Advantages of Open Source Software

 

A large number of SMEs and big-scale enterprises are adopting the open-source path for their mission critical IT needs. One of the key features of open source software is that it offers added flexibility to organizations to alter the source code of the application to fit their business processes. Along with flexibility, open source systems are significantly cheaper than their proprietary counterparts. Both these aspects prove to be great motivating factors when enterprises evaluate business applications. A large scale open source developer community, extensive peer review system, transparent design, robust architecture, and standards-based implementation make open source solutions a better and reliable alternative for integrating into existing business solutions. 

Outlined below are some of the advantages as well as common myths associated with open source solutions

Advantages:

Low Cost of Ownership

Open source solutions generally require no licensing fees. Some commercial flavors of open source systems are associated with licensing fees (along with support and maintenance fees), however these costs are very low compared to other commercial alternatives.

 

Huge support

Every popular open source system is supported by a vast community that has deep insight and understanding of the system. Such a peer-based support is often faster and superior to those offered by several proprietary systems. Further, several commercial open source systems offer paid support in addition to that offered by the community (forums and wikis).

 

Easy License Management

Open source software licenses are extremely simple. There is no concept of cpu-based, user-based, load-based, and site-based licensing. Obtain the software once and install it on as many servers as you wish supporting any number of users required. Now that is simple!

 

Support for Scalability

Most of the open source systems have load balancing and fault tolerance concepts inherently embedded into their design. Hence there are multiple options for load balancing, clustering, and fail-over available in open source applications. Such options are available in proprietary applications as well but at significant costs and licensing charges.

 

No Vendor-Lockin

Open source systems that are based on open standards are free from vendor specific lockins. It is very much possible for a proprietary company to shut its shop or get sold to another company thereby discontinue its services after a while. With support from the community, Open source software is independent of a single vendor and gives a strong sense of continuity.

 

Greater Quality Software

Open source software is available publicly. A large amount of developers globally contribute and analyze the code making it more secure and constantly increasing the quality. The peer review process drive excellence in design.

 

Myths:

Open source systems (being free) offer no service or support

Gone are the days when open source applications were limited to university students developing experimental code and distributing it freely. A majority of contemporary open source applications are termed as commercial open source and are developed by profit making organizations (Red Hat, Pentaho, etc). They either have a low licensing fee, a low support fee, or a feature rich commercial version. In either ways these companies make enough money to provide commercial grade support and maintenance of the open source software.

 

Steep Learning Curve

It is generally assumed that grasping and understanding an open source system will take much longer due to the lack of proper documentation and learning support. However, with comprehensive community based wikis there is abundance of documentation to get anyone accustomed to an open source solution. Availability of free downloads of the entire solution further enables individuals to adapt to an open source system at their own pace. Further, with the advent of commercial open source solutions organizations more and more organizations are supporting paid learning support which significantly reduces the overall learning curve. 

 

Open source is not secure

It might seem to be a simple deduction of logic to think that since the code is freely available anyone can figure out how to break it. It is actually the other way around. With a vast community reviewing the open source code, any bugs or security vulnerabilities are immediately surfaced and rapidly fixed, thereby resulting in more secure code.

 

Open source is a work-in-progress

It is a common belief that with continuous development activities, open source system is always changing and lacks a proper release cycle. Popular systems like Linux, Apache, MySQL, etc have proved this notion incorrect with structured code maintenance and controlled release cycles. Controlled upgrades are always backward compatible and continuously offer added featured and functionality (not to mention quick bug fixes)

 

To summarize, the advantages of open source systems are inherent in its flexibility, community support, reliability, quality, and continuity (lack of vendor lockin). All of this either free of costs or at significantly lower costs compared to their proprietary competitors.