Open Source Software for Business

"My first follow-up paper"
Posted by Nancy.
March 05, 2007.

Many debates surrounding what is best to a company, open source software or closed source commercial software continue to rage. Open source software means the source code that is available to anyone who wants it, and can be examined, changed, and used to write additional programming. Open source supporters claim that it saves money, has huge community supporting, and is able to develop more add-on features. But the question remains: is it the best way for business? We will discuss in more details.

I am also a fan of open source software and has experienced on many of them for a long time. I saw the incremental numbers of new applications, their development, and each community’s growth. Until now I have found that the open source software is all around, and many of them make a best deal. In my personal opinion, open source software is worth and attractive to try individually. However, I couldn’t totally agree with the idea that open source software is the appropriate choice for business. Even free or cheaper cost might seem to be a given, what else should it be considered to choose the software for the company? Is there any issue should we concern more on open source codes? If so, why? And if not, why do so many have that perception?

Cost Advantage:

Most people think open source is free of charge, but that’s not necessarily the case. Actually, there are both free version and enterprise version that could cost you from a few to a few thousand dollars. For example, RedHat Enterprise Linux premium edition lists at $2499 for Intel x86, up to $18,000 for IBM S/390. Although most of core of Open Source software is free and can really cut down on your initial capital outlay, total cost of this perspective may not be totally right. Let’s take a closer look. Your choices can have higher cost of installation, operation and maintenance, technical support, and training services. The hidden costs as stated would free or less for the commercial software since they were forced to configure their products for easy installation, operation and maintenances In addition, they will mostly include training and supporting from their vendors.

What is the second order effect from open source software in terms of cost? Time consuming to fix the problems and uncontrollability of your performance could be considered. Whenever you are in trouble and could not have it fixed fast enough, it will lead to uncontrollability issue. If that issue is big enough to stop some of your other processes, it may rip some extra cost or your reputation. As the result, perhaps they end up costing more.

Supporting Issues:

Whenever you find an annoying bug in an Open Source application or when something goes wrong, who you can count on and who you could call. You may need assistance with, but you may not get it without paying someone to fix it. Even with general questions, if you take a look at many forums that act as support centers of Open Software applications, you will see that it is not unusual for questions to go unanswered. Even though you try to retrieve to get the answer or figure it out for yourself, there is no single source information out there. You may be wasting your time until finally be able get the right solution for your problem.

In addition, the Open Source community does not have a legal obligation to answer your questions and there is no warranty if some of them ruin or cause damages to your system. On the other hand, if you are using commercial software, the vendor has an obligation to assist you in a timely manner. Most of well-run commercial software companies will immediately turn around customer requests for enhancements, especially where security bugs are involved.

Perhaps another choice for you to avoid the supporting issue if you really want to use some open source software is to consider the service of the commercial Open Source software. There are many vendors that offer the implementing version with supporting in packages. JBoss is one of them that provide excellent technical services and solutions within the average of 3 hours. However, if you pick this choice, the concept of using open source software is not about the cost concern at all, but it is about the quality of the software itself.

Variety of Open Source Software:

Wow!!! There are so many varieties of Open Source Application out there. It seems like we could have the whole organization as a monopoly Open Source station. But how can we tell which one is good and ready for long term usage? As mentioned, some Open Source software projects can have huge communities of programmers involved, allowing for the rapid implementation of new features and security fixes. The communities of users and programmers are also invaluable resources for asking questions relating to troubleshooting and suggesting enhancements. Therefore, to have the right choice is not only you knew what type of software you want to pick from the basket but also need to know how well of implementation of this software is.

Many Open Source software projects out there stall and extinct. Some of them have very slow response for development, especially when a project is started without strong backing from one or more companies. If it is not possible to get funding or enough programmers cooperating at this stage, the project is just vanished, or perhaps slowly fades out. Sometimes it is hardly to tell the current status of a project. One factor that may use to monitor is the movement of its community. Whenever there is the updating status, report, or plan of releasing, this project still maintains in a good spot.

Feature Development & its Capability:

It is obvious that most Open Source software has more restricted, poor interactive capabilities, less features, and difficulty to use. For example, Open Office which has been launched into a market for a while and was promoted to have the advantages of lower system requirement, boot up time and file storing size comparing to Microsoft office suite, are still struggling in the fact that they have less interactive features and poor visual graphic. For Word and Excel in Open Office suites, you hardly tell any differences comparing to Microsoft Office in basic user level. However, PowerPoint in Open Office is far more behind than in Microsoft Office. Another thing to concern is about file format compatibility and familiarity of users. These problems would occur if you plan to share or use the same file among a group of people.

According to this issue, you may see the reason why those interactive packages in Windows like Adobe PhotoShop, Visual Studio, Microsoft Word and others have GUIs of extraordinary breadth and depth. All accomplished with care and attention to hundreds of thousands of details of the user interaction.

Since the Open Source software was basically built to support specific tasks, most of them may require the technical background or some degree of expertise from users. Open source packages tend to be written by programmers/engineers for other programmers/engineers and for many of them it is accepted that ordinary function will involve creation of configuration files, written scripts, or actual edit and recompile on the source code. Therefore, those programs were written by assuming the modifications will be made by experienced users in this particular area.

Up to this point, perhaps somebody wants to jump in and take the feature adding job. Can we just develop code and add feature that we want? Actually you can, but it does not mean that you will get a vote from community. Limitation of the Open Source Software (free one) is that you need the support of community in exchanges. Sometimes what they want is not what you need and what you need is not really what they want to do right now. Therefore some single requests sometimes are not fully accomplished.

Security Issues:

One of the most important concerns on using Open Source software is the security problem. In terms of security subject, it obvious that having the Open Source code available has both advantages and disadvantages. Vulnerabilities may be found and exploited more easily, if they’re found by the wrong people. However, they may also be fixed more quickly, if they’re found by the right people.

Some said since code is opened, there is no challenge at all for hackers. They would aim to the closed source targets that would be more challenge with higher market penetration like Microsoft products. For my opinion, whether or not the source code is open is probably one of the least important factors. It is all about what is attracted them to do so. Safety or not also depends on the number of developer in community and the popularity of the software itself. However, on the average, this choice will add on another uncertainty to your business processes.

Conclusion:

Open Source software will be remained in the software community as an alternative choice for computer users as long as there are rooms for software development in the market. Even though it offers benefits including availability with less cost than most of commercial software and allows users to study, change, and improve the software for their personal interest, many issues such as higher hidden cost, higher degree of proficient users required to install and operate the software, and security/legal issues still linger when it is considered for business application. However, by adopting proprietary/commercial software and stop using Open Source software may not be a final answer.

For academic industry, technical/software development or other related industry, it may be an elegant choice because those industries focus on software developing issues. Whether it will be integrated and implemented into a company IT structure are needed to consider on a case-by-case basis. If Open Source software is well matured and the nature of the company is suitable for some specific applications with availability of the experienced employee support, using Open Source will be effective and liable.

For typical business that time consuming and practicalities are more important, commercial software may be good enough. In some cases, combining both of the proprietary and good quality open source software is also a good choice. Whatever it is, the final decision could be given by main criteria and policy of each company and its benefit.