Let's not forget the business uses of the applications from the Open
Source space and the benefits of using them.
I do not advocate the exclusive use of Open Source applications and/or
servers for business, but there are cases where it makes perfect
business sense.
I'd mention only a few decision factors from own experience. Some of you
who use Open Source in your business can add to the list:
- Prototyping - I find it very useful when I have to recommend buying or
not an upgrade license type for an RDBMS when dealing with relatively
large volumes of data (>500Gb). I use Postgresql on non-managed space to
asses whether consolidation or distribution is the right answer.
The argument of why not continue to use Postgresql for that particular
implementation is outside the scope of this post
- Add-ons - some widgets or functions are simply not there in some
commercial applications and the benefit of complementing that
application with snippets from the Open Source space outweighs their
administration overhead caveats, if any.
- Migrations - as in
- the use of Open Source tools to perform a system or application
migration
- migrating entirely towards an Open Source system or application
e.g. this year I have contributed to two ERP migrations towards SAP and
J.D.Edwards using Open Source tools and worked on one OfBiz
implementation migrating from a commercial ERP. In all cases I evaluated
migration tools and ERPs from both the commercial and the Open Source
arenas and in most cases the decision was not entirely mine as to what
to use, especially in the OfBiz case where I had little input. Every
decision was done on merit.
Integration and Monitoring - In some cases using well established tools
like CA Unicenter or BMC Patrol is simply too expensive, and I'm not
talking about the license cost. In this area there is a gap in the
commercial offer where medium and small environments needing good
monitoring and integration solutions are missing out, and here the Open
Source community has the answer.
Support - this, I believe, it is the biggest myth, that the there is no
support on offer for Open Source systems and applications. The argument
list for pros and cons is huge from both sides. I would only say that
the most common form of support, the discussion forum, whether payed for
or not to become a member of, is borrowed from the open source
community. For some software vendors that is the only form of support.
Cost - In most cases when talking about cost, the debate revolves around
the cost of licensing as in money vs free, with the derived argument of
freedom of choice. For most, if not all businesses, the license cost has
little impact in the decision to use one product over another. If
talking only about costing, a better indicator would be TCO (Total Cost
of Ownership) for the projected life-time of that product. When doing
this analysis for the shortlisted products, no matter if commercial or
Open Source, one will notice that the sums tend to level after 1 year
for small to medium environments and after 2.5 years for larger systems.
When the argument is money, the killer indicator is ROI spread over the
product's lifetime, where the faster the first results the better. Here
commercial products have a slight advantage over Open Source ones
because they tend to offer (at least the perception of) faster the first
results due to their niche solution approach. Then the cost of
customisation usually peaks, especially when integrating that product
into the IT system. The ROI from Open Source products - as a general
personal finding - is more evenly spread in time because the cost of
customisation and integration tends to be proportional with the degree
of change imposed by these operations. So overall, here too, the play
field is even for both worlds.
Documentation and Training - here the pro-commercial argument has a
foothold indeed. However, this is open for debate as well, but the
skills pool availability and the training on offer in the market -
commercial, academic or otherwise - does have an influence in the
decision to use an certain operation system or a certain application in
a business.
You may have noticed by now that I'm not a good writer. I don't post
often and I admit I payed professionals to write my marketing materials
and articles.
However, the lack of professionalism in the article that is the subject
of this thread needs a professional counterbalance. Professionalism
aside, that article - for lack of a better description - cannot pass as
entertainment due to its racist arguments and insomuch as technical
journalism is an art, it is no masterpiece either.
With this rather long post I thought to offer Graeme, and whom else
would like to contribute to a response to that article, a list of points
of view from a different perspective to complement the list of
"traditional" uses of Open Source.
Adrian
On Thu, 2007-12-13 at 23:19 +1300, Graeme Kiyoto-Ward wrote:
> Hi
>
> I get the idea that being constructive and not worrying about this
> gentleman's reporting is the preferred approach. I was happier writing
> about the software than whining about his piece anyway. If I cut the
> whines out and restructure to add a bit more meat, is anyone willing to
> help give it a go. Even if it doesn't get published in any paper, it
> could go on the web or get printed as posters the for the archive. In
> fact, we are open source, why not release it under BSD type
> documentation license for all to use (i.e. any paper).
>
> That is a bigger piece of work and I need a structure:
>
> how about
> - Software for Free - What is Open Source
> - Kids Software for Free
> - Home Software for Free
> - Office Software for Free
> - Multimedia Software for Free
> - Operating Systems for Free
>
> Two to three pages on each, this time with some screenshots. Reuse some
> of the material. Cover 5-7 applications in each group. Pick applications
> that are Open Source but that have a Windows port.
>
> Regards
>
> Graeme Kiyoto-Ward
>
> Roy Britten wrote:
> > On 13/12/2007, Chris Hellyar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >> A better option IMHO might be to offer to write an article (or short
> >> series) of articles on FOSS for the paper.
> >>
> >
> > That's possibly the most sensible thing that's been said on the subject so
> > far.
> >
> > If only I had more time...
> >
> > Roy.
> >
> >
