Re: The 3 minute pitch

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Luis Villa a écrit :
> Note that even at places like LWE no one really cares about Freedom.
> It is sad, but true. Usability and Free (as in beer) go a lot farther.

Freedom as in freedom from vendor lock-in, and freedom of choice tend to 
go down well (at least here). Freedom as in "I can look under the hood 
and tinker" goes down about as well as the same argument does at car 
dealerships with 80 year old women.

In terms of economy, there's a really great argument about where money 
goes, but explaining it in a clear way isn't easy.

The TCO argument (claims that free software is more expensive than 
Windows) holds some water - at least, it's plausible enough that people 
believe it, and we need to address it.

RoI for free software deployments tends to measure itself in years (at 
least in studies I've heard about, reports have been of higher IT costs 
in the short term for training, lost productivity and migration costs, 
falling sharply after 2 to 3 years).

But even if you're looking at a higher investment in the short term, you 
need to look at where the money goes.

If you pay the Windows and Office tax, you're sending your euros and 
dollars to Dublin and Redmond. If you move to free software, you're 
spoiled for choice for local consultancies, training companies, 
knowledgeable and competent graduates. Your money is going straight into 
the local economy. Extramadura even hired some graduates to maintain 
Guadalinex, which is giving directly skills and money to the local economy.

You can end up very quickly as a government breeding your own local 
centers of excellence in software - as we're seeing in Spain, India, 
Brazil, Chile. And that money goes to encouraging IT in your country, 
encouraging new companies, giving graduates an alternative to moving to 
Europe or the US.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
David Neary
bolsh gimp org