On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 07:22:32PM -0700, Kuo, Jimmy wrote: > Is there any study that shows that using Open Source results in savings? Since a significant amount of government systems are bespoke configurations, I'd be extremely surprised if state or federal governments could see any savings via open source software -- they wind up contracting most of it anyway. The rest of it is off-the-shelf officesuite stuff. And no matter how much anyone may try to defend Open Office, it just isn't there yet. But it sure is tempting to think that saving $x * 100 per seat for OS, then $y * 100 for office suite, then $z * 10 for antivirus, then $w * 10 for perseat SERVER licenses, then $v * 1000 for per machine SERVER licenses, that putting up with a slow and crufty office suite might be worth it. I'm not convinced either way. (And before you suggest security, I don't buy that either. Glass houses, stones, throwing, pots, kettle, black, etc. The only place Open Source wins in security, in my experience, is that patches for problems come out miles faster than similar fixes from proprietary sources.) -- "So the whole internet is a Ponzi scheme" -- Jon Stewart
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