Is Open Source / Freeware finally making a real dent in Microsoft

[OCBucksFan]

So, I went to Defcon last weekend, had a blast, but I was sitting around talking with a friend who works at Microsoft. So, before I left for my vacation I was dealing with what is essentially a crisis for my company and that is getting our software licenses transferred from one company to another.

Essentially, the conversation went like this.

Me: Our company is closing doors, but the owners and I would like to move our licenses to the new company name.

Rep: Microsoft doesn't generally allow that, normally a company has to show us that they are no longer in business, we will have a rep come to the new company and prove that everything is valid then allow for a license transfer.

Me: Well, that's not really an option, I am downing my old servers, converting those with a lot of storage to NAS appliances and virtualizing our old environment, the real problem here is my terminal server licenses.

Rep: How old are your terminal server licenses?

Me: Sheesh, depends, I have been here 10 years, I have close to a hundred windows 2000 Terminal Server licenese, maybe two hundred 2003 licenses, I can get you an exact count via email.

Rep: That won't be nessecary, your licenses for Terminal services are only valid for 2 years.

Me: Ugh, that really does cause problems, we went from a company with over five hundred people world wide to about thirty now, I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with you guys, this is tough.

Rep: Well, what other applications of ours do you use?

Me: Exchange 2000, SQL 2000, as well as tons of Windows 2003 and 2000 Cals, and server licenses. We just had an audit like a year ago, we're completely legit.

Rep: SQL 2000 and Exchange 2000 are both end of life, there's no way I can transfer those server licenses, I can transfer the Cals for Exchange and SQL but you need to buy a new server license for Exchange 2007 and SQL 2005.

Me: That's not an option.... actually, you know what, ubuntu server is pretty easy, I have been running about twenty percent of my network on it for a while now, I think I can move over to mysql and find a suitable exhange option. I'll tell you what, I'll just move everything to open source and we'll call it a day.

Rep: If you want to use an inferior product, I can't stop you. Have a nice day.

Me: *click*

Ok, so I go off to defcon, and have a good time. Not really thinking about how I am *actually* going to accomplish this, but realizing my boss isn't going to like that we might have to repay for everything.

So Today, I log on and check my mail. All of our licenses are now in my name, not a company name, my name. My rep tells me that since they are personal licenses, they are fully transferrable to any company.

So, this has me wondering. Ubuntu is making a huge dent in the market for the netbooks, debian is a great OS, and there's a lot of options out there. I have been using FreeNas for a while. Has some of the Open source options become viable enough that Microsoft feels threatened or did my rep just think about it and decide to deal with me?

There's one windows machine left in my house, everything else is Debian or Ubuntu (Both essentially the same). My wife loves Ubuntu, I love not having to worry about pirating software to accomplish things my computer should do.

So is linux finally a truly viable option in the average consumers eyes? Is it getting there?

 

[Mike80]

So, I went to Defcon last weekend, had a blast, but I was sitting around talking with a friend who works at Microsoft. So, before I left for my vacation I was dealing with what is essentially a crisis for my company and that is getting our software licenses transferred from one company to another.

Essentially, the conversation went like this.

Me: Our company is closing doors, but the owners and I would like to move our licenses to the new company name.

Rep: Microsoft doesn't generally allow that, normally a company has to show us that they are no longer in business, we will have a rep come to the new company and prove that everything is valid then allow for a license transfer.

Me: Well, that's not really an option, I am downing my old servers, converting those with a lot of storage to NAS appliances and virtualizing our old environment, the real problem here is my terminal server licenses.

Rep: How old are your terminal server licenses?

Me: Sheesh, depends, I have been here 10 years, I have close to a hundred windows 2000 Terminal Server licenese, maybe two hundred 2003 licenses, I can get you an exact count via email.

Rep: That won't be nessecary, your licenses for Terminal services are only valid for 2 years.

Me: Ugh, that really does cause problems, we went from a company with over five hundred people world wide to about thirty now, I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with you guys, this is tough.

Rep: Well, what other applications of ours do you use?

Me: Exchange 2000, SQL 2000, as well as tons of Windows 2003 and 2000 Cals, and server licenses. We just had an audit like a year ago, we're completely legit.

Rep: SQL 2000 and Exchange 2000 are both end of life, there's no way I can transfer those server licenses, I can transfer the Cals for Exchange and SQL but you need to buy a new server license for Exchange 2007 and SQL 2005.

Me: That's not an option.... actually, you know what, ubuntu server is pretty easy, I have been running about twenty percent of my network on it for a while now, I think I can move over to mysql and find a suitable exhange option. I'll tell you what, I'll just move everything to open source and we'll call it a day.

Rep: If you want to use an inferior product, I can't stop you. Have a nice day.

Me: *click*

Ok, so I go off to defcon, and have a good time. Not really thinking about how I am *actually* going to accomplish this, but realizing my boss isn't going to like that we might have to repay for everything.

So Today, I log on and check my mail. All of our licenses are now in my name, not a company name, my name. My rep tells me that since they are personal licenses, they are fully transferrable to any company.

So, this has me wondering. Ubuntu is making a huge dent in the market for the netbooks, debian is a great OS, and there's a lot of options out there. I have been using FreeNas for a while. Has some of the Open source options become viable enough that Microsoft feels threatened or did my rep just think about it and decide to deal with me?

There's one windows machine left in my house, everything else is Debian or Ubuntu (Both essentially the same). My wife loves Ubuntu, I love not having to worry about pirating software to accomplish things my computer should do.

So is linux finally a truly viable option in the average consumers eyes? Is it getting there?

I can tell you, without revealing too much, that quite a bit of the large storage that DOD uses is either ZFS or ext3 file system and USUALLY it's either Red Hat Enterprise LINUX or Solaris. what happens with the Solaris side will be interesting with Sun being bought by ORACLE.

while I don't see us (meaning DOD) moving from the Windows desktop anytime soon, essentially 100% of the storage we use (across all of our networks in my organization and it's a LARGE data footprint) is stored within an Open Source environment.

 

[OCBucksFan]

I can tell you, without revealing too much, that quite a bit of the large storage that DOD uses is either ZFS or ext3 file system and USUALLY it's either Red Hat Enterprise LINUX or Solaris. what happens with the Solaris side will be interesting with Sun being bought by ORACLE.

while I don't see us (meaning DOD) moving from the Windows desktop anytime soon, essentially 100% of the storage we use (across all of our networks in my organization and it's a LARGE data footprint) is stored within an Open Source environment.

Well, I can see that, with the development of iSCSI for various nas appliances, we sat down, went through the figures and realized that FreeBSD's FreeNas was the way to go, it allowed for a file server without the need for a windows license.

Now, I know that the time when I can essentially change everyones desktop from XP/Vista to a gnome desktop is far away, the back end server solutions are there and completely viable.

About the only true thing that Microsoft has that's keeping this stranglehold is Exchange, right now we are about 70% away from finally getting rid of SQL, but I doubht we'll have that transition done before my september first deadline.

 

[CleveBucks]

Would be interested in hearing if you have any success with an open-source solution that works as well as Exchange. We're strongly considering moving to Exchange but are reluctant to do so because of all the horror stories we hear from colleagues.

 

[Dryden]

Would be interested in hearing if you have any success with an open-source solution that works as well as Exchange. We're strongly considering moving to Exchange but are reluctant to do so because of all the horror stories we hear from colleagues.

Try Zimbra:

Zimbra offers Open Source email server software and shared calendar for Linux and the Mac

I've demoed it and love the feature set, but I can't bring myself to convert my company to it because I have an affinity for compartmentalizing the communications apps so that I can swap out what I need and more readily modify what I don't like. If my company were larger, I'd jump to Zimbra in a heartbeat, but for now I'm sticking with my Sendmail + Cyrus IMAP + Group Office cocktail on a bare bones Fedora LAMP box, with ClamAV, SpamAssassin, and Sieve each handling specific roles in filtering.

Since the postal data and address files we handle often run up to very large file attachment sizes (250M records), and many of the printers and list processors we deal with cannot use FTP and other file transfer options, I'm comfortable sticking with what I know won't blow up. :)

Also, since everything I'm running runs within an unmodified LAMP framework and uses syslog, I can monitor it with Splunk, which by itself makes my job 1-million times easier.

 

[majorpayne27]

RHEL and Solaris have been making inroads for years, but only recently has Debian seen widespread implementation.

I think many companies need the safety net that RHEL and Solaris provide by having commercial helpdesk support, but if you have the gusto to do it, Debian is a fantastic product for servers. Debian has never promoted itself, but with Ubuntu blowing up the way that it has it's provided a lot of attention to Debian.

It's funny that this thread popped up. I graduate from Ohio State this month with a bachelor's in computer science, and I'm currently writing a term paper on open source operating systems in commercial applications.

 

[OCBucksFan]

RHEL and Solaris have been making inroads for years, but only recently has Debian seen widespread implementation.

I think many companies need the safety net that RHEL and Solaris provide by having commercial helpdesk support, but if you have the gusto to do it, Debian is a fantastic product for servers. Debian has never promoted itself, but with Ubuntu blowing up the way that it has it's provided a lot of attention to Debian.

It's funny that this thread popped up. I graduate from Ohio State this month with a bachelor's in computer science, and I'm currently writing a term paper on open source operating systems in commercial applications.

Yeah, with Dell and HP offering Ubuntu as an option for many of their PC's it's shown how much has gone into the Debian devlopment, our house really has done away with windows, we have my vista machine, but for most stuff outside of gaming I run a virtual ubuntu box because I have all the applications at my fingertips.

I said back in the slackware days, if you can give people a usable desktop that doesn't scare the holy crap out of them you can start to sway people. I moved my wife over after her windows box took a crap and she's been really happy with the speed and stability of the system, I am happy with the configuration options, the ability to change my actual OS at the kernel level, and the network diagnostic tools at my fingertips.

In closing I would like to say Debian has shown that sometimes the best things in life are free.

 

[xcrunner]

I personally use Ubuntu for everything (actually I'm on Windows right now.. but... almost everything :p). In fact, I was just recently going to buy a new laptop-- I found a pretty awesome Dell laptop (Inspiron 15 I think) for an amazing price with Ubuntu pre-installed! I think that was the first time Dell offered that. Furthermore, Dell offered the exact same laptop, but with Windows-- for over a hundred dollars more. It's typically pretty hard to get a cheaper deal by getting Linux/no OS installed instead of Windows, because there's so little demand. The fact that Dell started to do that tells me that maybe it's growing in popularity.

Also, the sale was backed up by over a month. Maybe that's because they got a ton of orders that they weren't expecting? I can only hope.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to show my own support for Dell for having Ubuntu pre-installed by buying it: my brother told me I could have his laptop, a Lenovo Thinkpad.. Which also has Ubuntu installed on it.

 

[OCBucksFan]

I personally use Ubuntu for everything (actually I'm on Windows right now.. but... almost everything :p). In fact, I was just recently going to buy a new laptop-- I found a pretty awesome Dell laptop (Inspiron 15 I think) for an amazing price with Ubuntu pre-installed! I think that was the first time Dell offered that. Furthermore, Dell offered the exact same laptop, but with Windows-- for over a hundred dollars more. It's typically pretty hard to get a cheaper deal by getting Linux/no OS installed instead of Windows, because there's so little demand. The fact that Dell started to do that tells me that maybe it's growing in popularity.

Also, the sale was backed up by over a month. Maybe that's because they got a ton of orders that they weren't expecting? I can only hope.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to show my own support for Dell for having Ubuntu pre-installed by buying it: my brother told me I could have his laptop, a Lenovo Thinkpad.. Which also has Ubuntu installed on it.

That's one of the other things I love about ubuntu, they have a ton of driver support. Sure, you may not get the bells and whistles that you get when your 500 megs worth of ATI drivers, but they are functional and stable which is a lot better than that nifty screen capture utility.

Overall, Debian/Ubuntu are pretty much what the open source community needed. User friendly, stable, easy to install, free and available with all the options that people need, not to mention that it doesn't have the reputation that microsoft does so the virus creating motherfuckers haven't gone over to it yet.

We also have moved a ton of stuff over to FreeNas which is built on FreeBSD, it works really well for turning several file servers into one file server with an iscsi back end. That alone saved us a ton of money in windows CALS and has my boss on board to look at more opportunities for us to use the free open source tools to accomplish our goals instead of writing yet another check to a company that doesn't seem to really give a damn about their customers.

 

[xcrunner]

Overall, Debian/Ubuntu are pretty much what the open source community needed. User friendly, stable, easy to install, free and available with all the options that people need, not to mention that it doesn't have the reputation that microsoft does so the virus creating motherfuckers haven't gone over to it yet.

No doubt... When I was a little kid, my dad always used Linux and I would try and use it for a bit, but it was holy-crap-impossible. Some of that was because I was just a kid, but some of it was because it was the most user-unfriendly software out there. When I made the switch to Ubuntu a year ago, I expected something similar and was stunned at how user-friendly it had become. Firefox, open office, movie players, etc all pre-installed... Very, very easy. And any problems one might have, ubuntuforums.com has the answer.

And it's just in general more secure: Even if everyone were to start programming viruses for Linux, it would still be more virus-free than Windows by a hefty margin.

 

[majorpayne27]

We also have moved a ton of stuff over to FreeNas which is built on FreeBSD, it works really well for turning several file servers into one file server with an iscsi back end. That alone saved us a ton of money in windows CALS and has my boss on board to look at more opportunities for us to use the free open source tools to accomplish our goals instead of writing yet another check to a company that doesn't seem to really give a damn about their customers.

In my opinion FreeBSD is the better open source operating system. It obviously has only a fraction of the support that Linux does, but there are some things about FreeBSD that blow Linux away.

 

[BrutusMaximus]

Give it a year and see how google does against MS......

Honestly think that is gonna answer the old question of "will anybody ever beat microsoft on the consumer level?". Of course I am talking the personal desktop world.

I have to admit, I am really interested to try out Google's OS.

 

[OCBucksFan]

Give it a year and see how google does against MS......

Honestly think that is gonna answer the old question of "will anybody ever beat microsoft on the consumer level?". Of course I am talking the personal desktop world.

I have to admit, I am really interested to try out Google's OS.

Well, I can't say I know much, but chrome is available on Ubuntu and there's rumors about Ubuntu getting some corporate support. As a football fan, take those rumors for what they are worth. The reality, Debian/Ubuntu has an interface that anyone could figure out.

So, I post in this thread again to rant about how much Microsoft hates it's fucking customers.

I am currently finalizing virtualizing my companies environment. So, after doing about 20 2K servers, I do the first 2003 server, the intranet, it's all web server edition, so I call with this magic number they give me, mind you I am virtualizing on dell servers and they tell me "your server won't connect til you give us the Key on the sticker on the server"

Really? I am so furious right now, I have over 1 million dollars worth of MS keys on me profile, a company of over 750, down to 30 and yet, my one dell MS key is the stickler? what the hell?

Fuck Microsoft, Samba is my future, it pays more and requires more knowledge, fuck microsoft.

 

[BrutuStrength]

[censored] Microsoft, Samba is my future, it pays more and requires more knowledge, [censored] microsoft.

Any idea when Samba 4 is supposed to be available? We have some pseries equipment that we'd like to leverage as AIX/Linux file servers and such, but we're looking to integrate them into our network via our active directory servers. Samba 4 is supposed to have this integration capability.

 

[OCBucksFan]

Any idea when Samba 4 is supposed to be available? We have some pseries equipment that we'd like to leverage as AIX/Linux file servers and such, but we're looking to integrate them into our network via our active directory servers. Samba 4 is supposed to have this integration capability.

They don't have a real release on it, there's a test version avail but they've cripped it to keep it from fuxing up your windows servers.