Duncan, suggesting that it's that simple is extremely naive. OSS has costs too. I have no doubt that OSS would be cheaper, but it would be nice to see real world cost comparisons, and not the usual zealotry from the GPL lot.
Both solutions will obviously have implementation and maintenance costs. Given that a free solution exists, however, anything spent over and above those costs - e.g. on licensing - is wasted.
Please re-read my comment. I acknowledge that both solutions have implementation and maintenance costs - which include the cost of re-training.
Anything over and above that _is_ waste.
(FWIW, I dislike the term 'training'. Someone else said this first, but I agree: training is what you do to dogs, education is what you provide people.)
I dislike the term 'waste' when referring to software licensing over 'free' software. As I said, it's not as simple as you are suggesting. I pointer out training (semantically, it is training), but there are other costs and factors to consider. I'm not suggesting for one minute that OSS is a bad choice, just that it is not necessarily the most cost effective in short to medium term.
