Steve Bale, International General Manager at open source database
specialists EnterpriseDB, offers some advice on the practical and
financial realities of open source adoption.
FDs must remember that the adoption of open source software can pose
challenges for the IT department and to the business as a whole. The
skills sets necessary to take charge of an open source project may be
hard to come by, for instance, especially for applications outside the
mainstream.
Additionally, before embarking on an open source route, it should
recognise that while open source software is essentially free, all the
staff resourcing, integration time, support and training costs
associated with the implementation need to be factored in to calculate
the true cost of the project.
It’s also important to ensure the IT department has a proper
implementation plan in place to prevent extraordinary development costs
from soaring and timescales from sliding. Any delays in the delivery of
the solution could have serious consequences on the efficient running
of the business, which in turn could end up costing the business and
FDs dear.
Open source technologies can sometimes generate an increased need for
maintenance and support following the implementation. In fact, the Open
Solutions Alliance, a global consortium of businesses that aims to
facilitate enterprise use of open source software, recently identified
concerns over support and service costs as key barriers to open source
adoption. Therefore, while FDs may be tempted to vouch for open source
because of the lower up-front cost in comparison to proprietary
software, they should recognise that more resources may be required for
maintenance. This could possibly outweigh any initial cost benefits
reaped.
“..it may be the case for example, that Linux fans must turn Linux
haters; that open source needs tough love if it is to win out in the
longer term.”
To obtain the best of both worlds, an increasing number of businesses
are making use of technologies that combine open source and private
enterprise software. Unlike with pure open source, this amalgam
approach ensures that performance, scalability, security and
reliability of IT systems are not jeopardised. These technologies that
are based on open source but supported by private enterprise also allow
FDs to reassure their IT departments that their systems are protected
against any unexpected hiccups, as technical support is available
during and after the implementation, often 24 hours a day.
This provides businesses with the assurance, certainty and service that they need without having to pay for unnecessary extras.
Death to Linux?
For its proponents, open source is the very essence of technology
that grows and evolves organically and, they argue, there’s no doubt
that it will continue in the same vein in perpetuity. But will it? And
where might that journey take it?
Talking about his open source operating system’s future – and indeed
its likely place in history – in a recent interview, Linus Torvalds,
Linux inventor, long-time open systems evangelist, and godfather of the
open source movement, aired a view that will surely have generated a
mixture of surprise, reflection, in some cases outrage in the wider
open source community.
Posted on Simple Talk, the piece covered a wide range of issues, but
one comment in particular, while brief, well and truly put the cat
among the open source developers. “I can certainly imagine (it)
becoming obsolete”, he said of the future of the Linux kernel.
“Anything else would just be sad, really, in the big picture.”
Cue sharp intakes of breath and widemouthed incredulity from the rest
of the oeuvre. Read between the lines however, and it’s a statement
that actually makes a great deal of common sense. The very provenance
on which pure open source philosophy is based – and from whence
Torvalds’ sentiments surely stem – is that there should be no absolutes
in software development. Because if it’s absolute then it’s immovable;
closed. And therefore has no place in the open source universe.
So as much as some people might long to see one open source project or
another achieve mass market dominance, it would in all likelihood come
at a price that would defeat all that the credo represents – as
Torvalds clearly realises.
Ironically then, the continued success of open source in its truest
sense may depend less on out and out market primacy than its ability to
keep re-inventing itself. As OS pioneer Jeremy Allison recently told
TechRepublic, it may be the case for example, that Linux fans must turn
Linux haters; that open source needs tough love if it is to win out in
the longer term.
The shape of open source’s immediate and long-term curve will also be
impacted by the increasing involvement and commitment of traditionally
closed and semi-closed sourced players. Especially the big ones. Sun
Microsystems has in recent weeks, for instance, confirmed its intention
to a move to 100% open software development, while rumours abound that
Microsoft will become more open source friendly following the departure
of closed-source hardliner, Bill Gates.
Whether or not such rumours will bear fruit is a tricky call, but the
fact that the very idea of Microsoft going open source would have been
laughable just a year or two back provides a strong clue.
Observers on both sides of the fence seem to agree the Gates’ exit is
unlikely to herald a wholesale move toward open systems, and yet there
seems little doubt that Redmond’s approach needs a substantial rethink
if it is to stem the Google/ SaaS/SOA tide.
As Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange and a former marketing executive
at SUSE Linux told ZDNet, Microsoft already looks to be employing a
quite different approach to dealing with OSS and OSS companies...
“Microsoft will definitely open up”, he said. “They have to.”
For much of its history Microsoft’s primary strategy has been the
ubiquity of Windows, said another commentator, but if it is to push on
it needs to embrace the non-Windows world. It would take a brave
individual (or an open source manic obsessive) to forecast that
Microsoft will open source any of its crown jewels, but even insiders
are predicting a greater openness in the post-Gates era.
Time and tide, one supposes, waits for no man. A point perhaps best
illustrated by Sun UK’s chief open source officer Simon Phipps. Asked
about the company’s commitment to open source recently, he related what
he called the Pig and Chicken Story.
Both animals are asked by the farmer to bring something along for
breakfast one morning to show their worth. The chicken turns up with an
egg, the pig with a side of bacon. The farmer looks over the offerings
and says to the chicken: “Well you’ve contributed, but he’s truly
committed.”
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