I am now completly won over by open source
Almost a year ago, I switched to Linux as my main development platform. It was difficult, but not as bad as I expected. Worth the effort, definitely.
The other day I went to one of my client's places to do some maintenance on a windows web site that I built back in my windows days. Before I could do anything productive, we spent an hour playing around with windows trying to get the web server installed. All the delay was caused by the fact that windows is closed source: to install the web server, we hunted for and then put in the windows CD. Half way through the install, it wanted us to insert a CD with service pack 2 on it. 10 minutes of hunting later, we were forced to go to the windows site, search for the correct service pack, run something that looked like it might be the correct service pack to the point where it had extracted it's files onto disk but not done anything yet, then point the web server install process at extracted the service pack files. Then cancel the service pack install.
Now that is an ugly way to work. That trick with the half-installed service pack, while inspired, could have broken windows really good. We weren't too concerned about breaking windows, because the server was a virtual one and could be fixed by simply going back to an older version of it.
This lead to a brief discussion about how great virtual servers were, how their ease of creation means you can make one for anything you dream up. The manager there with me then pointed out that for each new server they need to pay for a new windows licence and a new symantec anti virus licence, etc. So it gets pricey, quickly. With windows, the advantages of virtual servers need to be balanced with the cost.
I made a small comment along the lines of "if your OS and other software was free, that wouldn't be an issue, would it?" and left it at that. I didn't want to get into how it takes 1 minute to install a web server on linux, how you don't need anti virus software, how if extra software (eg service pack) is required to install something, the system goes off and downloads it for you, and so on...
Anyway, I'm so glad to be free of all those hoops to jump through.
(And to top it off, they are currently being "audited" by Microsoft to see if they have purchased licences for every install of windows. Apparently, when you install windows, you automatically agree to let Microsoft come over and poke around inside your computers whenever they like.)
