Computerworld - There are significant objections to overcome before open-source software can be broadly adopted across enterprises. These issues aren't insurmountable, but they need to be adequately addressed before open-source can go head to head with the major proprietary software vendors. Objections center around the following areas:
- Support availability
- Functional limitations of the software
- Software license terms
- Rapid software release cycles
- Package road maps or future plans
These concerns have merit but are often overblown by commercial vendors. Any major software rollout incurs risks. It's important to understand those risks and have plans for dealing with them. In the end, open-source involves no more risk than any proprietary software package.
Support availability, or lack of it, is the most cited objection to adopting open-source, yet the number of support options is large and growing. Hewlett-Packard, IBM, JBoss, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, Sun and many others actively promote and support open-source software. Round-the-clock response is available from these vendors and others.
When selecting an open-source package, look for a history of stable releases, multiple books published about the software, availability of foreign-language versions, very active online forums and the existence of multiple support options through a variety of vendors. These characteristics indicate that the software is well known and widely used, thus making it more likely to have a vibrant future.
Functional limitations come into play whenever a company migrates from one software package to another. Because many open-source packages are relatively young, they often don't have the full suite of functionality offered by commercial equivalents. These deficiencies are being erased over time, but in the short run, they may present a challenge. Users are reluctant to give up features, even those they never use (but might need someday).
Software migrations are never easy but occur every day. The key is to stay focused on core business objectives and not get sidetracked by useless bells and whistles that are tossed in "at no extra charge." Such features result in needless complexity, generate support problems and introduce vulnerabilities.
Software license terms have undergone close scrutiny since SCO sued IBM in a last-ditch attempt to avoid insignificance. Just as every software vendor has unique licensing terms, open-source packages have varying terms. The most common licenses are from the
The Apache Software Foundation, the
Open Source Initiative's BSD project, the GNU
General Public License and the
Mozilla communities. These are widely known and respected. Many open-source communities adopt one of these licenses or produce a variation.
There are two minefields to be aware of when it comes to licensing. First, when
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