Open Source Could Suffer from Exaggerated Expectations

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:24:09 -0500

If you believe that the cost of switching software is drastically reduced just because the software is open source, you must be smoking dope. Switching from one piece of software to another (whether OSS or not) usually comes with a huge amount of perceived (and possibly real) risk; applications may stop working; staff skills go out the window and have to be replaced. Not to mention the user revolt problems that may occur if the software you are replacing has a large end-user population. The fact that the code is open source has little implications for most IT shops. There are a few companies (like Google, Yahoo, etc.) that will actually hack the source code, but most standard IT shops don't have the resources and would rather have name-brand vendors support their mission critical apps. And you have to pay for good support no matter what. So that leaves us with the question whether open source software would have cheaper support costs merely by virtue of being open source (as opposed to the specifics of the level of competition in a particular market). One could argue that the fact that the source code is available would allow anyone to start a company providing support for a specific piece of open source software thus increasing competition. Well, Oracle tried that undercutting Red Hat on their own Linux. Maybe it has helped to keep Red Hat's fees in check, but as far as I can tell, Oracle's cheap support for Red Hat has not been a huge success. And if a big name vendor like Oracle can't siphon support revenue from Red Hat, who else can?

On Dec 18 12:13 PM FUD Killer wrote:

> Agree this argument is not a strong one. But it is a red herring
> for both open source opponents and proponents to use for their own
> gain. This is a distraction from the real value of open source.

>
> The economic benefits of open source come over the long term rather
> than the short term, primarily because OSS frees IT shops from vendor/data
> lock in, and the astronomical ELA costs that come with that lock
> in. Since you can leave one OSS product for another, there is more
> choice and competition, always good for the economy and for budgets.
> And, of course, there's the basic cost benefit that it usually costs
> less to acquire (download), although training and support is not
> free. Even then, support and training for OSS will be priced lower
> than proprietary vendors, since the code is available for anyone
> to view and support - not a vendor who owns the source code.
>
> Standards-based, vendor-backed open source software has a multitude
> of benefits over proprietary software that go beyond economics (most
> notably: security) and are much more important than whether or not
> open source software can "save the economy."
>
> And let's be honest - if Oracle were to truly get involved in the
> open source community (much less commit to an open source model)
> their shareholders would run for the hills and the company would
> go bankrupt. It conflicts with their core business model. They may
> contribute code and some time to community projects, but do they
> truly provide enterprise class open source products, much less support
> them?

FUD Redux's Comments

Open Source Could Suffer from Exaggerated Expectations