Six Barriers to Open Source Adoption

securitas writes "ZDNet/CNet's Dan Farber describes the six barriers to enterprise open source software adoption. Briefly, the reasons are 1) Lack of formal support, 2) Speed of change (not 'velocity'), 3) Lack of roadmap, 4) Functional gaps, 5) Licensing caveats and 6) ISV endorsements. The article makes an interesting counterpoint to Marc Andreessen's 12 reasons for open source adoption."

Comments

A few more reasons...

[FyRE666]

Hmm, looks to me like they forgot a few:

• 7: Microsoft
• 8: Software patents (see point 7)
• 9: The US Government (see point 7)
• 10: Most importantly - Influential senior IT staff with a vested interest in keeping MS in the
  server room so as to protect their jobs when they have limited skill sets and no real interest
  in learning
  anything new.

Duh! Slashdot editors should RTFA.

[esconsult1]

Dan Farber succicently explains each point and debunks the reason why there is a barrier in the first place. He adroitly makes a great case for Linux in the enterprise while showing how each barrier can be easily overcome today or in the near future.

My $0.02

[jwthompson2]

Velocity of change

Many enterprises are overwhelmed with patches and handling vulnerabilities, as well as the consequences associated with introducing new software into an infrastructure. The fact that the open source community is constantly tweaking its software is a reasonable concern for IT executives. Open source software introduces more complexities in software maintenance, but also promotes more secure and reliable code through rapid bug and vulnerability fixes. Microsoft took 200 days, for instance, to deliver a patch for a particular vulnerability.

Given that enterprises don't want constant upgrades and optional fixes, the major Linux distributors offer scheduled, rather than just continuous, releases via subscriptions as well certification of the software to alleviate this problem. Red Hat claims to have a database of over one million dependencies to check against as part of its delivery of new patches or functionality.

...

The IT staff I work for like open source because vulnerabilities for the software we would like to use are found seldomly and when they are found they are fixed quickly, not to mention one program doesn't interfere with the others too much. But management listens to slick salespeople from crappy vendors and we end up with products that won't work with the latest security patches to Windows, and now we are left vulnerable on so many fronts because our proprietary software won't work with the updated and 'secure' versions of Windows. My coworkers could care less about how often the products need updating, as long as staying secure doesn't break our systems, Windows is failing for us in that arena.

Open source at my workplace is stifled by management who don't know the latest tech stuff and listen to vendors more than the folks in the trenches doing the work. Non-tech people are the key roadblock to FOSS adoption, the ever popular 'stupids'.