Re: [LUG] Building the ecology: a plausible case for a niche investment product?

[Henry Bremridge <henry.bremridge@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jul 10, 2006 at 01:46:28PM +0100, Adrian Midgley wrote:
> Remember South Africa, and investment products that swore they avoided
> it; ethical investment trusts that don't invest in weapon-making
> companies; non-tobacco etc?  Eat organic food?  Drink Fair Trade coffee?
> 
> How does a product which invests in companies who predominantly _use_
> open source software in preference to closed source software in order to
> carry out whatever their ordinary production/distribution/profit-making
> activities sound?

Pro

-   A company that uses OSS would be one that looks beyond the FUD to seek
    opportunities to cut costs

-   Such a company might have better security, safer systems etc etc.
    MIGHT
    
For both those reasons the company may be more profitable in future and
hence a "good bet".
    
Problem (not in any order)

-   How can you tell that the company uses OSS? And in particular how would
    you distinguish between a company using OSS on one web server vs
    another company using it generally. 

    For example I remember reading somewhere that increasingly back
    office, IT departments, ran linux but not the front offices.
    
-   Most companies do not disclose how much they spend on "IT". I have seen
    figures for "capitalised software" but license fees? No.

    (Having said that I have seen a few Indian companies clearly state that
    they use OSS in their annual reports)
    
-   If companies switched then I accept they could save money but if we
    take an example of a company with 10,000 workers on an annual salary of
    £15,000 pa

    License fees: 10,000 * £200 per person per year = £2m
    Salary cost: 10,000 * £15000 per person per year = £150m
    
    How much would be the cost of a support center for OSS? Cost in both
    terms of management time and money. 

-   What if the company had some intelligent IT people using open source in
    their servers but the company itself was run by a penny pinching bunch
    of thieving crooks? 

Having thought about it, I would argue if a company did NOT use OSS or was
not investigating using OSS then that would be a reason NOT to invest. But
again the big problem is finding that out.

> This would be very very distinct from investing in eg Red Hat or
> whatever - companies producing OSS - and the arguably spin-like
> suggestion that such companies constituted a good investment since their
> IT was cheaper an more reliable, relative to their main mission[1] would
> not actually be the main draw, although it might get aired... the USP is
> ethical.
> 
> 
> (This is not an offer, IANAIB (although I did meet some...) this is an
> idea being put out as a feeler, because I was wondering what to pick as
> an ISA ...)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [1] Enhancing shareholder value, of course.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> A
> 
> -- 
> The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
> http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
> FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html