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Open Source Limitations?
_aargh writes "This ZDNet article by John Carroll makes the claim that open source is flawed because there isn't a way for programmers to earn money by developing open source software. It annoyed me so much that I wrote this response to it on the O'Reilly Network."
Fortune 10 companies here, and of the 6 or 7 critical bugs I've seen during rollouts, only twice have I seen a software vendor with their ass on fire and hot enough to do a quick fix. Of the remaining times, they were still $8-22 million rollouts, and we either waited, or found workarounds. You could be King of Planet Earth, Emperor of the Milkyway Galaxy, and sit at the right side of the Throne of God, and still have to wait half the time, I think.
Hell, Micro$oft is a financial behemoth, and I can't think of a single piece of their software that is even half as reliable as some of the worst open source software.
My girlfriend insists on windows, so I upgraded her box to win2k... thought it was almost tolerable: rock solid for M$ crap. Then last weekend, it barfed up pieces of the sound card driver. She looks at me when I can't fix it, and says "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of computer expert". Sound card works in every one of my boxes I test it in, and her ISA slot works with the nic I threw in it. It is, without a doubt, windows' fault. It *ALWAYS* does this, just took awhile for win2k to show its true colors.
And now I have to read about people ranting that OSS just isn't suitable for enterprise solutions?