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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: Re: Effective Standards |
| Date: |
04/28/2003 08:55:00 PM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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> > Why then isn't the U of Minnesota server the gold standard, used by
> > all? (Again, just an example...)
>
> (a) Because it is "just an implementation" not a "reference
> implementation" which coexisted with the standard.
> (b) Do not be so quick to assume it will *not* be the gold standard. I
> don't see any other high performance, zero cost, multiformat rendering
> engines available out there. WMS support in Mapserver is barely a
> year old.
>
>
Ahh... once more the self-serving implied definition of "cost" used by some
open-source advocates to assume their proof rears its disingenuous head...
Yes, it's easy to paint open source products as zero cost if you
conveniently assume away real costs that do not support your case.
The Minnesota map server (MMS) is far from "zero cost." It is merely free
of charge to license - the cost of operating it is stratospheric because it
requires substantial technical expertise to configure, deploy and
administer. Keep in mind that the cost of labor is the highest cost you
have.
If Product A costs, say, $250 to acquire and can be used to create nice web
pages by any reasonably intelligent Windows Office user who can click an
"Export Web Page" choice in a menu without any programming and Product B
costs, say, $0 to acquire but requires a programmer who must write
significant scripts and perform other technical magic, with the assistance
of some additional GIS package to actually prepare the data, well, I'd say
from a purely economic perspective the choice of B is a classic case of
"Penny wise and Pound foolish."
I've heard some engineers devalue themselves by pointing out that their
technical skills in Linux and CGI scripting and other programming
legerdemain have already been acquired and thus do not cost anything on the
margin to deploy when re-inventing the wheel with open source. That points
to a slight acquaintance with the economics of costing, because it neglects
the very real factor of opportunity cost. Most people bright enough to
actually code and configure open source projects usually have some real
prospects of employement in which their talents and time are valued with
real money. If they are spending time programming instead of buying off the
shelf, they are burning up very real opportunity cost that is the value of
their time. As many companies have discovered who have to pay for such
stuff, if the company takes a close look at how the payroll evaporates it
finds that the costs of developing, debugging, configuring, deploying, etc,
"free" software can be much higher than the costs of acquiring and owning
commercial software.
That doesn't mean that open source software can't be a super deal for some
users in some situations, or that it can't be technically brilliant and
well-made. It just means that for most people who have a business life and
value to their time, it's not really "zero cost." The key is to look at the
total cost and compare that to the total cost of commercial alternatives and
then see which makes sense. It can go either way.
Cheers,
Dimitri
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