In his two-part blog debunking myths about OSS, enterprise architect Mike Kavis takes on several common misconceptions about open source software, conceding at the outset that he sees room in the grand scheme of things for proprietary software as well. "The trick is to know when to use the right tool for the right job," he writes.

OSS is not bad for the economy, Kavis asserts, nor is it contrary to the values of capitalism. He cites the example of a French client in the retail grocery business who, by leveraging OSS technologies to control costs and keep themselves competitive against the major players such as Walmart and Carrefour. Using the LAMP suite frees this client from the hefty fees they would have to pay were they to rely on proprietary solutions for the operations of their company.

The fact that OSS cuts into revenues at Microsoft nicely embodies the spirit of capitalism, Kavis implies. Implementing OSS solutions enables business to focus on the essentials such as controlling costs, share holder value, flexibility, negotiating power against vendors, he continues, strengthening competition and, to some extent, leveling the playing field.

Nor is it the case that support for OSS solutions is meager. Kavis cites six sources of support for OSS solutions, which are:

• Single vendor support: Support is offered along the lines of the proprietary giants, for a fee, though a minimal one.
• Stack vendor support: Single companies (like SpikeSource, SourceLabs, Redhat) provide support services for a suite of products
• Community support: The larger the community, the more varied and ingenious the support available
• Do it yourself: Not a bad idea if you restrict this to non-mission-critical solutions
• Consultants: Check out Sourceforge.net for a list of consulting companies
• Mix and match all of the above

Kavis concludes his pair of blogs with the remark that, " I am not saying the all OSS products have good support, but then again, that is true for proprietary vendors also."

For the original posts, see Part 1 and Part 2 [...read more...]

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