source and some of which is not, but is offered for free anyway.
3. http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about is more helpful, probably because it has content on it not designed by Sun's marketing department. Relevant quotes from this page follow:
"The main difference between the OpenSolaris project and the Solaris Operating System is that the OpenSolaris project does not provide an end-user product or complete distribution. Instead it is an open source code base, build tools necessary for developing with the code, and an infrastructure for communicating and sharing related information."
"The Solaris OS is Sun's operating system distribution and is branded, tested, maintained and supported as a Sun product. Future releases of the Solaris OS will be built from the OpenSolaris source code, but will still be supported in the same manner as current versions of the Solaris OS. At any given time, there may be some software in either the OpenSolaris project or the Solaris OS product that is not present in the other."
Based on the URLs you provided, I see no evidence of an open source Solaris beyond what was originally reported, that Solaris 10 for x86 would be the only version released under a FLOSS license. However, I did some more digging, and discovered more information from pages for which you didn't provide URLs. The most succinct summation of what I found is at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/general_faq/:
"There is only one source base for the Solaris operating system for both SPARC and x64/x86 systems, and we build the binaries from that common source. By open sourcing the common Solaris source base we automatically open the code for both SPARC and x64/x86 systems."
Based on that, there is indeed an OpenSolaris for more than just x86, so you were right about that.
On the other hand -- based on the above quote from http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about -- it looks like a case could also be made for the position that no OS at all was made open source, only some basic parts of an OS around which an OS called OpenSolaris was built. Furthermore, OpenSolaris is not the same OS as Sun Solaris OS: they will be subject to divergent evolution as the former is developed by the OpenSolaris community and will gain new "genetic" material as Sun decides what to release under the CDDL, and as Sun decides what it wants to include from OpenSolaris and from its own closed-source development in the commercial offering.
In other words, the situation is more complicated, and less clear, than suggested by either of our previous statements. Neither one of us really presented an accurate assessment of what was going on.
2. The pages at http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ and http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/faqs/general.jsp don't say anything useful about what was or was not open-sourced in terms of the OS. They talk a lot about the "enterprise system" and some Java tools, some of which is clearly open source and some of which is not, but is offered for free anyway.
3. http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about is more helpful, probably because it has content on it not designed by Sun's marketing department. Relevant quotes from this page follow:
"The main difference between the OpenSolaris project and the Solaris Operating System is that the OpenSolaris project does not provide an end-user product or complete distribution. Instead it is an open source code base, build tools necessary for developing with the code, and an infrastructure for communicating and sharing related information."
"The Solaris OS is Sun's operating system distribution and is branded, tested, maintained and supported as a Sun product. Future releases of the Solaris OS will be built from the OpenSolaris source code, but will still be supported in the same manner as current versions of the Solaris OS. At any given time, there may be some software in either the OpenSolaris project or the Solaris OS product that is not present in the other."
Based on the URLs you provided, I see no evidence of an open source Solaris beyond what was originally reported, that Solaris 10 for x86 would be the only version released under a FLOSS license. However, I did some more digging, and discovered more information from pages for which you didn't provide URLs. The most succinct summation of what I found is at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/general_faq/:
"There is only one source base for the Solaris operating system for both SPARC and x64/x86 systems, and we build the binaries from that common source. By open sourcing the common Solaris source base we automatically open the code for both SPARC and x64/x86 systems."
Based on that, there is indeed an OpenSolaris for more than just x86, so you were right about that.
On the other hand -- based on the above quote from http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about -- it looks like a case could also be made for the position that no OS at all was made open source, only some basic parts of an OS around which an OS called OpenSolaris was built. Furthermore, OpenSolaris is not the same OS as Sun Solaris OS: they will be subject to divergent evolution as the former is developed by the OpenSolaris community and will gain new "genetic" material as Sun decides what to release under the CDDL, and as Sun decides what it wants to include from OpenSolaris and from its own closed-source development in the commercial offering.
In other words, the situation is more complicated, and less clear, than suggested by either of our previous statements. Neither one of us really presented an accurate assessment of what was going on.
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