On Thu, 20 Aug 2015 10:46:06 +0200 Hugo Roy hugo@fsfe.org wrote:
(...) I wonder what kind of cost there can be for free software other than deployment costs --- the paragraph that immediately follows seems to suggest that training of staff is included ind deployment costs: (...)
It's relatively normal practice, that organization which deploys F/OSS pays for consulting and eventual software engineering services (to tweak or patch the software in case of need).
In case of vendors like Red Hat or MariaDB this can be included in subscription / license fee or it can be an extra cost.
As a side-note: it was (and, indeed, quite often still is) common opinion among corporate folk that F/OSS is not acceptable alternative for proprietary software because it lacks support, SLAs etc. (i.e. no guarantee that some bugs will be fixed or features will be implemented in "business sensitive" time).
I don't think it's reasonable - especially for government institution / cell - to plan switching to F/OSS without such kind of support.
Cheers, F.