Free software costs — who really cares?

Over the past few years, various research groups have been coming
out with studies showing that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for
GNU/Linux is higher than that for Windows. Naturally, many in the free
software community put forth their own arguments — some of them ad
hominem — disputing those studies. In my “humble” opinion, they got
baited into Microsoft’s game, the one where Microsoft sets the rules.
Same thing happened regarding an entry in an MSDN blog, “How can I trust Firefox?” The rules in free software are different, remember?

Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy,
distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it
refers to four kinds of freedom for the users of the software:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access
to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms.

As an aside, there’s a different set of rules in the “Can I trust
Firefox” issue, but some of the reponses on the blog address those
rules. I might create an entry on that some other time.

Interestingly enough, you’ll notice that the FSF doesn’t require
a program to be free-of-charge in order to be free software. In fact,
there’s a whole slew of no-fee programs that aren’t free by the FSF
definition.

The benefits of free software over proprietary have been written up in
thousands of articles, both in the mainstream online and offline press
and in blogosphere so I won’t go into them. Suffice it to say that,
since the source code is available, free software projects have
benefited from a beta testing team and development
community numbering in the thousands, even hundreds of thousands.
Software bugs and vulnerabilities stand little chance of surviving
thousands of eyeballs. Furthermore, users are not dependent on a single
provider: if the original project leader(s) should abandon the project,
there may be an entire community of programmers ready to take over
project leadership. That happened with the Apache project which gave us
the Web server of the same name, the one that powers over 60% of web
sites worldwide. In the worst case, if there’s an abandoned free
software application that didn’t get much attention from the free
software community, I myself might take on the project, or hire
programmers to code in enhancements, if it was important enough for me.
And in case anyone says that there’s nothing like the backing of a
large corporation to ensure the survival of a software application, may
I remind them of Windows NT on Alpha?

Going back to the studies by Gartner, Meta, IDC, et al concluding that
GNU/Linux is more expensive in the long run than Windows. My own
reaction: Who cares? The software is free according to FSF’s definition
and that’s more important to me than any costs associated with it.
There’s a price to pay for freedom, and I’m willing to pay it.

How about consultants then who’ve been stressing the no-fee aspect of
free software? I’m afraid that, in putting the emphasis on savings from
software licensing, consultants have been sacrificing the concept of
software freedom. Sure, reduced software license expenses can be a
strong selling point, but it’s only part of the equation. Besides,
while consultants may be offering software at no licensing cost, there
are still other costs we can’t ignore: mostly consulting hours, for
training, hardware compatibility assurance, integration, etc. Companies
doing it in-house may reduce consultants’ time charges but still have
to account for their own IT people’s time. And let’s admit it: those
costs are higher for a migration from Windows to Freenix (GNU/Linux or
one of the BSDs).

In summary, while a company may be saving on license fees, some of that
savings goes into other expenses. Do some of those expenses recur?
Maybe, maybe not, I myself don’t care. And I don’t think any office seriously into free software should care either.