--- Ashok Hariharan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I am in a situation where i have to chose an open source solution v/s > a > closed source solution. > > This is for a large sized deployment in multiple countries. > > the open-source solution (which is quite widely used) meets about > 40-50% > of the requirements, the rest of > the functionality we need to develop from scratch. > > the closed-source solution (which is not widely used, but used by a > few > large clients) meets about 75% of the > requirements, the rest of the functionality will be developed by the > company owning the rights. the company is > willing to hand-over source code of the product, and a clear road-map > for > the product itself to be turned > open-source. > > it looks like generally everyone else (its not only me involved in > the > selection) is leaning towards the > closed-source at the moment given the functionality, benefits and the > open > source roadmap. Roughly, my > worries are more in line with: > > -the company is small - about 30 people, 4 main developers. if all 4 > got > in to the same car, and got killed in an > accident - that would be the end of it. > > -lack of public domain devel. documentation/ api set..... > > -because its not so widely used, its difficult to get a proper > comparison > of this software vis-a-vis something else.... > > -support...at least at the beginning can only be provided by the > company > that developed it... all this is something to think about. I can give you an example from my experience. A company I know bought middleware from another tiny company (5 developers) just like the one you are talking about (mainly because the technology was newer and the solution cheaper) and they did have a client base but a round of funding failed to come through, they sold to a slight bigger company whose goals where different and killed the product after a few months and the guy who was the brains behind it all walked out. The buyer did get some access to the source code but it was a nightmare with not a single line of documentation or a published set of APIs (not really something that could be open source unless some major work was done on it) and most important of all, *no* support. Vardhini
