What is Digg?227 Comments
- SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -10/+141I like my Windows. But even I can tell that's *****.
- purdo, on 10/12/2007, -16/+125What is the world coming to? Only Mark Shuttleworth can save us now!
- deadowl, on 10/12/2007, -45/+121Not so much for casual users in my opinion. Windows currently has higher long-term costs.
1. Cost of anti-virus software and subscriptions
2. Cost of removing registry bloat
3. Cost of removing disk fragmentation
4. Cost of removing start up bloat
5. Cost of reformatting when 2, 3, and 4 become unmanageable
6. Cost of backing up information in the case of 5
7. Cost of seeking customization
8. Cost incurred by lack of community support
9. Cost of upgrading to the inevitable next version
10. Cost of backing up data and reformatting to avoid relics form 2, 3, and 4 in the case of 9 - bestadvocate, on 10/12/2007, -12/+85Can Shuttleworth perform exorcisms? RMS can! The power of the FSF compels you Novell!
Welcome to the church of emacs - BigBadger, on 10/12/2007, -9/+70The microsoft/novell deal is like the corporate equivalent of a brutal, messy, hate-*****. The kind that usually ends in a pink sock.
I wish nothing but ill-will towards novell. - shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -10/+71"Some will be surprised to learn that our Windows environment has a lower total cost of ownership than our current Linux environment."
yeah... but how big is each environment, and what do you do with each? it wouldn't be a surprise is windows just ran some tellers machines while linux ran the whole damn bank...
The article is (as i assume the press release also) full of these out of context half quotes which don't really say anything about TCO or ROI.... if linux was costing them so damn much why are they still using it and making a deal with novell?
- sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+56Is Novell trying to commit suicide and bring the open source community down with it?
Having gotten that out of the way, if HSBC made a mess of its Linux environment, maybe their Windows environment does have a lower TCO. But how it gets reported in the press is "Windows has a lower TCO than Linux" which is ridiculously untrue, and that's the takeway that managers will get from that (their brains being starved for oxygen because of their ties) - bepo, on 10/12/2007, -46/+99@deadbowl
I don't know what's up lately but the fud seems to be coming mostly from the Linux crowd lately. For example...
1. Cost of anti-virus software and subscriptions
This is a valid point, and one worth debating
2. Cost of removing registry bloat
This comes mostly from apps, and nothing forces a developer to load up the registry. Just take a look at /etc some time
3. Cost of removing disk fragmentation
What's the cost there? In XP you just set a scheduled task, it's already done for you in Vista
4. Cost of removing start up bloat
The last time I installed a major Linux distro it loaded a freaking aquarium in the dock, is that the type of thing you are referring to?
5. Cost of reformatting when 2, 3, and 4 become unmanageable
See 2,3 and 4 responses
6. Cost of backing up information in the case of 5
So Linux needs no backup now?
7. Cost of seeking customization
You are kidding, right. Linux needs no customization? Wow.
8. Cost incurred by lack of community support
Google search for "windows community support" nets 146 mil results
Google search for "linux community support" nets 108 mil results
9. Cost of upgrading to the inevitable next version
Wow, it only took 7 bogus items for you to get to another valid one.
10. Cost of backing up data and reformatting to avoid relics form 2, 3, and 4 in the case of 9
So linux needs no regular backup plan? It has big magic that prevents the evil hard drive crash demons away
There are good and valid reasons for using Linux but unreasoned arguments like this don't do anyone any good. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -13/+60I agree, but let's say for a moment that they actually close solitaire and run a database on one of their Windows boxes...
- nograz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+50RIP SuSE, was a great distro before Novell took it over, now it has just faded away into mediocrity.
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -8/+49"Many drivers for hardware are not made for Linux and thus must be made by someone.
Training to be able to use a Linux interface, or a kernel for that matter.
I'd say programming for Linux would incur a higher cost as well than Windows, with the wide software development options for windows (at a high abstraction level at that, .NET for example) allowing for very quick development."
You sound like a Windows user.
1. If you intend to use Linux you buy hardware that has Linux drivers. Big companies like Dell, HP and Lenovo offer hardware with excellent Linux compatibility. Banks aren't writing drivers.
2. End users need very little, if any, training. They click an icon and use the software. Considering that average corporate users should be locked down in Windows that they don't admin their own systems, using Linux won't be much difference (and you'd know that if you used it).
3. You're right, Linux has very poor programming language support. Oh, wait, no Linux actually does have great developer tools. Consider that until desktop Linux becomes mainstream most Linux desktop users are programmers, so they've obviously spent some time to make sure that their OS will be usable by them. On Linux you can program in Ruby, Python, Perl, Java, C, C++, C#, Smalltalk, and many dozens of other languages. All have bindings to the core system libraries (much better than Windows' bindings). You can develop user interfaces with Qt or GTK using drag and drop tools. There are are incredible number of choices and you never need to spend thousands of dollars on an IDE or libraries or bindings to do what you want. - Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -3/+44Maybe we need to send this one to "Mythbusters".
- Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -6/+47
Can somebody please explain what this means? - purdo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+46How is Linux ever going to move forward if it keeps kicking itself in the teeth?? Novell should be band from distributing Linux, they are the enemy within now!
- Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -8/+47 And so it begins...*Bangs head on wall*.
- zip22, on 10/12/2007, -3/+41i'm not sure if you want to know what it means. i thought i did, but now i know - and i didn't.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pink+sock - spin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32This posting is inaccurate at best. The poster either has very poor reading comprehension or he is a ms fanboy/shill. Novell said no such thing. The bank said it and they were likely referring to their rather odd mixed distro environment. Bury this post as inaccurate as the poster has made an untrue and sensational title that in no way reflects the contents of the article.
- thewump, on 10/12/2007, -6/+34Even if he's right, hookers are cheaper than wives but that doesn't mean they are better.
Hookers are just like Windows.. you have to hand over your cash before you find out how bad they suck. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+32I can't help but sit back and laugh when I hear stories like this. If the data center where I work ran Windows Server 2003 on our clusters, it'd not only be INFINITELY more expensive, but the overhead in maintaining a server OS with a GUI would cripple our ability to serve on the hardware we do.
Maybe for smaller shops MS is cheaper, but for large data warehouses? No way. - JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -7/+28It's official, we ***** hate novell.
- raynevandunem, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25OK, I know that the zealots were already offended, but I don't think I can muster a rebuttal to the above comments.
I mean, to diss your own product --in public-- as part of any corporate partnership? Since when has *Apple* even done that? Are they ***** mad?
Just......WHY? WHAT? HOW? WTF?
They're leaving alot of questions to be answered concerning this deal, I'm sure, but I guess we won't find out about what's really going on in Provo for years down the line.
Great, now even *I* don't really see Novell in a good light right about now. - sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Ok, folks. Let's calm down here, since this article is well on its way to the front page. I decided to find the original Novell press release. It can be found at http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1300&locale=en_US
There's good news and bad news:
I'll give the good news first. No where in it does Novell say that the Linux TCO is lower than Windows. Like I said in my first post, it is very possible the HSBC's is, however. What the bank is looking to do is simplify their Linux to reduce costs. This does make sense. If you have Debian here, a bit of Red Hat someplace else, SUSE elsewhere, you can wind up with mess with a high TCO. Of course, the Linux could have been simplified by just getting Red Hat, and not Novell.
Now the bad news. The original release does repeat that stupid IP FUD. "Our customers tell us that they want technology vendors to work better together — that’s what our agreement with Novell is all about," said Susan Hauser, general manager of strategic partnerships and licensing at Microsoft. "Founded on intellectual property assurance, our interoperability efforts are helping HSBC apply best practices from its Windows infrastructure to lower TCO for its Linux environment." Oh good. Let's quote a Microsoft employee's nonsense about IP as part of the PR. So we still do have more the same "Linux doesn't infringe, but you need IP protection anyway" mixed message. I notice something else here.."founded on intellectual property assurance", not actual technological problems... - strabes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2030trip: Everything in your comment is incorrect. 90 year old grandmothers cannot use windows without any problems. They have no idea what happens when they open "the internet" (IE6) and click on links that point to "free screensavers" and "bonzi buddy." That's why I installed linux on my parent's computer back when I was in high school. Nothing happens when they click on those links.
- jon314, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1790 year old grandmothers can use windows without any problems? If what you are saying is that 90 year old grandmothers can send e-mail and browse the web without any problems then they can do that in Linux just fine, only their computer will be more secure because of it. Really, the fact that windows can do e-mail isn't isn't at all extraordinary.
I can use/maintain a windows box just fine (do it at work), but I'd rather use Linux. I love the fact that you can set up your system once and just forget about it. Windows requires too much maintenance. =P - h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Yep, submitter should calm down and read properly.
Digg users should RTFA as well; the claim was made by "Matthew O'Neill, group head of distributed systems for HSBC Global IT operations" about their current Linux setup.
Marked inaccurate. - idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18@zip22
I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.
@BigBadger
Now that I know what that means, I see it is amazingly accurate. - teknishn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Hey submitter! Novell said/claimed what?
Matthew O'Neill, who is the boss of HSBC global IT (distributed systems), said: "Some will be surprised to learn that our Windows environment has a lower total cost of ownership than our curent Linux environment."
Hmm, thanks for the FUD though submitter. - teknishn, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Man, submitter and any other tool that didnt RTA should DIAF. This headline is taken way out of context. Novell isn't saying now or ever that Windows was cheaper than Linux. What was stated was that the way HSBC was using Linux made it more costly. Novell's solution will be to remedy that.
- euphemizeme, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Windows is cheaper.
Linux is less expensive. - jeff303, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20@GliTCH82
So what? All those sites are served by farms. The rub is, how big a farm do they need? - JakeX, on 10/12/2007, -15/+27What I don't understand is how you could possibly prove that something FREE like Linux is MORE expensive than an over inflated OS like Vista? Who comes up with these justifications?
- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18So that's what the money from Microsoft was for! Go fanboys.
- Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17
Windows cheaper than SUSE is what I think they mean! - Scratchula, on 10/12/2007, -10/+21I smelled a rat the first minute I heard of Novell acquiring SuSE. Looks like my gut was right. Screw Novell, SuSE, and Microshaft.
- d00ley, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15And, if there was a an accurate study by Novell, it would be in regards to XP. Vista would still be an unknown at this point.
- zxof, on 10/12/2007, -11/+22ohgr - how about the support cost, you know... to maintain the system?
If u work as a unix engineer, will you accept a lower salary (compared to ms engineer)? - thewump, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11.. on a more serious note than my last comment, I really friggin HATE spin.. and this is probably what is going on here.
As someone else has quoted, HSBC said that the Windows environment has a lower total cost of ownership - but let's look at what they are talking about.
I bet my ass that they are comparing the cost of their Windows desktop machines to their Linux servers.. bastards. That's two different kettles of fish.
Statistics can say just about anything. - kettlechips, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Novell didn't say anything, the quote was from a client with a vague connection to Novell.
- jeduan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@over90: Yeah, it is surprising. So, after all, people don't web browse from their datacenters...
- squaat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@ zacmccormick
"I haven't seen any IDE that compares to vs.net, on any platform"
This is a tad off topic but...
ummm so I've recently had to do some dev in Visual Studio .net in c#, I come from a java background where we used IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse ( I prefer IDEA). Visual Studio still has a very long was to come as an IDE when it's compared to either Eclipse or IDEA. These two IDE's know more about your code than you do. I can't say that for Visual Studio, It's refactoring capabilities are very basic, code completion is unintelligent (for god sake guess the type that I'm trying to complete, let alone the scope), live error detection is appalling (tell me before I compile!!! not after!), code auto formatting is dodgy and unconfigurable, source control integration is flaky, search is unsophisticated (ever heard of structured searches), no live templates, how about linking the class members viewer to the current editor window, so many things, oh and it crashes more than I'd like it to as well.
Don't get me wrong the recent incarnation of visual studio is leaps and bounds better than it's predecessors.. but it's not revolutionary. (maybe revolutionary for visual studio users)
I'm not comparing languages or what languages are supported just IDE's and their functionality. Visual Studio is not the best IDE, far from it and people who believe it is... well you haven't used much else have you?
Oh and IDEA and Eclipse are available for Windows, Linux and Mac. And one of them is free!
(disclaimer - I used to be an emacs man until I used IntelliJ IDEA, for mine that's when IDE's became IDE's rather than fancy text editors with projects) - diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11sorry for the comment abuse and caps-lock abuse, but:
***THIS STORY IS COMPLETELY INACCURATE!***
You all ought to be absolutely ashamed of yourselves! You are resorted to methods no better than Microsoft's anti-Linux FUD!! Let me make it clear to everyone: Novell never claimed anything like what the title suggests! Read the VERY FIRST SENTENCE:
"Novell has issued a joint press release with Microsoft, in which HSBC, a customer of joint technology from the two companies, claims that Windows has a lower total cost of ownership than Linux."
HSBC made the claim, *not* Novell! Yes I disagree with Novell's pact with the devil, but not to the point where I start **LYING TO MAKE HEADLINES!** This is pathetic, and an absolute lowpoint in our community. Be ashamed when all the dust clears up and you all find out how wrong you were to jump the gun.
(again, sorry for the capslock but it seems to be the only language digg users can understand) - DrMic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"If Linux is so much better than Windows while being cheaper, why aren't most people using it?"
Lock in.
There are programs that do not have alternatives available for Linux, and my job essentially requires I use these programs. I used to be a Mac person, but was effectively forced to migrate to windows about 12 years ago. I teach physics, and the specialty programs may have had semi functional or unsupported versions for the Mac, but not even that kind of option exist for Linux.
Vendors develop for the profit margin, and thus most only develop for windows which reinforces the MS monopoly position. Local support for anything other than windows is nonexistent because the knowledge base is not there, which I would expect to be fairly common elsewhere.
I am a self starting, highly independent, long time user of computer tech and felt compelled to migrate to windows. There really isn't the freedom to just select an alternative to windows.
I do run a box which is a web (local file server and web for quizzes, class notes, curricular materials etc). This box is usually my most recently retired work station and you can bet it runs Linux. Attempting to use windows on this box for these tasks would leave it a smoldering pile. - strabes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Sorry to disagree with a fellow conservative but you're wrong here. Once someone knows how to use "the internet" and type word documents, the training required to switch to linux is next to none.
The reason Windows rules the world is that microsoft was the first and as a result now has exclusive software contracts with all major PC vendors. There's a reason linux is gaining more and more ground every year. - j_bellone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6That's something that people aren't understanding. Even though Linux takes less administrators to run more machines because of the difficulty to run the system it usually has a salary cap of nearly double that of a Microsoft administrator. And you can't simply send your Microsoft administrator to a seminar class to learn Linux. It doesn't work like that. They are two different type of administrators. Someone that knows how to work in the command line and someone who primarily works in GUI. The jobs can be interchangeable but a lot of times even knowledgeable Linux administrators don't know all the quirks in Windows servers.
- tadunne, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Could the whole thing be any more transparent and lame!
- Boeing777, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Poor Novell, it is now a cheap PR tool in the hands of Microsoft. And Who still uses Novell nowadays?
- elscotty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I marked this as inaccurate. I read the original press release from Novell---Novell never claims that TCO for Windows is cheaper. HSBC says that their TCO for Windows is cheaper than Linux, however, in the context of the article, I think that they are referring to HSBC's complex, non-standardized linux distros that they are using. HSBC is standardizing their Linux environment to SUSE in an effort to lower their TCO for Linux, probably because they realize it SHOULD be cheaper than Windows, but it's not because their IT staff is having to support a whole bunch of Linux flavors.
This is just a poorly written press release. Novell should hire better PR people. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6thanks for supporting the mono project novell now go ***** yourself
- kettlechips, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8you say that about everything that has legs and a penis
- DustPuppySnr, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11OK. So according to this statement most of the people running super-computers are idiots. Have a look at top500.org, the top computing clusters in the world. This year 75% are Linux based systems. Last year there was one Wintendo server out of 500 that made the list.
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