Expriences with Open Source Web Technologies?

_ZorKa_ asks: "I have been asked to give a presentation at an up and coming technology expo by my employer about 'Open Source Web Technologies'. Having taught Linux courses and open source web languages at a local college I feel fairly comfortable in speaking on the subject in front of a large crowd. So, instead of giving some of the same old boring open source stories I normally use I thought I would poll the Slashdot audience and see if there is anything of particular interest I should mention during my presentation. Maybe you have a war story to tell, or some advice to give. Anyone have any great stories that I could pass on as to why you *should* use open source web technologies in a business? Anyone have any links to some sound numbers that can back an argument up with. Even if you have reasons why a business shouldn't use open source web technologies I would like to consider those as well. I'm all ears!"

Comments

Apache; BRL

[brlewis]

Without getting into whether or not this is a good thing, large businesses want to use what everybody else is using. It is generally assumed that everybody is using Microsoft. You should correct this misconception by citing the netcraft survey.

Please do mention that while the more prevalent free server-side web technologies are scripting languages designed for people with a Unix/C programming background, they aren't the only options. My Beautiful Report Language is easy to pick up for anyone who knows HTML and SQL. The syntax is conceptually similar to HTML/XML, but less verbose and easy to visually distinguish from markup.