[plug] These prices are HOT

[Craig Foster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au 
> [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On Behalf Of Alex Nordstrom
> Sent: Thursday, 10 November 2005 5:56 PM
> To: plug at plug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [plug] These prices are HOT
> 
> Thursday, 10 November 2005 14:05, Kev wrote:
> > I receive "specials" from one of my suppliers on a regular basis. 
> > This one today made me wonder even more why people persist with 
> > Window$.
> 
> Yes, most Free software is gratis. Move along.
> 
> The real cost of proprietary software is in the added 
> downtime, administrative overhead, data loss, &c caused by 
> their lack of reliability. That's especially true with 
> unsupported, illegally sold OEM warez. A few hundred bucks is 
> peanuts in that context.
 
LOL!

<rant>
I work in schools (properly set up schools) and Office 2003 almost never
bjorks (unless the person is in offline mode), has little admin overhead
as most settingss are managed by the ORK and group policy, has a detect
and repair feature, and everybody has enough experience through other
channels that I can do standard training instead of teaching the basics.

The real cost of *ANY* software is added downtime, admin overhead, and
user knowledge. Don't think it's just a MS problem. I believe that's why
90% of OSS is sub-par - they think they have an instant advantage over
MS, because they are not MS.

I'll be the first to admit that most school servers are Windows, but
I'll use whatevers best for the job. I have linux boxes doing content
filtering, web serving, non-essential DBs, and thin clients at most of
the sites.

</rant>

BTW I am aware the figures are skewed for schools with regards to MS
licensing...

<snip>
> 
> --
> Alex Nordstrom
> http://lx.n3.net/
> Please do not CC me in followups; I am subscribed to plug.

Regards,

Craig Foster
RHCE