Spin it this way.  They spend $160 per year to get software that saves you from having to develop it from scratch.  
Estimated time to develop: <insert ludicrous amount of time here>  realistically six to twelve months of relatively uninterrupted.
ROI == ((<ludicrous time> - <deployment time>) * <your hourly wage>) - $160 / $160

Any administrator should be able to understand the value in that.

From: Eric Stewart <eric@usf.edu>
Reply-To: Observium Network Observation System <observium@observium.org>
Date: Monday, October 7, 2013 3:29 PM
To: Observium Network Observation System <observium@observium.org>
Subject: Re: [Observium] Observium Community / Professional

  1. Software is handled differently. It's easy to get a replacement drive or RAM if needed. It's even easy to get a one-time charge for, say, an upgrade to VMWare Fusion. A yearly software fee for something that does what a product we already have does? Hard to justify.
  2. We're looking for something that's better than what we have.  To be more clear, we have something that works; we're just looking for something better. What we have is free and does everything we need (but has some issues with manageability and ease of use). Observium has a lot of features we want, but lacks features we need. Since it does not yet reach "need" status for us, and doesn't cover some of our more important (though arguably esoteric) use cases, it's not something we can justify at this time.
  3. We're in the testing/investigation phase and I'm looking at what it would take for Observium to be a viable replacement for our current system.  This started last week, before I was aware of even the hint that there might be a change in release options.  I saw a lot of promise and was surprised by many of the features ... but knowing that a "free, somewhat crappy but completely working, mostly homegrown solution" outweighs a "really nice but needs a lot of work, and possibly not free solution", the wind was taken out of my sails a bit when I read Adam's message.
Hey, if it were coming out of my pocket, I'd be all over the idea of "Well, let me pay for it for a year and see if some of what we need gets into the code, and maybe even contribute a bit to the code."  Indeed, the idea of putting my own out of pocket money in for the first year hasn't quite been rejected.  Also toying with the idea of using the free version for as much as we can get out of it, tacking on the one or two things that are a must have for our environment, and trying to get the code added through the methods suggested by Tom.

The split editions move is just crappy timing for me.  Not blaming anyone for that, not really even complaining, that's just what it is.  And I have no problem with the need to fund development, nor the method used to do so.  Just doesn't look like it's going to work for my situation because the product just isn't where we would need it to be to buy in at this time.

I do dearly hope it gets there, though.

On Monday, October 07, 2013 3:36:36 PM, Colin Anderson wrote:

Hey guys,

Following this thread… I have a hard time believing someone can’t get
away with putting $160 into an expense for their IT department. Any
budget I’ve ever seen accounts for some additional day to day expenses
within a certain limit. I mean what do you do if a hard drive fails
or you need more RAM for a server – go through an approval process
with the board? I don’t think it’s the school that’s being cheap…

-Colin



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Eric Stewart - Network Administrator - eric@usf.edu
University of South Florida, Information Technology