Yabby: "You are telling me about one single computer, used in the last
year."

I live at both ends of the scale. In my day job I manage the computer affairs for a largish organisation (several hundred employees). It is all based on Linux. Suffices to say it does a much better job than Windows in most ways and worse in a couple - well one really.

At the other end of the scale I am the "computer support" of last resort for my neighbours and relatives. At the very low end, where I am asked to "just get me a computer so I can communicate with the grandkids", I now install some form of Linux. It doesn't get viruses, it doesn't suffer from "bit rot" (ie get slower over the years), it plays well with other Microsoft machines, it is rock solid reliable and if something does go wrong gives clear error messages like "A timeout occurred when taking to the SMTP server while downloading the body of the email" instead of "Error 0AE04579012, Task Failed". It is also drop dead easy to setup. You just need a CD and a internet connection. No hunting around for applications, no credit cards, no agonising over whether they are worth the money. Something like 20,000 of them are all nicely categorised on the menu, covering ever possible category, all virus free.

So quite the opposite of what you say, this "expert" says is less fiddly to install and easier to maintain in the long run. The only downside is it doesn't run Microsoft applications like high end games, like MYOB, and like ASP. As Pericles says you can run some them in a virtual machine, but to me that comes under your category of "fiddly".

Finally, for what it is worth I current have a support ticket raised with Microsoft. The machine concerned is currently unusable because by a bug introduced by one of Microsoft's updates. This has happened to me on a couple of occasions over the decades with Microsoft systems. It has never happened with open source systems.

You read far too much into what I say, Yabby.

>>Should that kind of statistic give me the confidence to
agree that tens of thousands of Govt computers should all convert
tomorrow?<<

I was simply addressing your proposition that you need to be a software tinkerer to use anything but Microsoft. Which I know from personal experience to be untrue.

Linux is not a solution that will fully find a home in Government departments for a while, that is true. However the reason has nothing to do with technical issues, incompatibilities or software "conflicts", but with simple organizational dynamics.

There is at this moment an army of good folk working in Government who owe their livelihoods to the presence of Microsoft software. Take it away, and their marketability disappears overnight. So they will cling on as long as they can, fighting tooth and nail against any change.

As you'd expect.

But one day, possibly even quite soon, a Department will add up all the Microsoft-related costs, and compare them against the Open Source offerings. Which, as you have understood from this thread, are gaining in popularity and awareness every day.

Those costs will include the software itself, the costs of any re-education or training, and the costs of support both current and future.

One of the aspects of Microsoft license costs is that you can guarantee that they will continue to crop up on a regular basis. Redmond needs to be fed. While on the other hand, the cost of Open Source support will inevitably decrease over the years, as the first burst of unfamiliarity is overcome. At that point, the value of having a veritable host of Open Source developers, all collaborating to make stuff better (rather than find ways to earn more money for the corporation) will become highly visible.

Listen, I'm not trying to persuade anyone. I've been around long enough to know that people - and government departments - make decisions for their own reasons and at their own pace.

But the tide has turned. At some time it will, inevitably, wash away the Microsoft sandcastle.

*I was simply addressing your proposition that you need to be a software tinkerer to use anything but Microsoft. Which I know from personal experience to be untrue.*

OTOH Pericles, I am fully aware that you are a highly intelligent
fellow, so what might seem easy to you, might not be so easy for
the average Govt user.

The actual cost of software, would be peanuts, compared to the
cost of labour. Where Gates made his money was by the sheer
understanding of the value of being "the standard". Apple could
have done it, but sheer ignorance on their behalf, back in the
days when Windows 3 was launched, cost them that role.

*At that point, the value of having a veritable host of Open Source developers, all collaborating to make stuff better (rather than find ways to earn more money for the corporation) will become highly visible.*

Oh I am all for the competition Pericles. My point there is that
many simply don't understand marketing. Consumers/Govts don't
want to buy products, they want to buy solutions. There is a big
difference! If somebody can put together a package, using open
source software, to market those solutions, then there will be a
ready market.

My brother works for a Govt dept and he dislikes MS. But it sounds
like the way they make decisions about computers, has more to do with
annual budgets. If there is money left in the budget at the end
of the year, the computers are replaced, wether they need them or
not!

Yabby: "Consumers/Govts don't want to buy products, they want to buy solutions."

Perhaps. But that doesn't stop some of them moving to open source anyway. For example, the French Police:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars

Or the entire Brazilian government:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39196592,00.htm
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTINFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTECHNOLOGIES/EXTEDEVELOPMENT/0,,contentMDK:22407934~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:559460,00.html

As you can see from the second link, the Brazilian's have been at it from 2003, still haven't pulled it off, but are persisting anyway. The French did a much better job of it.

Yabby: "If somebody can put together a package, using open source software, to market those solutions, then there will be a ready market."

Ever heard of Red Hat, Ubuntu, Novell? That is exactly what they do.

I suspect the problem Brazil struck is many people simply don't want to move away from what they are familiar with. And fair enough, as a million little things change. But some are for the better.

A little story: what finally pushed me away from Microsoft is they discourage backups. OK, you are saying WHAT? Well, they do. The problem isn't the backup. It is the restore. You see, Microsoft is worried you might take a backup and restore it on another machine, and thus have 2 copies of something you paid for once.

If you are using Linux a simple and reliable way to backup the system is just to take an image of the file system. Restore a Linux image onto even vaguely similar hardware and it will run fine, and be exactly as it was before because everything - programs and data, *is* exactly as it was before. But restore a Microsoft image, and it will check the serial numbers of all your devices, notice they have all changed, decide it has been pirated and die, maybe immediately or maybe a month later.

(cont'd...)

(...cont'd)

The Microsoft sanctioned way of restoring your software is to reinstall it, go through the activation procedure, then restore the data files from the backup. But invariably, you can't restore some data, either because you didn't know where the application stores some of its data when you did the backup, or because it is simply impossible. For example the Windows Registry stores data from all sorts of programs, including the Windows Operating system itself, and in particular details about the hardware. Restore the registry from a sufficiently different machine and it won't boot. As a consequence, you can't restore the millions of little settings you didn't write down.

Rinse, lather and repeat for other software Microsoft charges a lot of money for - like Exchange. Exchange is, without a doubt, the best way I know of to be certain you will loose your corporate email. And one of the reasons is because you can't back it up. But oh, you say, you just you can re-install it and restore your data. The problem is, that procedure doesn't always work. Why not? Well, as soon as you start running Exchange, Microsoft starts patching it - as you know. This invariably means the software that writes the backup isn't the same as the software on your original CD's, which means there is a chance the backup isn't compatible.

If you are in the know, use the right (Non-Microsoft) tools to do the backup, all these problems can be overcome. But it is ... tedious. Handling this tedium while the entire company breathing down your back because they have nothing else to do with the computers are down is enough to put you off Microsoft for life.

*Ever heard of Red Hat, Ubuntu, Novell?*

Rstuart, clearly they are not doing such a good job, or your list
of examples would be longer then just the French police and Brazil.

*A little story: what finally pushed me away from Microsoft is they discourage backups.*

You make my point for me here. I don't blame MS for being concerned
about their intellectual property rights, we know what happens when
they lose control, as in the music industry. But in your case,
MS ignored your needs to a solution in terms of backup, it has cost
them $.

In fact we all, including me, have a "I hate Microsoft"story to tell.
The very arrogance which Apple displayed back in the 90s and MS
took advantage of to get where they are today, they now commonly
display, thus the many protests. I don't blame anyone for that.

So I am all for competition, the more the better. But it brings
me back to my original point to Rawmustard, that it would be a bit
early for Govt depts to rush to alternatives and as you show,
not too many have done it so far. But Pericles is correct, it will
eventually happen.

See the bright side, Gates can't take it with him. Given that he
is the world's largest doner to charitable causes and seems to be
spending his money fairly wisely, rather then giving it to a Catholic
charity which likely will only encourage even more unwanted babies,
at least the money I spend on MS products will eventually land up spent on
a good cause :)