MooPig Tech Coroner :: "Good-bye Microsoft, Hello Open Source Software"

Start-up Business Costs, eh?
Mashed articles by Pat Darnell  |  Mar 9, 2014  |  Bryan TX

[Picture LINK] The freedom we endorse means that everything we create shall be free to be used for any purpose, free to be studied how it works, and free to change it, free to the redistribute copies and copies of your modified versions to others. GNU

Use this article as an introduction to Open Source. It was written in 2010. But if you think about it, if the LINKS it publishes are still around today, 2014, then you might have a good indicator that these do really work.

Does Open Source mean Free? Nothing in the world is FREE... so ? What's the  real cost? All we can figure at this level of discovery is that Google Summer of Code acts as developer for many Open Source projects.

" ... Clayton Christensen, the author of The Innovators Dilemma, coined the term “disruptive innovation” to explain the “process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors (January 13, 2014. By Jeff Vance. LINK) ...”

50 Open Source Replacements for Really Expensive Software - Datamation: "The "Great Recession" has businesses and consumers alike looking for ways to cut costs. That includes looking for cheaper alternatives to expensive software. In most cases, open source applications offer much lower prices, even if you need to purchase paid support. With that in mind, we've put together a list of open source alternatives to software that tends to cost a lot (August 17, 2010. By Cynthia Harvey. LINK) ..."
'via Blog this'

If you are trying to go into business today Open Source could help you through the first three years ... the default years of development when you show very little profits, if you know what you are doing. Other topics that interest me:

• IT Salary Guide
• Bring Your Own Device, BOYD
• Cloud Computing in 2014: Three Key Trends
• Are You Ready to Become an Internet of Things Hero?

Downloading online Open Source can be risky. What you get when you download might be tagged with a virus or two. New softwares can mess with your databases, or your operating system, and might alter your start up. We don't know the answer to any of that. It would take a great deal of research to figure which Open Source delivers with fewest complications.

Others comment:
" ... One of the key issues with proprietary software, including free software is the lack of ability to integrate with a database. We have been using a free version of ChartGantt Ultimate which had delivered fantastic integration capabilities (Gantt Chart. March 27 2013.)..."

"...Open source is a huge success. The benefit it has achieved is that the paid software is now being developed with utmost sincerity as they always have a threat that ppl may switch to free open source alternatives. The only problem with opensource software is that ppl try to implement only cooler stuff within it and don't pay any attention to detail for user-friendliness. If opensource pays attention to user-friendliness there may be much cooler stuff happening (Gotya. September 09 2010)..."

"... First, it's nearly impossible to find prices for the very most expensive software you can buy. Many enterprise software vendors don't release their prices because they negotiate separately with each customer or because their licensing schemes are so complicated that they could never explain them adequately in less than 5,000 words.

" ... In addition, custom applications can be extremely expensive, but are also difficult to price. Because we wanted to list prices in this article, we limited ourselves to "off-the-shelf" products with relatively easy-to-find suggested retail prices (ibid. Harvey.)..."

Since 2005, "... Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers post-secondary student developers ages 18 and older stipends to write code for various open source software projects... Through Google Summer of Code, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits..."
"... In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all. (LINK)..."

CONCLUSION
What is the real cost of Open Source for the start-up? At this point the real cost is time: time it takes to learn a new software. Learning curves for new businesses will dictate their ability to compete. If a business, or the individual, has used a licensed software in the past, he/she/it will find a similar open source software to use. If the business start-up is highly proprietary, it may require costly licensed custom software anyway.

I have a son who has successfully used Ubuntu for the last eight years in his business.


_______________________Reference
http://www.datamation.com/article.php/3898906
http://www.datamation.com/careers/it-salary-guide-2014-1.html
http://www.datamation.com/commentary/does-byod-keep-it-admins-awake-at-night.html
http://www.datamation.com/applications/are-you-ready-to-become-an-internet-of-things-hero.html
http://www.datamation.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-in-2014-three-key-trends.html
http://brlcad.org/
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3895081/The-75-Funnest-Open-Source-Downloads.htm%22
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3860721/65-Open-Source-Downloads-That-Could-Change-Your-Life.htm
http://www.ganttproject.biz/
https://developers.google.com/open-source/
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2014
http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Change-Business/dp/0062060244/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389650324&sr=1-1&keywords=the+innovator%27s+dilemma
https://www.apertus.org/opensource
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

Purple Glaze: A Brief Discussion of Painting on Canvas

If you are a good draftsman, then always work toward your strengths. Lay it out, and work with perspective and proportion. Here is a Lighthouse scene. I usually put reference page and photo credit on any 8 x 10 studies. "Eagle Bluff Light, Ephraim, Wisconsin: marks the entrance into East Channel into Green Bay. It was built on Lake Michigan in 1868, standing 75 feet above the lake, with originally a third-order Fresnel lens. It is a brick tower still aiding in navigation today" (Crompton, S W. UB of L, 2005).
It doesn't hurt to under paint a scene with complementary color scheme. Using acrylics for this; remember if you are oil painting, you have to put water based colors under the final oil base paints; lean under fat as the saying goes, or fat over lean. This roof for instance is going to be Terra cotta, so I under painted with blue slate color.
The bush is in shadow, so I started with dark coloring moving toward lighter later. This is the best way to to produce details in shadows.
And the foreground wall will be yellow limestone, so I under painted with blue shades, Payne's gray, with more dark blue in the clouds. Again it all moves from dark to light, background to foreground. The subject lighthouse

will hopefully end up detailed and sculptural, framed in rich, subdued colors.
Add color. In this case I am doing a study of the various aspects of lighthouses, and not too concerned with palette. However, as I become familiar with lighthouses as a subject then I would choose a group of harmonic colors right now, and stick with them. Here I am using primary colors, mixing pastels from those, as I add features. It turns out the painting starts to fall apart, as complementary colors are set in juxtaposition. Soon the adding of shadow starts to mess up the perspective, and details begin
to get lost, straight lines become
bowed lines... either optical illusions, or just lazy brushing.
Here is an inverted color negative showing true color complements. This could help in coloring the problem areas of the piece.

How to keep the painting together is to make decisions as the rendering continues. Decisions are based on observable data. For instance, lighthouses are generally not a romantic get-away. Rather, they are situated on crags and wind-swept reefs that were once noted as demons
on nautical maps. So, I am experimenting with colors to try to capture forebodings; a bleak place where existence is difficult; structures that must stand up to sheer brutal punishment by natural weathering winds. Thus, buttressing walls, stone and brick construction, copper storm shutters and scuppers, and heavy roofing.

The most difficult part of doing a study is in trying to balance the mess. Some of the intermediate stages have features that look really good. But as another area of the canvas is worked it somehow cancels the parts that I just finished. Highlights fade, and shadows take over, or become ambiguous...
I see as I go that the underpainted version looks real good. I like the bold red lighthouse tower, and the blue mortar in the house. But alas the total structure is made from local yellow sandstone. So for believable finish everything stone becomes yellow's cousin.

I think before I call this quits and spray it with varnish, I might try to do some "glazes" in red-blue, purple, hues to make some shadow on the house and tone down the yellow. Most of the structure is trimmed in copper, so tarnished copper and green are good for other color trials. If this were a 144 inches by 96 inches, first trial, I would at this point be pulling my eyebrows out. No lie!

Fortunately, it is only 8 x 10 inches and manageable for trial and error. Also, I want to point out after all the groundwork has been laid out as it has been now, I as artist can anticipate some fun with the project in final stages. More on that aspect later...

A study like this is without parallel for learning a subject. If I decide to do another, and larger painting of this, it will take less time, and less mess to accomplish. Most of the time I skip this study stage, leaping rather right in with large brushes, and lots of oil. I end up making brown of my colors, and grey skies... so you decide how to go about your own dabbling in rendering.