Open Source or Proprietary ? A perspective question...

Hey,

Since I read articles upon Open Source, Business Model, licences... many ideas and principles are scrambling in my head and I create this post to share my ideas and opinions.

Simple question :

Open Source or Proprietary ?

Increasingly, I think (and I am convinced ...) that everything depends on perspective and point of view. ("Everything is relative" Einstein would say!).

Let's take a car. I'm sure you know someone in your social network(consultant, project manager, colleague, client ...) who often compare Information Technology with automotive.
PS: I bought all little or huge anecdotes between car and IT ecosystem. I plan to start a collection ...

So if I have to compare open source and car ecosystem, I would say : maintenance.

Maintenance ?

Questions : How do you maintain / repair your car?
Do you let your mechanic/repairman do all the work?
Do you drain off your waste oil, change your tyre or spark plugs ... ?
Have you a mechanic car insurance or guaranty for 3 years ?

Well... Open Source = maintenance = support ...

How do you plan to take care of your car (IT solutions) ? Following answers, you will take (or not) a support contract.

• If you are a good mechanician, you will probably pass.
• If you are resourceful but afraid to do special operations, you will ask a simple support.
• If you don't want to do mechanic and let other people do the work, you will take an all-inclusive contract.

And this is the main (and major) difference between proprietary and open source solutions.

• In open source world, you can take care of your car (if you like), ask a friend (the community) to help you AND / OR you can apply for a maintenance contract.
• In Proprietary world, you can't take car of your car alone ! You must apply a "nearly-exclusive" maintenance contract.

Finally, all depends (well almost...) on your profile to choose a solution.

And it is at this precise moment where the perspective (point of view) is important ...

• From a strategic layer (manager, chief, decision maker...), it's important to have a support contract with the editor. It guarantee performance and service quality of your application (even if a software developper has changed one parameter without knowing impacts... In general, we often say it's the solution fault... ^^' ). Whether open or not, the support of a solution is something vital. As quoted in the article, it is not because we has not been stolen this year that we should not take out insurance against theft. So be prudent, take the support!

• From a technical layer (developer, engineer, consultant, architect ...), Open Source as its name suggests, means literally "open source"! As a technician and code explorer, you can learn, understand the code and architecture of the greatest (or not) developers! It is something like having cookbooks of the greatest (or not) French cooks. Typically for a young curious consultant/developer like me, it is often useful to learn best practices from open source solutions. Unfortunately, this reflex is not fully exploited tough this is THE main advantage!

• From a commercial layer (accounting, commercial ....), open source equals free or huge margin! But I repeat again, this is not strictly true! In fact, It has been shown by numerous studies that Open Source solutions are cheaper than their proprietary competitors. However we have to compare features! Some proprietary modules are clearly very expensive, and that's normal due to the business functionnality. Care must be taken as usual with the requirements and needs of each user!

• From a quality layer (Quality ...), Open source often equals Standard! Usually (it's not a golden rule... be careful!), open source development and open source solution respect standards (OASIS, ISO, W3C...) . It helps to create interoperability, flexibility, continuity and simpler evolution.

To conclude: From my simple view, the real difference between proprietary and open source is the capacity to watch, understand and study the source code of the application. Everything else is not discriminatory.

So remember, needs and requirements are the only REAL criteria for selecting a solution!

If you have something to add or if you want to continue the discussion, I invite you to leave a comment at this post!

In any case Have fun !