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Lest we forget
Since I'm an "old guy", I happen to remeber the days when you paid $50K to $100K for software on Unix systems (before MS was even an idea in Gate's head). The software we had at Litton Systems, very rarely ever crashed or had problems (many months between reboots). Then MS came on the scene and we were introduced to crashes and lost work. The finance guys figured that the costs in HR were less overall when compared to the purchase cost.

Enter the introduction of "it sorta works, but it costs only a small fraction". Once everyone got used to quality being job none, we headed down the road of really cheap software. BUT, with the high quantity of licenses, we are now at the point of big bucks for no quality.

We pay $40M a year in licensing, moved to Citrix and now a single wire being bad took out 53,000 employees for a morning. If you do the math, you can see that the $50 to $100K for mutiuser software (18K in maintenance per year) that was high quality was a bargain.

So now we have everyone making software, no quality and low prices (triangle theory). No one to blame but ourselves, (well mostly the finance guys who just didn't get it).

Of interesting note, is that the OSS plan is not driven by profit (no triangle rule), it appears to be based on "love of craft", sort of the "starving artist" view of life. The software is ready when it is ready. Can you run a business on that plan? I don't know.

I'd just like to say "thanks" to the starving artists.
Ian Douglas
CTO
Posted by: douglasids   Posted on: 02/26/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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