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ru.linux
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From : Sergey Lentsov 2:4615/71.10 10 May 2002 19:55:05
To : All
Subject : URL: http://www.lwn.net/2002/0509/
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See also: [31]last week's LWN.
Leading items and editorials
Measuring total cost of ownership. A claim that is often made by free
software detractors is that free software is not really cheaper.
Initial licensing fees, it is said, make up a very small part of the
"total cost of ownership" (TCO) of a computing system. Once you figure
in the costs of ongoing operations and support, free software no
longer looks like a very good deal.
In reality, there is very little in the way of real data which
demonstrates, one way or the other, whether a free or proprietary
software shop is cheaper to run. So it was refreshing to see
information from two separate sources which fills that gap this week.
The bottom line from both sources is the same: running an operation
with free software costs less.
First, consider a survey done by Cybersource ([32]available in PDF
format) which looks directly at the TCO issue. The folks at
Cybersource look at two scenarios for outfitting a company with a
server and desktop infrastructure, with and without the need to buy
new hardware. The survey considers hardware and software costs, and
the costs of the staff required to keep things going. The final
conclusion: a Linux-based infrastructure has a 25% lower TCO over
three years if new hardware is part of the deal; 34% lower if existing
hardware is to be used.
The survey could be attacked as being simplistic. The only software
cost for the Linux-based network is $79.95 (Australian) for a single
copy of a commercial distribution. The possibility that a company may
need to buy any proprietary packages is not considered. The survey
also does not consider retraining and other migration costs - a point
which is often made by proprietary software companies, and which
should be taken into account (but see the next item, below).
Cybersource found that Linux system administrators cost a bit more
than Windows administrators, but does not account for the (generally
unmeasured) perception that Windows systems require more
administrative time than Linux systems. And so on.
No such survey is going to be perfect, however - real-world networks
are complicated things. This survey is, however, a useful contribution
to the debate.
The other data point comes from a very different source, and was never
meant to be presented as a TCO comparison. Consider [33]Dell's new
dedicated hosting service, and, in particular, the [34]D-2800
offering. This service offers a respectable system (Pentium 850,
256MB, 20GB, 21GB/month bandwidth) in two configurations:
* Red Hat Linux 7.1: $189/month.
* Windows 2000: $239/month.
The folks at Dell are not out to prove a point about which system is
better. They are running a business, and have figured out a
competitive price at which they can offer each service. The total cost
of ownership of each system will have been figured into the hosting
costs they charge their customers. The result is decisive: with
identical hardware and bandwidth provision, the Linux system is 21%
cheaper. Not a bad result.
Microsoft vs. Peru. These events transpired in late March and early
April, but we in the North can be a bit slow at times.... Peru, like a
number of countries, is considering legislation which would require
the use of free software within the government whenever possible.
Microsoft, strangely enough, does not like that idea. So, on March 21,
Juan Alberto Gonzalez, general manager of Microsoft Peru, sent a
letter to Edgar Villanueva Nunez, the Peruvian congressman behind the
free software bill. This letter is available on the net [35]translated
to English; those wanting to read the original Spanish version can
find it (as a set of scanned images) on [36]this page.
The letter raises the usual points heard from Microsoft when it is
worried about free software:
* Use of free software will "discourage local and international
software manufacturers who make real and important investments in
the country."
* Free software presents security risks, comes with no warranty, and
may violate "the intellectual property rights of third parties."
* Free software is not really free (of charge), and, in any case,
licensing costs are a small part ("8%") of the total cost of
ownership.
* The state could benefit from Microsoft's volume pricing schemes
(despite the fact that Microsoft just claimed that licensing costs
are almost insignificant).
* Moving to free software imposes migration costs.
* The level of service available for free software is inadequate.
* Using free software will discourage creativity in the Peruvian
software industry. "With a law encouraging the use of open source
software, programmers lose their intellectual property rights and
their most important source of remuneration."
And so on.
Government officials in many countries seem to eat that sort of stuff
up. So it is delightful to read Mr. Villanueva's highly clueful
response (in [37]Spanish or [38]English translation). We'll present a
few excerpts here, but it is worth the effort to read the whole
(somewhat lengthy) thing.
Mr. Villanueva starts by reiterating the goals of the free software
bill, which Microsoft passed over entirely in its criticism:
* Free access to public information
* Permanence of public data
* Security of the state and its citizens
These goals, he argues, can only be achieved with free, open source
code and file formats. Not all free software users are much concerned
with freedom, but governments should be. Microsoft's arguments pass
over freedom and look at economic issues; it is good to see that this
congressman is able to keep the freedom argument in view.
Once that is done, however, Mr. Villanueva proceeds to demolish the
economic arguments as well. Concerning, for example, the claim that
the local software industry would be damaged:
In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion
that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary
software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the
State in this bill would completely eliminate the market for these
firms. If that is true, we can deduce that the State must be
subsidizing the proprietary software industry. In the unlikely
event that this were true, the State would have the right to apply
the subsidies in the area it considered of greatest social value;
it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis, that if the State
decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so choosing the
free over the proprietary, considering its social effect and the
rational use of taxpayers money.
With regard to Microsoft's security claims:
What is impossible to prove is that proprietary software is more
secure than free, without the public and open inspection of the
scientific community and users in general. This demonstration is
impossible because the model of proprietary software itself
prevents this analysis, so that any guarantee of security is based
only on promises of good intentions (biased, by any reckoning) made
by the producer itself, or its contractors.
Mr. Villanueva also sees through the "no warranty" argument:
If as a result of a security bug in one of your products, not fixed
in time by yourselves, an attacker managed to compromise crucial
State systems, what guarantees, reparations and compensation would
your company make in accordance with your licensing conditions? The
guarantees of proprietary software, inasmuch as programs are
delivered ``AS IS'', that is, in the state in which they are, with
no additional responsibility of the provider in respect of
function, in no way differ from those normal with free software.
Mr. Villanueva takes issue with the cost of ownership arguments,
making many familiar points: there is a more competitive market for
services, fixes only need be done once, far fewer problems with
downtime, "blue screens of death," viruses, etc. He also has an answer
to the claim that migration costs make free software uncompetitive:
Once a policy of using free software has been established (which
certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration
from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is
stored in open formats. On the other hand, migration to an open
software context implies no more costs than migration between two
different proprietary software contexts, which invalidates your
argument completely.
For what it's worth, Microsoft is far less concerned about migration
costs on its [39]Migrating to Windows from Unix and Linux pages.
One last point worth careful study is Mr. Villanueva's analysis of the
failure of Mexico's "Red Escolar" project, which has backed off from
its goal of running free software in all of Mexico's schools. Red
Escolar failed because it emphasized licensing costs over the other
benefits of free software, because it lacked support from the federal
government, and, crucially, because there was no real plan for moving
over to free software:
...the assumption was made that to implant free software in schools
it would be enough to drop their software budget and send them a CD
ROM with Gnu/Linux instead. Of course this failed, and it couldn't
have been otherwise, just as school laboratories fail when they use
proprietary software and have no budget for implementation and
maintenance. That's exactly why our bill is not limited to making
the use of free software mandatory, but recognizes the need to
create a viable migration plan, in which the State undertakes the
technical transition in an orderly way in order to then enjoy the
advantages of free software.
This is an important realization: you can't just mandate free software
and expect it to work. The fact that Peru is thinking about how this
change is to be made, and that it is not "free beer" free, is a
hopeful sign.
Increasingly, governments are realizing that the goals of freedom of
information and security conflict with the use of proprietary
software. Most national governments are also well at ease with the
notion that they don't have to send all that money to a large, U.S.
corporation which has been convicted of antitrust violations. Said
corporation does not like this trend, and can only be expected to
fight back fiercely. In Peru, however, the company has so far found
itself rather outclassed.
LWN now accepts credit cards. Numerous people have asked us for an
alternative to PayPal as a means for donating to LWN or paying for
advertisements. We may be slow, but we don't forget...we now have
secure credit card processing working on the site. If you have been
waiting for a non-PayPal way to [40]donate to LWN, now is your chance.
Inside this LWN.net weekly edition:
* [41]Security: Honeynet Reverse Challenge; tcpdump & FreeBSD; GnuPG
1.0.7
* [42]Kernel: The end of /proc/ide; kbuild 2.5 and modversions.
* [43]Distributions: Yet another revision (to the LWN Distributions
List); The Arabization of Linux.
* [44]Development: Samba 2.2.4, SocketCC, Google search modules,
Rosegarden 4v0.1.5, GARNOME preview 6, game contest, FLTK
1.1.0rc1, GnuPG 1.0.7, SBCL 0.7.3, Parrot answers, OProfile 0.2.
* [45]Commerce: Red Hat Launches New Channels to Support Education;
EUCD status Wiki established.
* [46]Letters: Mandating the GPL.
...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
* [47]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
May 9, 2002
Sponsored Link
[48]Cheap and Effective
LWN's text ads are a cheap and effective marketing tool for your
organization. You can now purchase text ads automatically through our
own credit card gateway. (No more PayPal).
[49]Next: Security
[50]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2002 [51]Eklektix, Inc.,
all rights reserved
Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
References
1. http://lwn.net/
2. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/security.php3
3. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/kernel.php3
4. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/dists.php3
5. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/devel.php3
6. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/commerce.php3
7. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/press.php3
8. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/announce.php3
9. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/letters.php3
10. http://lwn.net//2002/0509/bigpage.php3
11. http://lwn.net/daily/
12. http://linuxcalendar.com/
13. http://lwn.net/stocks/
14. http://lwn.net/Reviews/
15. http://lwn.net/Gallery/
16. http://lwn.net/archives/
17. http://lwn.net/op/headlines.phtml
18. http://lwn.net/mediakit/
19. http://lwn.net/corp/paypal/donate.php3
20. http://lwn.net/corp/supporters.php3
21. http://lwn.net/op/Contact.html
22. http://lwn.net/2002/features/rms.php3
23. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Timeline/
24. http://lwn.net/2001/features/oreilly2001/
25. http://lwn.net/2001/features/OLS/
26. http://lwn.net/2001/features/MandrakeSoft.php3
27. http://lwn.net/2001/features/KernelSummit/
28. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Singapore
29. http://lwn.net/2001/features/djbdns.php3
30. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/
31. http://lwn.net/2002/0502/
32. http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/linux_vs_windows_tco_comparison.pdf
33. http://www.dellhost.com/
34. http://www.dellhost.com/solutions/dedicated/d2800.asp
35. http://pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/alt2_ms_to_villanueva.html
36. http://pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/
37. http://pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/villanueva_a_ms.html
38. http://pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/villanueva_to_ms.html
39. http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate/unix/
40. http://lwn.net/corp/donate/
41. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/security.php3
42. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/kernel.php3
43. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/dists.php3
44. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/devel.php3
45. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/commerce.php3
46. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/letters.php3
47. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
48.
http://oasis.lwn.net/oasisc.php?s=2&c=5&cb=366450665&url=http%3A%2F%2Flwn.net%2F
corp%2Fadvertise%2Ftext%2F
49. http://lwn.net/2002/0509/security.php3
50. http://www.eklektix.com/
51. http://www.eklektix.com/
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URL: http://www.lwn.net/2002/0509/ |
Sergey Lentsov |
10 May 2002 19:55:05 |
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