On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 09:27:31PM +0530, Rony wrote:
Nishit Dave wrote:
- Lobby local computer makers like HCL and Zenith to offer an option
for loading Linux or selling systems without a pre-loaded OS (and with a tiny little discount). The pre-installed OS can be on a secondary partition, to allow Windows to be installed on a primary partition at the user's option later. I know, the manufacturers would risk paying the Microsoft Tax (TM) heavily if they tried to do anything like this, but this could at least help bring an unfair practice out into the open.
There are not many FOSS engineers available to service FOSS based computers. It brings to my mind a question for all:-
Computer servicing needs a technician, not an engineer. Given good hardware, and reasonable maintainance (like installing needed upgrades), Unixy solutions work _very_ well. Given bad hardware, it's just easier to fix Windows temporarily.
How much does a FOSS service provider charge to install GNU/Linux on a computer? What would be the annual maintenance cost per year per FOSS based system? Any average figures?
That would depend on the profile, but you could look at the charges for RedHat as the higher end of the spectrum. Actually, if you keep a few standard hardware profiles, it would be easiest for you to simply keep one machine running and serving up network booting and installation services.
Literally plug the host into the network, power it on, and take it off the network when installation is done. No need to look at the screen, no clicking needed ...
Another problem is that FOSS is ready for the people, but people are not ready for FOSS. Both users as well as programmers/developers. A guy working for one of the biggest software companies in India told me that FOSS programmers are few and too expensive. Windows based pros are
FOSS programmers are exactly as expensive as Windows programmers. Actually, except for those who need to work at the really low end, the skills needed are pretty much the same.
available in lots. Software giants that make banking software use things like dot net for banking solutions. How can such software be expected to run on FOSS? Everyone is looking at the economical side of hiring cheaper programmers who are available by the dozen.
Average programmers are more expensive. It is actually cheaper to hire a few good programmers than to hire a hundred average ones. There is plenty of stuff in the computing management literature about this. (Ref: Facts and fallacies of software engineering - Robert Glass, Peopleware - DeMarco and Lister, The Mythical Man Month - Fred Brooks for example).
Devdas Bhagat