Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

I've been to 2 dotNet local conferences already ... the presentations are centered around Office / Sharepoint integration, plus company-sponsored propaganda (also targeted at the enterprise) that made me wanna` puke out of boredom. Even the presentation on Silverlight was focused on data-binding and how easy it is to build boring forms out of clicky-clicky actions.

This is especially telling considering I did work for "the enterprise" and I'm still doing it as a consultant.

Of course, personally I don't need more propaganda and advocacy.

Just last month I created an app for managing the webcams of a client. I used Red5 (the open-source Flash streaming server), in combination with Apache / Django + a MySql database. Besides my billing per hour, the extra cost to the client for the licensing of this infrastructure was $0.

And for my app, while I would love some of the stuff in .NET, I don't want to pay extra for those Windows servers, even if they provided extra-value over Linux (which they don't).

Putting your business hat on ... as a startup or as a pragmatic consultant, paying extra for Windows servers is not worth the price, unless the cost of switching from .NET is big (and really ... which other technology has such a big cost of switching?).

Sure ... it's easier to blame the lack of advocacy. The Perl community is also doing it (and I would rather go with Perl apps hosted on Linux servers than suffer the Windows licensing hell).

Have you taken a look at Mono? The Windows servers aren't always required. There are definitely some caveats but it might be an option.

I was surprised to install PHDVirtual's backup software and it involves two linux virtual machines which run a web interface based on .aspx.

I think it's the first time I've met Mono in a product.

BizSpark/WebSpark blow away any complaints or concerns, valid or not, of server or hosting costs as almost any valid, new/new-ish software startup should qualify.

On the other side of that, MySQL enterprise licensing is only marginally cheaper than SQL Server, and one might argue lacks features and rich toolsets to work with in the enterprise. And in the end, most web-based startups are really SaaS so yes, you really do need to be thinking in terms of enterprise, and minimizing annual cost of delivery and ownership/subscriber.

First, the example I've chosen was on purpose ... like if you enroll in WebSpark, that's useless if you need the IIS Media Services. Also, you can't have more than 4 processors serving your app.

It also doesn't spare your costumer (in the case of consultancy services) to buy licenses.

Second ... not everybody can enroll. The company I'm working for has 12 members ... some of them are field engineers that aren't doing programming (I mentioned we do consulting). WebSpark at least is out of the picture.

Third ... these programs are ticking time-bombs. I've worked on and off on several personal projects for the last 5 years (I'm doing it part time). 3 years is not enough, unless you have a good idea that you're sure it's going to work (and this doesn't happen that often).

> MySQL enterprise licensing is only marginally cheaper than SQL Server

A startup-founder would be too dumb to pay for MySql support.

HINT: you get all the support you need from its community, especially if you attend conferences and buy a round of beer to its core devs ;)

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