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Open Source does not win by being cheaper

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Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#121

Post by 3np »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #104
mindwok wrote: post #9

The author calls out they are specifically talking about open source solutions that compete with paid offerings. IMO, the jury is very much still out on whether open source "wins" in this regard. In the past decade we've seen a huge rise of open source products, and in the last 5 years or so we've seen many of them move away from that. MongoDB, the Hashicorp stack, Elastic, Red Hat, MinIO, the list goes on. There are…

How do VLC and Blender manage?

VLC development is primarily funded by Naver (Space Green), I believe. Could be misinformed.

http://www.videolan.org/contribute.html

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#122

Post by [deleted] »

est31 wrote: post #71
mcdonje wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's often easier to replace an engineer than a vendor.

engineers who work in large teams on some component, talk about the design with their managers? Yes you can replace them. Firing the maintainer and author of 90% of the commits of the OSS project your company is relying on in a way that it is hard to migrate away? Who can replace them??

[deleted]

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#123

Post by tannhaeuser »

PeterZaitsev wrote: post #24

I think the key point which is missed here is - Open Source gives you the choice. It does not necesarry mean cheaper (in a moment) but it means if you're not happy with vendor pricing, quality or there are other factors in play, you have alternatives. With proprietary technology choosing technology means marrying vendor for life

Only open standards with multiple interworking implementations give you that choice, though. The cost of moving to something else is no different with commercial SW as it is with F/OSS when you have to start from scratch, as opposed to being able to switch to alternative implementations (such as a database or message middleware).

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#124

Post by [deleted] »

eep_social wrote: post #53
jcrben wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think liability payments are that common. As someone who helps in analyzing software purchase decisions, it's certainly not something I hear people bring as a major factor.

Maybe size of enterprise matters? I work in $LargeCorp and legal was very aggressive about insurance and liability redlines on the last contract I had to deal with.

[deleted]

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#125

Post by jmpeax »

> Minio is a great alternative to companies mindful of who has access to user data. Of course, AWS claims that AWS personnel doesn’t have direct access to customer data, but by being closed-source, that statement is just a function of trust.

Can't a company claim to be hosting something via open-source software but using a closed-source in-house software masquerading with the same API endpoints as the open-source version? This still requires the same kind of trust as AWS.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#126

Post by jcrben »

eep_social wrote: post #53
jcrben wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think liability payments are that common. As someone who helps in analyzing software purchase decisions, it's certainly not something I hear people bring as a major factor.

Maybe size of enterprise matters? I work in $LargeCorp and legal was very aggressive about insurance and liability redlines on the last contract I had to deal with.

Why would a SaaS provider expose themselves to catastrophic risk of reimbursing a large enterprise for the enterprise's lost profits due to downtime? I think refunds of the cost of the SaaS are sort of common, but that's quite different and capped.

"Oracle offers no financial compensation (e.g., credits, refunds or otherwise) in the event a Service Level Objective is missed." https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/General/Reference...

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#127

Post by bandrami »

000ooo000 wrote: post #58
musicale wrote: post #28

> For some, this might be a tough pill to swallow. But a for-profit business exists for profit. No, a business usually exists to provide some useful good or service to its customers. FedEx delivers packages. Apple makes phones and computers. Etc. > Definitionally and practically. Profit is what allows the company to hire employees, grow, and sustain itself—it is quite literally what funds ongoing development That's g…

>No, a business usually exists to provide some useful good or service to its customers. FedEx delivers packages. Apple makes phones and computers. Etc. You would have to be grossly naive to think mission comes before profit for 99% of companies.

If profit is the determining motive then every business would be a hedge fund (at which point hedge funds would not be possible, but that's a different point). A business exists to do something specific, profitably; the worst companies I've ever worked for (and these tend to fail quickly) just existed to make a profit but didn't care how. Disney didn't become a world-striding media colossus by wanting to become a world-striding media colossus; they became that by making sure every girl who wants to be a princess wants to be a Disney princess.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#128

Post by bandrami »

reverius42 wrote: post #82
musicale wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's mission statement isn't "try to extract as much money from our customers' wallets as possible" or even "deliver the highest profit and value to our shareholders." (Recall Tim Cook's comment on the "bloody ROI.") In fact I'd be hard-pressed to find such a mission statement for a non-financial firm - at least one that doesn't mention any other purpose for the company.[1] It's a mistake to think that companies o…

I think the point is that the stated mission is window dressing on top of the underlying truth. Following POSIWID, all for profit enterprises have making money as their core mission.

Except that doesn't really work, because plenty of businesses start in low-margin industries, but if profit is actually the first motivation then every business would be a hedge fund. Ray Kroc wanted to get rich making burgers, not just get rich.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#129

Post by the_common_man »

jmpeax wrote: post #125

> Minio is a great alternative to companies mindful of who has access to user data. Of course, AWS claims that AWS personnel doesn’t have direct access to customer data, but by being closed-source, that statement is just a function of trust. Can't a company claim to be hosting something via open-source software but using a closed-source in-house software masquerading with the same API endpoints as the open-source ver…

Not really. If a company claims something and does something else, it's called cheating and one can take legal action. This is tangential to trust.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#130

Post by schnuri »

the_common_man wrote: post #129
jmpeax wrote: post #125

> Minio is a great alternative to companies mindful of who has access to user data. Of course, AWS claims that AWS personnel doesn’t have direct access to customer data, but by being closed-source, that statement is just a function of trust. Can't a company claim to be hosting something via open-source software but using a closed-source in-house software masquerading with the same API endpoints as the open-source ver…

Not really. If a company claims something and does something else, it's called cheating and one can take legal action. This is tangential to trust.

I don’t understand your comment. Isn’t it the same if Amazon falsely claims to not have access to the data and if another company falsely claims to use some specific software?
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