[ensignavenger]

Proprietary solution never cost "only" money. You generally have to negotiate licensing, then you have to renegotiate licensing when you need to make a change (or when you current terms expire). You have to invest effort into understanding your license (Open Source licenses are usually at least somewhat standardized and usually a lot short than proprietary licenses). Finally, the big kicker is vendor lock-in. If the vendor doesn't want to or can't support you business anymore, you have no choice but to replace their software. If the vendor want to change their terms, you can't find some one else to support you. If a vendor changes the product, you can't fork it to continue using it the way you need to.

I have never seen a proprietary software product that "only" cost money.

[mlyle]

I think this misses the point, though-- no matter how true it is.

The costs associated with procuring the existing, proprietary solution are understood and accepted. If it goes wrong, it's a risk that the organization has collectively selected together.

Advocating for doing something cheaper doesn't gain any individual person that much necessarily, and incurs outsized risk. It also incurs a lot of explicit, poorly-understood costs outside of those already accepted and recurring costs.

[ensignavenger]

Selling any sort of change to any company is usually very hard. It has nothing to do with proprietary versus open source. Open Source is a major selling point, and the Open Source community can/needs to do better explaining the value proposition of Open Source. That is why companies that wish to sell change employ salespeople.

[mlyle]

Right. I don't think anyone else in this thread really said that it had something to do with proprietary vs. open source or even very much to do with free-as-in-beer vs. costly.