To Open Source, or Not to Open Source:

 that is the question...

The conventional mentality of most organisations is not to adopt open source software as part of their IT infrastructure. Observing this at times is quite amusing as most of the arguments brought forward by IT managers against the open source are simple myths. Below are a few of them.
Myth 1 – open source is not supported and if something goes wrong you are on your own.

• This may have been the case sometime ago, yet it’s becoming history with most of the open source projects. At least on the ‘business applications’ level such as ERP, BI, CRM systems, all of them are backed up by their developers with various subscription options available to guarantee bug fixes and help.

Myth 2 – open source may come free, but in long run will be more expensive.We are yet to see that in real life; however from the hypothetical point of view the counter arguments are as follows.

• Cost of the software – obviously open source will be free and maybe some additional functionality will bear a small price.
• Implementation, support and development - both open source and commercial systems require developers. Developers become developers through practice and training. In the commercial ecosystem, the cost of undertaking training and gaining access to the commercial system for practice undoubtedly is more expensive than the open source, where access to the development tools/software is free.

Myth 3 – our directors do not approve anything open source in our organisation.

• Well, that is unfortunate, however whenever they switch on their PCs, they automatically load quite of a few open source elements in their windows operating systems - TCP/IP is one for example.

Myth 4 – open source is unstable and buggy.

• It all depends on the actual solution – many open source projects are reaching the maturity stage now and make use of the same coding/design methodologies as the commercial ones, meaning well planned and tested releases. The added bonus of the open source software is the fact that users do participate closely in the release process and any bug is addressed on time.

Myth 5 – open source is not secure.

• Organisations like U.S. Naval Air Systems Command use open source as part of their core operational systems and are happy to boast about it.