Open Source Billing Solutions?

antis0c writes: "I am in the process of starting up an ISP, and I've been trying to find some really good Open Source Billing Software. I've looked around quite a bit, and the only truly Open Source solution I found was Freeside. It seems to offer a lot of what I need; Real-time credit card processing, MySQL database backend, Radius and Apache support, and all the general account management things you expect, but the user interface really leaves much to be desired. It doesn't feel very secure at all as it uses a lot of suid scripts and suEXEC in Apache and it also requires a lot of 3rd party Perl Modules (21 to be exact) which getting them all to work properly in conjunction with Freeside seems like a harder task than jumping through hoops of fire. My question is, what kinds of Billing Software have you guys used, and [what are] your good/bad experiences with it?"

Billing software and a lot of other infrastructural nitty-gritty is probably keeping a lot of businesses from switching to the joys of Open Source software for their backend. And if it requires 21 3rd-party modules to make Freeside work well, wouldn't some bright soul like to sell the work of neatly packaging those modules back to Freeside, so all will benefit from them? It would certainly make a nice diagram in the to-be-written textbook The Economics of Open Source Software.

Comments

Re:Are you sure you could trust it ?

[the red pen]

• You have obviously not paid attention to most EULA's.

You obviously have never paid more than $39.95 for a piece of software. Try buying a billing system for $100K. You don't get a CD ROM in an envelope with a EULA stuck on the outside. You get a CD-ROM and a multi-page contract, probably customized for you. Believe me, any such contract that released the vendor from reasonable liability would be laughed out of the corporate counsel's office.

• At least with open source software you "can" crack open the hood and look at it.

I agree 100%. You can also do that if you purchase a source license if the commercial software you buy offers one. Heck, if you're so 1337, you can always write it yourself. (Isn't this the point in the debate where someone claims that a billing system can be written in 10 lines of Perl?)

The issue is cost/benefit. If I get an open-source program, do I have an expectation that I'll spend my valuable time repairing it? If I buy a commercial offering, I may get screwed (many have), but I have an expectation that I won't. Believe it or not, most people who buy software find that it does what they need it to do (even people who buy it from Microsoft... imagine that!).

Apache, Linux, GNU emacs and other popular open source software are popular because they allow me to hack the code, but they don't require me to do so. If I install Debian, I have a reasonable expectation that it will work pretty well without me hacking the kernal. That makes it a very valuable piece of Open Source software. If I install NetFoo v.0.1, I may be in for more of an adventure. If NetFoo is critical to my financial success, I might want to buy the commercial offering.

• Well, going back to my first paragraph, most commercial software doesn't have a warranty that actually does any good.

Let's try to keep things in perspective. We're not talking about "Space Rampage, Network Edition" or any other boxed software you can find on the shelf at CompUSA. We're talking expensive, vertical-market billing software. Anything generalizations you have about "commercial software," no matter how true, probably don't apply.

Who contributes?

[QuantumG]

I've worked at two different companies that used linux for billing and IP accounting etc. Not a single one has ever contributed back to the codebase. They download the source, hack it to suit their needs and when they find a bug they bitch and moan until someone else fixes it. If they manage to fix it themselves they don't bother to generate a patch and contribute it. Is this the experience other people have had?

Excellent solution available (Akopia Interchange)

[iamsure]

If you take a peek at Akopia, you will find a very robust, very well tested solution. They have changed their name since their initial product, as they merged with another company whose name escapes me.

I used their previous product and was extremely pleased, and when I relaunch our billing system in march, we will be using Akopia's system.

It has everything you are looking for, is open-source, AND has been tested by the masses over time.

What more could you want?

Oxymoron

[CaptainZapp]

Sorry, but when I read Real time credit card processing in the same sentence as MySQL backend it gives me the jitters.

Now, before you folks unpack your baseball bats and woodoo dolls. This is not an attempt to degrade MySQL, but it's transaction processing capabilities are in beta at best, and I wouldn't consider it a proven enough platform to handle any financial transactions.

That doesn't discredit it's qualities as a proven backend for retrieval mostly databases which are not mission critical.

You may want to look into PostgreSQL for a transaction capable open source db.

duck & cover

Freeside Solutions

[CyberKnet]

I'm not sure if the reader in question actually realised this, but SISD do offer commercial services. Yes, you have to pay for them. They include preconfigured machines, installation, customization and training. The webpage to said commercial services can be found here. If freeside is ugly to you, ask them to customize it. If you cant get freeside to install, get them to. If you dont have to pay $$$ to buy the software, then there will be room in your budget for this, wouldnt there?

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Re:I have an "Ask Slashdot" question, too

[CrzyLune]

Freshmeat is great for listing software, but it does not evaluate its usefulness.

Furthermore, not all software is listed. For example, the link you gave does not list Zelerate, an open source system that competes with commercial packages costing thousands of dollars.