Do
You Suffer from Open Source Phobia?
Here are six reasons you might relent and be ready
for an extreme makeover.
BY JT SMITH
ASK A GROUP OF corporate IT leaders whether
they'd rather stick their arms into a box of tarantulas
or allow open source software (OSS) on their networks, and
odds are most would start rolling up their sleeves. Not
to do any downloading, either.
In this security-conscious era, getting IT or business
leaders to consider using OSS can be a tough sell. One of
the main reasons is a perceived lack of control —
or a throat to choke to put it another way. If you purchase
packaged software, you know who's responsible. If you're
using Microsoft Outlook and some knucklehead exploits a
hole to distribute a virus to your user base, all eyes turn
to Redmond for a patch. But if you're using Evolution and
a similar problem occurs, to whom do you turn for a remedy?
(See Myth No. 4 below for the answer.) One of the appeals
of OSS within the open source community is that it is developed
for the greater good rather than simply to make a buck.
Yet this egalitarian appeal is also one of its greatest
barriers to its general acceptance. In the absence of hard
information, a number of myths have sprung up that make
the prospect of using open source software for enterprise
applications scarier than that box of tarantulas.
Let's examine some of these myths (and the truths about
them) in order to gain a greater understanding of OSS, and
see how your organization can benefit from it.
Myth No. 1: OSS is all or nothing
There seems to be a general belief that using OSS is an
all-or-nothing proposition. In other words, you have to
choose between using all open source or all commercial software.
The truth is you can have any mix of open source and commercial
software you want in your business. You can even use OSS
in a Windows environment.
The important thing to remember is that OSS is a different
philosophy of software creation and distribution, not a
completely different technology. Most large corporations
already use some form of OSS, whether they realize it or
not (see Myth No. 5). They've found that OSS plays very
well with others.
Myth No. 2: Centralization of software development is always
better
This goes back to the "one throat to choke" concept.
If your primary goal is to lay blame when something goes
wrong, then the statement is true. But if you're looking
for the best performance from the software, it may not be.
Consider Charles Darwin's oft-quoted principle of biological
diversity, which says that having more choices in the gene
pool gives a species a better chance of surviving a disaster
and improving itself more quickly. The same holds true in
software. A large developer pool around an open-source software
project means more ideas, with the best rising to the top
and the rest falling by the wayside.
If a disaster strikes, you have a large community working
to solve it. That's the main reason that open source software
upgrades are introduced on a weekly or monthly basis, while
commercial software upgrades often take more than a year
to produce. Some of this attitude also dates back to the
early days of software development, where the knowledge
was held (and hoarded) by a relatively small part of the
population.
For at least the last 10 years, children have been learning
to program in middle school, or even grade school. As those
students move into the workforce, they won't be content
to wait for improvements from on high. They're diving in
and creating what they need on their own. OSS gives them
the means to do it. And today, with the pace of change coming
fast and furious, a closed, 18-month development cycle no
longer meets the needs of business. OSS provides a solution.
Myth No. 3: You get what you pay for
In America in particular, there seems to be a prevailing
attitude that free equals bad; its corollary, of course,
is that the more expensive something is, the better it is.
Consider the realities of software development, though.
A commercial software company has a certain amount of budget
allotted to develop a product. This budget is based on the
number of people assigned to the project and the amount
of revenue they expect it to bring in. Just as important
is who the company assigns to the project. If it's the signature
product, you'll probably get the best talent on it. If it's
an ancillary product, you'll probably get lesser souls.
Those are the realities of business. And if the product
doesn't make money (or the company feels compelled to bring
out a new version to drive up revenues), support will dry
up awfully quickly.
OSS projects pull from millions of the best minds around
the world. One of the reasons is the caliber of people who
are attracted to the open-source community. They tend to
be creative, independent thinkers rather than middle-of-the-road
programmers — the type of people who love a challenge
and like to dig in deep on a problem.
No single software company has that kind of talent pool
to pull from. None. Couple that with the diversity of ideas
mentioned earlier and you have the greatest value possible.
Oh, and as far as support goes, many OSS products continue
to be supported by the community long after the originator
moves on to other things. Try finding that in the commercial
world.
Myth No. 4: OSS is not secure
Since everyone can see the code, the reasoning goes, exploits
are easier to find. There's only one problem with this line
of thinking: exploits are actually very difficult to find,
regardless of whether you have access to the source code
or not. If they were ever easy, the original developers
would find them during the debugging process and fix them
before the software ever went gold.
Fixing exploits is the easy part. So once they're found,
having a large community working on the fix is actually
to your advantage. The adage "Given enough eyes, all
bugs are shallow" definitely applies here.
Myth No. 5: OSS is only for zealots and small companies
Hmmm. Consider that most of the Internet is built on OSS,
and huge companies around the world are adopting OSS at
an astonishing rate. Of course in some cases they don't
realize it's OSS until long after the software becomes part
of the way the company does business. But the point is open
source is proving its performance on the enterprise level
every day.
Here are some facts about OSS:
- 24 percent of all websites are written in PHP
- 65 percent of all websites run on Apache
- 76 percent of all mail servers are Sendmail
- 90 percent of all domains are controlled by BIND
- 99 percent of all Web browsers are based on the original
NCSA Mosaic browser
The fact is, OSS is pervasive in business, government and
education. And it will continue to grow in popularity both
as a means of controlling IT costs and because it simply
makes sense.
Myth No. 6: It's hard to find an OSS equivalent
to certain popular software
The fact is there is an OSS equivalent for nearly every
commercial software product on the market today. OpenOffice
does nearly everything Microsoft Office can do, and is compatible
with those files; Mozilla is a great replacement for Internet
Explorer; The Gimp is an OSS alternative to Adobe Photoshop;
Linux is a good replacement for Windows and Unix servers;
Apache takes the place of IIS and iPlanet. The total licensing
cost of adding all those products to your enterprise: $0.
Definitely worth considering.
No red tape
If you're still not convinced, here's one more reason to
consider OSS in the enterprise: you don't need to send a
requisition through six levels of approval to obtain it,
because there's nothing to approve. No purchase order is
required because there's no cost to obtain the software.
You can download and use it immediately to see if it suits
your purposes. There's no "time bomb" trial period
to worry about, either, so if your priorities change you
don't have to worry that the clock is ticking.
The bottom line is there's nothing to fear from OSS but
fear itself. OSS provides the tools you need to boost productivity
in a secure environment, which makes it definitely worth
a look before you commit dollars that could be better spent
elsewhere. And that beats a box of tarantulas any day of
the week.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
JT Smith is the director of technology for Web Den Interactive,
the makers of the Business Integration Engine and other
open source enterprise application tools. He can be reached
at jtsmith@brunswickwdi.com.
Fuente: CIO.com |
