Open Source or a commercial offering?

[Andrew Zajac]

On 8/15/07, Anthony M Simonelli <a.simonelli at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I've been working on an Internet Gateway/Proxy/Email filter box for work
> using Postfix, AmavisD-New, Spamassassin, ClamAV, Squid, Dansguardian, etc.
...

>  Let's say that after benefits and everything, someone in IT is paid $25 an
> hour and spends 20 total hours getting a Linux server setup for the
> functionality above.  That's $500 worth of work.

I reckon that someone who knew what they were doing would take an hour
or two, no?  This is not rocket science and you don't need to reinvent
the wheel.  Probably any niggles that would have to be ironed out to
get the above services up and running are specific to your setup
(example: any problems with your network) and are independant of the
application you want to run:  You would have to spend some time on
them even if you chose a proprietary solution.  (I say proprietary
because FLOSS *is* commercial.)

So, I guess you would have saved some money by paying someone for
support and services instead of doing it yourself.

This may or may not be the case.  Of course there is no argument for
saying that FLOSS can replace/displace all proprietary software across
the board.  This is true in more and more cases, but I doubt you
should approach a migration to FLOSS with the mindset that it will
always make financial sense.


az