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Ask OSDL CEO Stu Cohen About Linux TCO Studies

Posted by Roblimo on Mon Feb 13, 2006 09:00 AM
from the truth-lurks-somewhere-in-the-grey-gloom dept.
Operating Systems Software Windows Linux
This morning OSDL and OSDL member Levanta jointly released a study done by Enterprise Management Associates called Get the Truth on Linux Management. For years, a proprietary software company in Washington State has run what they call a Get the Facts campaign about Linux, full of studies that invariably show Linux to be expensive, hard to maintain, and less than totally secure. Stu Cohen, as CEO of OSDL, a group "dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise," will happily answer your questions about Linux vs. Windows studies and the myths and FUD that seem to hover over them. Expect Stu's answers to the 10 - 12 highest-moderated questions later this week.
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[+] OSDL CEO Answers Slashdot Questions 72 comments
Here are OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen's answers to your questions, many of which were spurred by the recent release of an OSDL co-sponsored Linux TCO study (that anti-open source commentator Rob Enderle has already/inevitably questioned).
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Ask OSDL CEO Stu Cohen About Linux TCO Studies 50 Comments More /

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  • This may seem like an inane question but why don't I see more of a push to get Linux into the realm of academia?

    I know that Ubuntu [ubuntufund.org] has made strides to incorporate themselves into learning environments but where is the effort to alert students (primarily other than computer science majors) to the benefits of Linux?

    When I was a freshman at the University of Minnesota, a friend handed me a CD distribution of Debian that would change my life. I knew of the Linux labs in the University but only now did they interest me. I'm now getting my masters at George Mason University and I don't believe there's a single Linux machine on campus. In fact, the whole Computer Science department has only two Sun servers to offer me an account on! Everything else is Microsoft!

    Now you may lay claim that every computer science major these days is running Linux anyway. But how about the other areas of study? I used to take music theory and people would rant and rave about their Macs or one of various composing suites in Windows. I tried explaining that Linux has (certainly more affordable) solutions to offer in this department too but no one would even listen to me. It's not like they were mixing platinum selling records, they were just looking for software to write sheet music with.

    I think that both Apple and Microsoft realize that the toys people have in college become the toys they demand in real life. So there are all these [apple.com] efforts [e-academy.com] to garner the student's interest hoping that they will use them in their careers.

    They make it free (which Linux already is), they make it easy and they make it available.

    So how about it? Why isn't the Linux community minting install discs and distributing literature on campuses? Why isn't Linux tailoring cheap solutions to K-12 schools that don't have the money for Windows anyway? Why do we risk letting someone leave academia without ever experiencing the real fruits of it?

    If you are doing this (and I just don't know about it), what steps have you taken?

    • When I think about the human factor in TOC, I see 2 issues:

      • How many human intervention (administration, helpdesk, ...) is necessary to run the system and keep in running and functional?
      • How much does this human intervention cost?

      In the second issue, do you think there's a significant positive feedback loop? And is this significant compared to the entire TCO? I'm thinking about something like:

      The more Linux is used in the corporate world => the more students and people will study and practice Linux t

    • Why don't I see more of a push to get Linux into the realm of academia?

      The answer is 'free stuff', or at least very 'cheap stuff'. Microsoft practically gives away copies of Windows, Office, and Visual Studio (for example), so that those fresh out of high school and university are trained in it.

      Ultimately, why go with a less compatible solution when you can have the mainstream one for pretty cheap? Also application support (Adobe, CAD software, Mathemtica, etc are all Windows)

      -M

    • Here's how to solve the problem at George Mason and other universities: Sic Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter on them for refusing to allow 'alternative viewpoints' in America's universities. If it works for politics, it will work for OSs...
    • Did you know the site you linked to has nothing to do with Ubuntu Linux? Nice program though.
    • I would bet that Linux is already well known in most computer science programs. The reality is that many universities see their job as supplying the skills that industry needs. That is not a terrible thing since most people want to leave college with marketable skills. There is currently a lot more demand for people that can develop for windows than for Linux.
      Someone that is graduating from a good but not great university with a degree in IT that doesn't know how to use Windows will have a hard time finding
  • What I would really like to know is why Linux or Windows? Why hasn't there been a really good study that included BSD, Solaris, OSX, or even licensed variants of Unix? Is it all about Linux or is it about better operating systems?
    • The problem is support. There are large numbers of developers behind Linux at Red Hat, Novell, Mandriva, Ubuntu and so on, vs only a small handful of developers at the UNIX flavours. The result is that when you try to build a real system using one of the Unices, you quickly find that many of the utilities and libraries that you need are either hopelessly outdated, or totally unavailable, or the source won't compile on your flavour of Unix. Been there, tried that.
      • The result is that when you try to build a real system using one of the Unices, you quickly find that many of the utilities and libraries that you need are either hopelessly outdated, or totally unavailable

        Which sort of real system are you talking about? One where you've compiled everything yourself? In commercial unices, you don't tend to have to do that. What you lose in flexibility, you also lose in complexity and maintenance work. I'm not going to tell you that any of them are the be-all end-all,
        • Solaris is a pig until you've installed a load of stuff on it to make it usable (not tried Solaris 10 though.. we don't have any customers on that).

          Once you get outside the Linux/OSX/Solaris 'safe zone' it all goes to hell.

          HPUX? Good luck getting any precompiled software for it, and when you do good luck getting it to work. Compiling? It takes me 3-4 *days* to build a release of the (relatively small) software suite we do, due to constantly having to work around bugs in the compiler/linker/libraries, etc
        • Well, you picked a good example. I think Solaris is the only Unix that is still supported properly. With any of the others, all bets are off.

  • This doesn't make sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2006, @09:05AM (#14705391)
    Why would you expect that the answers of someone "dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise" would be more objective, in any way, than any of the reports created by pro-MS companies?

    It just doesn't make sense...
    • God I wish I had mod points, otherwise they would be yours as you have asked the my question.
    • Will 2006 be the year of Desktop Linux?

      *runs*

    • Why would you expect that the answers of someone "dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise" would be more objective, in any way, than any of the reports created by pro-MS companies?

      Since it all comes down to what you choose to measure and how you measure it ... I'd rephrase your question as:

      Why would anyone expect that the criteria of someone "dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise" would be more objective or that the measurements w

    • Often those facing a well-financed, established group (whether it's "the establishment" or Microsoft) need only to expose how ridiculous the established group really is ("Linux is cancer!"). Hopefully this venture will do just that.

  • Bias (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MaestroSartori (146297) on Monday February 13 2006, @09:06AM (#14705396) Homepage
    Since almost all of these studies are funded or organised by a party which appears to be inherently for or against one of the things being studied, will it be possible to find anyone willing to compare them impartially? After all, how many people would believe an Open Source company to be any less biased than MS when it comes to comparing their products?

  • Security Question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by db32 (862117) on Monday February 13 2006, @09:10AM (#14705417) Journal
    How can we fix the problem of the way TCO studies handle security? In so many of them every OSS application under the sun gets tallied against Linux systems, regardless of how obscure, or unrequired that application may be. Yet all of the 3rd party things that have holes in them rarely seem to even get looked at when talking about Windows security. Firefox for example seems to get tagged frequently when talking about Linux security in these studies, but Firefox isn't integreated into Linux, and it runs on both platforms. IE on the other hand is integrated into the OS, sure you can not use it, but there is a ton of junk in Windows itself that requires the various bits and pieces of IE to operate correctly. What is it going to take for these studies to finally start comparing apples to apples in regards as to what really is part of the OS and what is required for it to run?
    • Part of the problem here is that when comparing a Linux OS to Windows, you have to recognize the fact that Windows comes bundled with a browser. It is part of the OS and you know that few users want a computer that cannot browse the web. So, to be fair, you have to compare competing OSes on like terms and this means including a web browser with linux-based operating systems.

      Most distributions include Firefox in their installation. Yes, it's true, Firefox is not linux. But then if you start going down th
      • Go delete all the files related to IE on a Windows computer and see how far you get. That is a big part of how they dodged that whole separation order back in the Browser Wars. They integrated IE so you HAD to have the core pieces of IE to make your OS run. You can delete every file related to every web browser on a linux system and it will happily chug along. Do the same on a Windows system and you will be in a world of hurt. My point is in linux every browser is a 3rd party application and nothing mo
    • Because it's *Total* *Cost* of ownership? I don't see the point of making an "apples-to-apples" comparision -- If firefox etc is on your systems, you have patch it, and that has a cost associated with it. (And yes, putting Firefox on a Windows system does also increase TCO).

      Now, this cuts both ways -- Unix/Linux users have long argued that their server system is better for TCO specifically because one can strip it down and not have browsers/etc on machines that don't need them. I think the market recognizes
      • But the patch cycle does start to look pretty different when you start to strip things down. When you count all the patches for the hordes of non essential 3rd party applications towards the linux security/patching. Looking at the numbers it often says that linux has more patches and more critical vulnerabilities in a given timeframe. If you look closer you start to notice that alot of those vulnerabilities are in non essential pieces and could be discounted completely in many setups. Even kernel vulner
  • How many rounds would you go, one on one, against Steve Ballmer in an auditorium full of chairs?
  • In looking at Microsoft's TCO claims in particular, I've been unable to avoid noticing that a lot of the company's material on this subject consists of, to put it simply, straight lies. Aside from anything else, nothing is mentioned by them about their licensing fees. How they can state with a straight face that after their licensing fees, Windows can still be cheaper than Linux is beyond me.

    Legitimate performance competition is one thing, but I'm curious to know how the ODSL is able to deal with Microsoft'
    • I've been unable to avoid noticing that a lot of the company's material on this subject consists of, to put it simply, straight lies

      My interpretation is that some of thew were half-truths. Statistics can be bent to show anything you want. One way is to select the metrics so that they are biased regardless if the metrics are correct.

      For example, in the area of resources, the MS studies state that Linux admins cost more than Windows admins thus appearing that Linux costs more. This is technically true.

  • Setting up Linux from Win2K3 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by digitaldc (879047) * on Monday February 13 2006, @09:25AM (#14705500)
    Say I wanted to switch from Windows Server 2003 to Linux in a company of about 400 people with the same equipment I already have, generally speaking how long would it take and how much would I need to invest?
    Do I need to hire several Linux experts just to get it up and running?
    Would you expect this to be relatively easy or would it be very complicated and time consuming?
    • Bit of a silly question if you don't provide a list of what you want to run, are currently running, and am planning on running in the future :)

      If you need MSSQL, you're SoL, if it's just a fileserver, samba will work fine, etc.

      Splut.
        • you can't just remove one backend SQL dbms and slide another one in, there's way too many differences in SQL commands, data types, stored procedures, triggers, management, configuration. You're generally going to have to do a migration and change client side software. Huge projects, I've made a pile doing them.
  • This study is sponsored by the OSDL so it has an initial bias. If it were a study proving Windows to be cheaper sponsored by Microsoft, everyone would be yelling at the bias - rightfully. So it's only fair game to strongly underline this. (BTW, I AM Linux biaised. but that's not the point here ;) )
    • There is certainly bias here, but the ethics issues and conflict of interest issues tend to be larger on the other side of the fence. I think it would be terribly difficult to remove all of the bias from these sorts of studies, because even at the lowest level, people involved are going to have personal preferences. Ultimately, I am going to tend to believe the guy that wants to give me the free (as in freedom) stuff telling me his stuff is better, because the other guy telling me about HIS junk wants me

  • Which is better? It all depends! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Opportunist (166417) on Monday February 13 2006, @09:25AM (#14705503)
    Especially not in a heated market like the OS biz. Who can tell what's "better" or "worse"? To what scale do you measure? And even if you find a way to compare them, what tells you that we won't see the same phenomenon that benchmarks sparked in the CPU and Graphics sector, companies that trim their products to perform perfectly in the artificial test environment (and really suck sometimes in everyday appliances)?

    Do I need graphics on a server OS? Do I need highly sophisticated user permissions on a single user machine? Do I need support for 10 billion hardware pieces? Do I need flying pages when copying? Is it important that you can trim the system to run even on a P90? Do I want to be able to use the most recent fads in anti-aliasing and pixel shading? Do I need to be compatible with 100 other formats across 20 OSs? Do I need or want to customize my kernel? Does it make sense to cram the GUI into the system (and the internet browser as well)? Is it useful to ram the Mailreader into the system so tightly that it's virtually impossible to get rid of it?

    No offense, but who are you to answer those questions for me?

    So which system is "better"? Neither. Or both. Or it's really one of them. It just depends on who you are, how much you know (or want to know), how flexible you would like to be, and most of all, what you want to do with your machine.

  • If OSDL believes that Linux has a superior TCO ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hweimer (709734) on Monday February 13 2006, @09:27AM (#14705517) Homepage
    ... why don't they use it?

    Almost every PDF document on the OSDL website has been created on a Windows PC or on a Mac. Even the Desktop Linux Survey Report [osdl.org] shows:

    $ pdfinfo DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005.pdf
    Title: Microsoft Word DTL_Survey_Report_v4.doc
    Creator: Word
    Producer: Mac OS X 10.4.3 Quartz PDFContext
    • Almost every PDF document on the OSDL website has been created on a Windows PC or on a Mac.

      That's as funny as it is sad, especially given that Word regulary generates ugly looking documents, and that Word -> PDF is generally a Bad Idea.

      The only excuse I can think of is the unlikely scenario where they were typed-up by an overworked secretary who didn't know anything else. But that would invite another TCO analysis, wouldn't it? Thirty minutes of LaTeX tutoring (for example) vs. the cost of a Microsoft
      • LaTeX tutoring? Hell, I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable Unixhead, but even I don't use LaTeX if I need to create a document quickly.

        I use LyX (www.lyx.org) for that. All of the good-lookingness of LaTeX, most of the flexibility, no cryptic syntax error messages. And the best and best-integrated graphical equation editor I've ever seen.
  • We recently had an issue in which Microsoft Office included unlicensed IP (according to a court settlement). Microsoft did not require us to patch existing installations, rather simply protecting our use via the settlement, agreeing to require future installations to include the patch. This seems like a case in which indemnifications worked (although they could have offered some compensation for the extra work - it's cheaper than litigation). For background, see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversyst [microsoft.com]
  • I believe that if you are OK with the application space that you can have equivalent or lower enterprise TCO on desktop Linux.

    However, in broadcast engineering, we have a problem that there are lots of devices (satellite receivers, video compressors, video effects devices, video monitoring systems) that are using GNU/Linux. Each vendor seems to pick a different distribution version, basically requiring keeping track of patching 10 or 20 different OS versions. And the truth is that vendors seem so sold on
    • Unless they're rolling their own distro, with custom and proprietary drivers, and custom kernels, you can pretty much assume that if it'll run one one distro, it'll run on another. You might have to recompile a driver or two, but that's not unreasonable to get one consistent, easily maintained/patched distro.

  • Why Should We Care? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by illuminatedwax (537131) <stdrange&alumni,uchicago,edu> on Monday February 13 2006, @09:51AM (#14705718) Journal
    It's a Serious Question. Don't TCO costs end up coming down to how much you will pay employees, how many employees you need, and the price of software? Shouldn't any capable manager be able to estimate the costs themselves? After all, I'm certain TCO varies wildly from workplace to workplace, considering what kind of system is already in place, what software is readily available for an OS, and what skills your current employees have.

    My question is: is there really a use for these reports other than for 'defense': positive propaganda versus negative propaganda?

    As an aside, do these studies take into account the availability and flexibility of currently extant software? Is there even a way to turn that information into TCO?

  • Quality comes with price? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Keruo (771880) on Monday February 13 2006, @09:53AM (#14705731)
    Maybe the TCO summaries are right after all?
    Atleast partially that is.

    Using the linux road, you have to pay competent people salary for actually knowing something about the system they're dealing with.

    Anyone can get windows server up and running after 10 minutes of reading help files, but it won't be secure by a long shot.

    I guess same applies for linux in some ways, but it's like comparing iron ball and snow ball in hell.
    Both will melt down eventually if left unmaintained, but it's just matter of how long it takes.
    And longer it takes, the more profit you make.

    TCO might be higher, but you simply get more work done when your IT department doesn't have to spend 2 days every week reinstalling all workstations.
    And getting more work done increases profits and in the long run, brings down the TCO, even if it's higher at the beginning.

    TCO surveys are statistics, and statistics always tell what the collector wants them to say.
    It's just matter how you count things.

  • TCO Claims (Score:3, Interesting)

    by db32 (862117) on Monday February 13 2006, @10:11AM (#14705905) Journal
    Ernie Ball goes Linux [com.com] if you havn't seen it yet. There is alot of noise about these mythical enviroments that are pro windows or pro linux, but here is a good example of a real world switch. Ernie Ball makes guitar strings, so there really isn't any internal bias about who to support beyond it being a business decision. It is also a bit of an entertaining story on how they dealt with the MS strongarming about their licenses.
  • There's certainly been a good few questions asked already, but the one I'd like to get an answer to is,
    how do companies see OSDL? Do they believe it's a trustworthy group that knows what they're talking about, or does it look like another one of those 'fad-like' groups that's going to fade away? I don't mean to say OSDL is fading out, I'm curious to know what the real-world perception of it is. I've noticed that while many of my friends use linux and are generally well-versed in what's going on, they're usu
  • ...full of studies that invariably show Linux to be expensive, hard to maintain, and less than totally secure

    I suspect the first two are potentially true, but that would depend entirely on the situation. Bad choices can always be made, regardless of the systems involved, that turn out to be expensive and costly to maintain. Just because it's open source doesn't make it immune to bad management.

    The third is most definately true. As far as I know there is no OS that is totally secure. It's a lauable goal to b

  • OS Deathmatch (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MichailS (923773) on Monday February 13 2006, @11:28AM (#14707074)
    I'd guess the only fair way to pit one platform against another would be to offer a scenario - client company X has a list of specific needs and requirements - and let teams of experts of either party deploy their solution. Mano an mano.

    Then when the smoke has settled, they are compared with regards to cost for things such as licenses, staff, etc.

    It would also be important to note the differences in the solutions to the client.

    Will the MS solution be simpler to manage, to update? Will the Linux solution require less tweaking a year later? Will there be hacks beknownst only to the people who set up the solution.

    And to make it all worth while - these contests should be arranged regularly and have different levels of difficulty and scope.

    Call it "OS Deathmatch" or something silly like that and offer prices. Host it at sports arenas. Set up a fair with computer gear for sale at the entrance.

    Invite thousands of low- and high-profile geeks. Invite crackers to attempt to find vulnerabilities with the solutions.

    Invite companies with real-world cases to get the contestants to work on their requirements. Let them sponsor the show and in return get the elite solutions.

    Not only would this generate tremendous media coverage and potential income for entrepreneurs, it will also make for much more fair scrutinizing of the software than the current crop of shady "independant experts".
  • There is a large shout for expanding the amount of desktops running Linux. While most users on Slashdot seem fine and dandy with the way Linux desktop is now, I believe that a lot of changes will have to occur before you can get Joe Sixpack to replace Windows or Mac with Linux, such as making tasks more automatic, improving hardware support, and completely removing the need for the command line/terminal (except for development).

    Do you believe that the desktop needs to change before its user base expands? If
  • In rare cases, servers can be deployed using just about any server operating system (BSD, Linux or Windows). Usually, though, history matters. Applications that originated on a Unix type OS are generally going to be much more easily ported to Linux than applications built on MS Exchange, ActiveX controls and VBA. Similarly, conversion costs from Unix to Windows can be very high.

    There is also the issue of staff retraining. I am aware that the study looked at availability and costs of Linux versus Window

  • Vista's impact (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Statecraftsman (718862) on Monday February 13 2006, @05:55PM (#14711700) Homepage
    Do you expect Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista release to help or hinder adoption of linux on the desktop and how can the open source and linux communities best take advantage of the sometimes-artificial commercial software upgrade cycle?

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