The Myths of Open Source

Alhtough I am not agreeable to this, since I do not consider anyting as a holistic solution, still this article offers some points for discussion. John Alberg cofounder of Eployease in CIO Magazine elaborates how open-source was not able to meet all the needs and discolses the myths of using open source. Eployease provides employee benefits administration services to more than 1,000 organizations across America .
The myths discussed are...
(1) ATTRACTION IS THE PRICE TAG

(2) THE SAVINGS AREN'T REAL

(3) THERE'S NO SUPPORT

(4) IT'S A LEGAL MINEFIELD

(5) OPEN SOURCE ISN'T FOR MISSION-CRITICAL APPLICATIONS

(6) OPEN SOURCE ISN'T READY FOR THE DESKTOP

THE BOTTOM LINE :

Is open source right for every organization? In the end, argues Andy Mulholland, chief technology officer for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, it's a question of attitude. "The arguments for and against open-source software often get very trivialized," he says. "It's not a technology issue; it's a business issue to do with externalization."


Companies with an external focus, he says, which are used to working collaboratively with other organizations, and perhaps are already using collaborative technologies, stand to gain much more from open source than companies with an internal focus, which see the technology in terms of cost savings.


"The lesson of the Web is that standardization is better than differentiation," Mulholland claims. "Is there a virtue in doing things differently? Is there a virtue in doing things the same way as everybody else?" As the past decade has shown, standardization with a proprietary flavor—think Microsoft—has its drawbacks: bloatware, security loopholes, eye-popping license fees and an unsettling reliance upon a single vendor. In offices around the globe, an era of open-source standardization, determined to condemn such drawbacks to history, may be dawning.