[NTLUG:Discuss] Any open source success stories?

[Lance Simmons]

Fellow NTLUG'ers,

I'm on a committee at my university that's deliberating now
about what to do about software for the university's
undergraduate school. Most people on the committee want us to
renew a deal with microsoft in which faculty and staff get lots
of microsoft software and all of our students get to buy lots of
microsoft software for ridicuously low prices (compared to what
those students' eventual employers will have to pay for the same
software, which will be the only software they'll know how to
use).

I'd like to persuade people on the committee to look into other
possible sources of software, but I'm not as clear as I'd like
to be about what exactly is possible now with free software.
Does anyone have any success stories about institutions that
have moved away from microsoft products in one area or another
and lived to tell the tale? Microsoft seems to be primarily
interested in selling educational institutions total packages
that cover the entire line of microsoft software from top to
bottom, and this creates a lot of pressure on us to go microsoft
all the way.

One of the concerns people have expressed about free software is
that "you can't get support for it". Is that still true?

Our school has about 1,200 undergraduates, and maybe 250
employees. (I don't really know the number of employees, but
that's a guess.) We also have an MBA school with about 2,500
students, but they make their technology decisions apart from
the undergraduate school.

Does anyone have any encouraging words, or should I just go
along with the proposal to sign up for the microsoft package
deal once again, so our students will be able to buy microsoft
office suites for $15 or whatever?

Lance Simmons