[tlug] Total operational cost... hard stats anywhere?

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

Okay, well, I'm well into writing a follow up article to the "Windows Is 
Free" article.

One of the things that many people wrote in about was the "total 
operational cost" argument, which I'm sure many of you have heard 
before. For those just tuning in, it's the claim that even though Linux 
is free in terms of money, the learning curve associated with 
transitioning takes so much time as to wipe out the benefits of the 
savings.

I have a prepared counter-argument of how piracy makes that argument 
irrelevant, but, along the way I was also thinking of making the claim 
that there is almost no objective data to support this claim anyway. I 
looked on the net and found all sorts of definitions of the term "total 
operational cost", and lots anecdotal claims, but no supporting 
research. One guy who emailed in claimed that switching to Linux would 
take "hundreds of hours" of adjustment time, which is clearly a number 
he just pulled out of his ass.

I can definitely claim that most people who offer this argument have 
never really proved it to themselves or others. But that's different 
from claiming that there is no proof at all.

Does anyone know of any kind of hard statistical research or data that 
demonstrates any comparative metric for measuring "total operational 
cost" for operating systems?

--
Dave M G
http://www.tlug.jp/wiki/User:Dave_M_G