In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
<linonut@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Wed, 5 Mar 2008 09:53:54 -0500
<5uyzj.114546$K27.29691@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> * [H]omer peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
>> [Linux]
>> 1. Installing Red Hat 5.1 £0.00
>> 2. Upgrading to Red Hat 6.0 £0.00
>> 3. Upgrading to Red Hat 6.1 £0.00
>> 4. Upgrading to Red Hat 6.2 £0.00
>> 5. Upgrading to Red Hat 7.0 £0.00
>> 6. Upgrading to Red Hat 7.1 £0.00
>> 7. Upgrading to Red Hat 7.2 £0.00
>> 8. Upgrading to Red Hat 7.3 £0.00
>> 9. Upgrading to Fedora Core 1 £0.00
>> 10. Upgrading to Fedora Core 2 £0.00
>> 11. Upgrading to Fedora Core 3 £0.00
>> 12. Upgrading to Fedora Core 4 £0.00
>> 13. Upgrading to Fedora Core 5 £0.00
>> 14. Upgrading to Fedora Core 6 £0.00
>> 15. Upgrading to Fedora 7 £0.00
>> 16. Upgrading to Fedora 8 £0.00
>> 17. Anti-virus (none) £0.00
>> 18. Anti-spyware (none) £0.00
>> 19. System repair software (none) £0.00
>> 20. Firewall (iptables: Free) £0.00
>> Ten-year Total £0.00
>> Freedom Priceless
>
> You left out your time. Linux is free only if your time is free.
>
> You see, Microsoft would have you count as money the time you spent
> installing Linux, when you could instead have been jacking off.
>
Indeed. And since every installation takes an hour, the 16
installations above would cost $3200 total (at $200/hour)
-- which would have been more than enough for a nice copy
of Microsoft Office, plus a number of lattes at the local
coffee shop.
Even if one assumes half that amount, $1600 could still buy
a nice retail copy of Microsoft Office.
Of course turnabout is fair play, if harder to measure;
how does one measure Windows' frustrations and malware
intrusion issues? Best I can do is use
http://www.computereconomics.com/article.cfm?id=1090
which suggests that his malware costs would be on the
order of $20 in 2005, if one assumes 700M computer units
installed worldwide, which is probably an underestimate.
Admittedly, the possibility exists that malware costs are
absorbed in other costs; the simplest way of dealing with
a massive infection is to buy a new unit, for example.
Nor does this URL take into consideration initial acquisition
costs for detection/disinfection software.
Absent those, $6.67 per user per year isn't all that bad --
but how do I know I'm computing it properly?
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
- allegedly said by Bill Gates, 1981, but somebody had to make this up!
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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