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

which

[panxerox]

The number 1 reason: Non OS standards which Microsoft appears to be creating for the sole purpose of locking in the masses to their product line (IMO), until OSource finds away to deal with MS leveraging their hold on standards (which are fairly open right now) OSource is going to have a hard time, because MS is calling the shots right now.

Re:which

[Rick the Red]

I've battled this for years. It's hopeless. The Pointy Haired Bosses just don't get the difference between mandating corporate file standards and mandating corporate software standards. Mandating software standards is easier, so guess what we all get? At one point I threw up my hands and said, "Why don't we just say the corporate standard is whatever Microsoft wants to sell us?" They were not amused, but that's essentially what they did, one product at a time. Then they'd bitch when you asked for an upgrade from Office 97 to Office 2000 because some nymrod in Accounting wouldn't Save As and you couldn't read his files.

Thanks for letting me rant -- I feel better now.

Re:which

[GAVollink]

This is a particularly good point, especially as the EU decision yesterday makes it much easier for Microsoft to sue the butts off Open Source projects that use Microsoft proprietary formats (that were reverse engineered).

If they start encrypting their protocol communications they could be protected by the DMCA as well (scary thought).

Regardless of these issues...I find the velocity behind OpenSource right now, is better than it's ever been. And, I think more and more IT management types (like me) are using OpenSource solutions to save money for thier companies.

Re:which

[GAVollink]

Don't fret. I talk to IT directors and managers all of the time that "get it" - though the ones who get it are usually from smaller companies (like me).

A large company often doesn't find the 'time' involved in setting up and working with open source solutions is worth the savings. So, by the time that company is huge and they start to care about how much each upgrade costs, the amount of time and energy required to retrain the entire workforce is insurmountable.

Re:which

[HermanZA]

Bleh - Reverse engineering interfaces for the purpose of compatibility is perfectly legal. It is specifically addressed in the US DMCA for instance and also in the EU equivalent legislation.

Lack of..

[flewp]

3) Lack of roadmap

That's okay, because REAL men don't need not stinkin directions.

Re:Lack of..

[GAVollink]

Uh, yeah - that's why they BUY software. I don't have time to put meaningful contributions into OpenSource anymore (I did 7-8 years ago). I'll write to developers, and join the mail lists for some projects (even contribute answers from time-to-time), but I don't have time (or staffing money) to build the project I want. That's what I pay RedHat for. Yes, I admit it - I bought RHEL ES 3.

Re:Lack of..

[proj_2501]

organizing ANOTHER organization's project should NOT be a CIO's job.

Re:Lack of..

[IO ERROR]

3) Lack of roadmap

Why do you need a roadmap? If you're a proprietary software company, your roadmap tells your customers where your product is going to be years from now. With open source, those same features could be available to you in weeks or even days from the time you express interest in such a feature. So having a "roadmap" is frequently pointless unless your project has specific long term subprojects that will take months or years.

What corporate executives need to realize is that if they find an open source solution that's "almost" right, but just lacks one or two things, it may be because no one's expressed interest, and a quick email to the developer's mailing list and they're likely to see a beta version of the requested features before the proprietary vendor has even had time to respond to the message.

Re:Lack of..

[bwt]

3) Lack of roadmap

Lack of roadmap, huh. Tell that to mozilla or open office or MySQL or Gnome or perl or
Fedora I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Of course, I prefer a different term than "roadmap" -- vaporware.

Re:Lack of..

[Linker3000]

Nope, it's because the M$ roadmap is Soooooo clear:

1) Buy one version of our product today
2) Purchase 'the latest version' upgrade every year or so for the rest of your life.
3) We profit $$$

Re:Lack of..

[IO ERROR]

Serious question for you. If the CIO of coca cola shot you an email and said "Hey, I'd like to see feature XYZ in product ABC" why on earth would you _volunteer_ your time to, in effect, give charity to a company that has more money than god?

If product ABC is MY open source project, then I'm VERY interested in what the CIO of Coca-Cola is looking for, because if he uses my product he's likely to come back to me for support, services, training, and give me lots of money for those.

I recommend every open source developer (in the U.S. this will vary in other countries) go get themselves an EIN and incorporate. Then ABC Development Inc. sells support and services for product ABC.

Re:Lack of..

[IO ERROR]

The congressional letter effect: For everyone that offers input, there are N other users that never bothered. They were too lazy or perhaps thought that the feedback would be a futile effort. ...and Coca Cola doesn't get to own the results. EVERYONE gets to use them.

There's that, too. Here's a great example. A few weeks ago someone working with $RADIO_STATION in $MAJOR_CITY contacted $OUR_OSS_PROJECT because the project was "almost" right (see my original comment above) for something they wanted to do.

The developers, including myself, worked over the course of the next few weeks to make changes, add features, and fix bugs relating to what they wanted, and right now we're in the final testing phase before it goes live (oh yes, it's quite user-visible).

We probably won't make any money off this unless they choose $A_COMPANY_ONE_OF_US_WORKS_FOR for dedicated hosting, but it will give us a massive amount of exposure, which will lead to people like the CIO of Coca-Cola contacting us.

Then again, we're eliminating any possibility that they'll ever choose any $MICROSOFT_PRODUCT[] ever again for anything, and that for some of us is payment enough.

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.

Re:A few more reasons...

[RogerWilco]

I think Linux is ready for corporate use - locked down desktop /w wordprocessor/speadsheet/etc. - but for now I see the senior IT staff choosing MS as the safe way out, they'll never get blamed for choosing it, they might if a Linux adoption failed.

Seventh problem

[October_30th]

7) It's free.

You might not believe it but that's a major reason. I don't know about you but arguments like "You get what you pay for", "There's no such thing as a free lunch" and "It's free if you consider your own time [setting up the system] worthless" tend to be rather convincing.

Re:Seventh problem

[arkanes]

It's important to remember that the first two resound very strongly with the sort of bull dog "greed is good", "show me the money" kind of personality you stereotypically find in upper management.

The third one is kinda silly imo, since it's (obviously) true for anything, and if you're going to pay for a plug & play system then you're no longer really buy software, you're buying services and theres plenty of places you can go for that, and why should you care what the back end is?

Re:Seventh problem

[Rick the Red]

Make that

7) There's nobody to sue if it doesn't work.

Not that they ever sue Microsoft or Adobe or Lotus when their crap doesn't work, but I've heard that excuse more than once.

Re:Seventh problem

[Short Circuit]

My step-dad tells me they have a saying where he works: "Ten thousand unemployed software developers can't be wrong."

Re:Seventh problem

[arkanes]

I've heard this one tons of time, and in reality it seems to be much more about someone to blame than someone to sue - IE, someone you can talk about suing in a meeting. If you're powerless to fix something (like a bug in Windows), then the board can't hold you responsible if you go over deadline because of it. Being powerless like that can be incredibly usefull in office politics.

Re:Seventh problem

[Vellmont]

Sorry, but OSS is NOT free (as in beer). People are paid for their time, and implementing anything takes time. This needs to be stressed to anyone that wants OSS as their instincts that nothing is truly priceless is true.

People get nervous about things being "free" because they think they're being sold the Brooklynn Bridge. People in general have a very good sense of what a friend of mine used to call "down-home cynicism". If you don't give them the catch, their imagination will run wild. If you're honest that the license is free, but the ultimate costs are not I think people will gladly accept this.

Re:Seventh problem

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

"You get what you pay for"

Windows XP costs $299. Linux costs $699. Therefore Linux is better.

:-)

Re:Seventh problem

[rzbx]

Actually I believe number 7 should be Microsoft. Although actually the entire proprietary software industry could be all grouped into number 7. There is still a widely held belief that software is as much a product as the toothbrush you buy at the supermarket. Software on the other hand is NOT like a product we are used to. It is more a service than anything.

If a company wants a good IT department they will listen less to large companies like Microsoft and more to their IT staff, clients, engineers, educational institutions, and various employees throughout their own company. Why listen to a company that wants to take money away from your IT staff and your company to produce products that are made to work for ALL their clients? I pick on Microsoft for one main reason, they shattered the idea of what software really is. Treat software like just another process in a company, not a product that your company uses. This is an idea I bet Microsoft fears the most. Open source carries this idea, and therefore open source software is also their enemy. Another problem is only the educated really understand what open source software means. Microsofts strategy is now to reshape the idea of open source to the masses and the corporate world in their favor. In the end, its about control. One of the largest barriers to open source software is therefore Microsoft (and others, SCO etc.).

Re:Seventh problem

[Doctor O]

> Being powerless like that can be incredibly
> usefull in office politics.

Actually, if my team went over a deadline because we were 'powerless to fix something', we'd get fired and rightly so. Management isn't interested in problems, it's interested in solutions. At least it was everywhere I've *ever* be working at. If you encouter severe problems/bugs, you can usually convince the PHB to change the deadline.

Just my 0.02.

Re:Seventh problem

[hchaos]

Sorry, but OSS is NOT free (as in beer). People are paid for their time, and implementing anything takes time. This needs to be stressed to anyone that wants OSS as their instincts that nothing is truly priceless is true.

People get nervous about things being "free" because they think they're being sold the Brooklynn Bridge. People in general have a very good sense of what a friend of mine used to call "down-home cynicism". If you don't give them the catch, their imagination will run wild. If you're honest that the license is free, but the ultimate costs are not I think people will gladly accept this.

This really doesn't endear OSS to anyone. All it does is confirm in the mind of a non-techie that there is a large cost to OSS (developers are not cheap, competent ones less so) and indefinite cost to OSS software. There's also the cost of the time to find someone who can handle it, which is something that few in the business world (except /. readers) have in surplus.

On the other hand, off-the-shelf software has a well-defined cost (the sticker price), and has a phone number or web site that I can go to if there are problems, making it much easier and time-efficient to deal with these things.

There are two principles that I've experienced in my career about successful software that I see many OSS proponents ignoring or unaware of. The first principle is that the vast majority of computer users (and this includes people who make the decisions about what to use) don't care how their computer or software works, they just want it to work right now . The second principle is that, given the choice between a product that always works, and which costs $100/hr for support, or a product that breaks frequently, and costs $100/yr for support, 90% of people will choose the second product, because no one trusts the claims that the first product always works.

In my experience, the OSS that acheives success outside of the OSS community usually follows the first principle, by installing quickly and easily, and rarely requires editing config files or reading documentation to use. I can't think of any OSS that does a good job on the second principle (not that I'm claiming it doesn't exist).

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.

Re:Duh! Slashdot editors should RTFA.

[ajs]

Dan Farber succicently [sic] explains each point

But poorly. To re-write his article in a more readable form:

1) Lack of formal support

Support from IBM, Red Hat, SuSE, HP, etc. make it clear that this is no longer an issue. The thing is you have to decide who your vendor is going to be.

2) Speed of change (not 'velocity')

All of his concerns boil down to: if you don't select a vendor, you're on your own.... well, duh.

3) Lack of roadmap

Again, the concerns boil down to: select a vendor. That vendor will have a loose road-map as modified by the needs of their vendors, partners, customers and internal goals. This is the same as any company.

4) Functional gaps

He comments, "The current market for Linux is dominated by low-end edge server applications" and he's dead wrong. The problem is that you can easily go out and look at the Netcraft survey and say "this is what's running" and when you're writing for a Web magazine, the Web seems like the whole world. Thankfully, most computers in industry have nothing to do with the Web.

From personal experience I can tell you that he's way off base, even on the Web, but the large-scale adoption of open source has been in a) the infrastructure that runs the Internet, not just the Web b) the scientific community c) government bodies around the world including the US d) education e) semi-embeded devices such as PoS systems and PVRs.

5) Licensing caveats

He cites "confusion about the various open source licensing schemes", which again requires the simple answer: talk to your vendor. Your vendor is responsible for making sure they have the right to sell you the software you're using. If SCO or anyone else sues you (including authors of the software you are running) you point firmly and your vendor and say "I dunno, ask them." I recommend picking a vendor with 800lb low-primates for lawyers for this very reason.

6) ISV endorsements

He writes this one off quickly and effectively.

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'.

More reasons for than against.

[gilesjuk]

Good to see there's more reasons for than against open source use. There's always reasons for and against using anything. With open source becoming more popular there must be some major reasons against using Microsoft software that outway the advantages.

Being locked into using a software suite due to the secrecy of the file format and the costs are two of the major ones.

Working in software development..

[Sexual Ass Gerbil]

Open source development tools are a godsend for development work. Trying to figure out why a program won't run properly compiled in a closed source environment usually leads to wasting time working around the problem by re-engineering your sofware, rather than finding and fixing a simple bug in your development tools. Just because a development environment is supported by a big company doesn't mean that big company is going to fix the problems you discover in its software anytime soon.

Left off item #7

[prisoner-of-enigma]

7) Rabid, frothing, pro-Linux zealots who consistently make fools of themselves by treating an operating system as if it were a religion. It makes it damnably difficult to pitch Linux solutions to corporate types when their perception is that it's written and run by hippies.

Re:Left off item #7

[IGnatius T Foobar]

"Rabid zealotry" is in the eye of the beholder. What looks like frothing to you may look like intelligent advocacy to someone who isn't fearful of the message being delivered.

Besides, when people dedicate so much time and energy to open source software, it's really not surprising that when faced with a corporate behemoth aiming to destroy everything they've worked so hard for, they might get a little emotional about it. It's easy to turn up your nose and write it off as fanaticism, but I'll take "built with pride" over "built for a paycheck" any day. It delivers better quality product.

Re:Left off item #7

[ratboy666]

Linux is not a religion.

It's a hobby.

So fuck off, use your Windows, AIX, cha-cha-cha, and leave us ALONE!

I don't understand, and have never understood, what the big deal about "Linux adoption" is. Happens to be a fine kernel -- and I certainly don't mind if people use it, even make money from it. My contributions were/are never with commercial intent -- simply "this is good, I like it, maybe you will like it too".

So let Dan Farber preach to business. It isn't my job to tear down any "walls to adoption". Really, as a hobby programmer, I don't care.

Now, many companies DO see the point (to them) of using this "open source" stuff. And many don't. Personally, I work for a company that DOES use linux in an embedded role -- works better for me.

Sure, any hobby will attract "Rabid, frothing ... zealots". Its passion man! Enjoy it. And it makes not one whit of difference.

And that is why OS vendors are essentially doomed. We do this stuff for fun, and we don't care. Can't really leave it alone. It becomes very hard to compete, given that the cost of distribution is almost 0. (Imagine, someone who can lovingly hand-build cars, and then can turn around and give the final product away for no cost! And, can produce AS MUCH product as any big auto maker! That is the "competition").

If the big software mills COULD produce much higher quality goods at reasonable cost, we wouldn't even be HAVING this conversation.

If (for example) Solaris or Windows really were hyper-secure and had a record of no breakins, AND didn't crash, then, sure, I (you, we) would be a fool to not use them in a business context. And there would be no discussion (NO, NONE, NADA) of "Linux". (or OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.)

But they aren't. Tough luck for the OS vendors, but the "hobbyist" system is just as good (arguably better in many respects). So, OS vendors, suck it up.

OS vendors have a few choices:

1 - Fight

Sure, give us a better product. I am waiting for "Longhorn". Might be worth it (see above).

2 - Switch

Novel with Netware, IBM with Linux. Phase out your un-competitive products, and back Linux. Why not? Sell something other than an OS (services, hardware, support...)

3 - Leave

Go into a different business. OS vending won't cut it.

Adapt or die.

Note that the question is never "Why should I switch to Linux from ...". Whoever it is will know why and when. Because, it doesn't matter to me, because I don't make dime 1 on this. This is my HOBBY. I do this for fun. I also write stuff that very few people read, rant, play very bad guitar, and ski -- for the same reason. There are people who write better than I do -- and I buy and read their books. There are people who rant better than I do, and I elect them. There are people who play better guitar, and I see them in concerts (and sometimes even buy CDs). There are people who ski better than I do, and I watch "World Cup Downhill" events on TV.

So, ask yourself, WHY isn't AIX, Solaris, Windows superior enough to Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD so we wouldn't have this talk?

'cause you know what?

With the current state of affairs, *even* with my "fuck you" attitude, OS vendors are basically screwed.

Demand more!

Ratboy

you gotta walk the walk and talk the talk

[darthcamaro]

If an enterprise has got inside technies that live and breathe open source - like Red Hat does for example - than there are no barrier to adoption. When you got wannabes like Novell out there, that admittly don't even use Open Source 'stuff' on their own desktops yet, how do you expect others to jump on board???

Best of Both Worlds

[Yoda2]

Five simple steps for migrating an office to Linux:
1. Build "beefy" Windows 2003 Terminal Server with apps that existing Windows users "have to have"
2. Install favorite Linux distro on all workstations
3. Install rdesktop on all workstations allowing access to legacy Windows apps
4. Wean users to Linux applications at comfortable pace
5. Nix Terminal Server

OEMs not selling preinstalled machines

[cyber_rigger]

IMO this is THE biggest barrier.

Corporate exposure will bring balance

[mao che minh]

All of these things will addressed quickly once Linux (as the flagship, premeire creation of Open Source) hits the corporate desktop. Basically, exposure to the diverse corporate culture will bring all of these things into balance.

Example corporate environment: financial departments have to make it work with their various file transfer and encryption applications, your reports people need their database building and access tools to work better, help desks have to make Mozilla running on Linux work with SAP and PeopleSoft (and the little misc processes that they rely on), the graphic arts department starts lobbying Adobe to support it, scheduling and forecasting departments find quirks in it when running their custom workforce management apps, your business applications group wants their development tools to work like the ones in Windows, etc, etc.

reason number 1, definitely

[jockeys]

In my workplace we use (at great expense, license-wise) Unix System V to run our d-base servers. When I was hired on, I asked about this, and was promptly told "We won't use open source solutions because they don't come with any sort of garauntees or support. We pay extra for these licenses because what we are essentially buying is a garauntee of uptime. We don't have the time or the manpower to fool with some attention-intensive open source thing." I have found this to be the prevalent corporate mindset, at least in the circles I work in. Anyone else have similar experience?

6 Pack

[amigoro]

1) Lack of formal support
Yes but there's plenty of free and friendly support on forums, newsgroups and IRC channels. Not to mention 1000s and 1000s of user created documentation.

2) Speed of change (not 'velocity')
At least Linux patches improve the product. You have the choice of not applying them, where as, not applying windows patchs means opening yourself to zillions of worms.

3) Lack of roadmap
Yes, so one is not constrained. This creates co-operative competition. I.e. I use your code to make a better product. If I don't agree with your roadmap, I start a new fork. This makes open source software development far more successful than the closed source monolithic alternative.

4) Functional gaps
They are changes. Not gaps. You have the choice with OpenSource. Not with, say, Windows. (Not trying to bash Windows ;) ).

5) Licensing caveats
Read a typical Microsoft EULAs. See how many rights have you got. (Not trying to bash MS ;) ;) )

6) ISV endorsements. Independent Software Vendors: Who listens to them anyway?

Moderate this comment
Negative: Offtopic Flamebait Troll Redundant
Positive: Insightful Interesting Informative Funny

Re:6 Pack

[prisoner-of-enigma]

1) Lack of formal support
Yes but there's plenty of free and friendly support on forums, newsgroups and IRC channels. Not to mention 1000s and 1000s of user created documentation.

This is totally unacceptable to the business world, and you should know that by now. With a company, I have a phone number, a support contract, and a guarantee that someone will work with me to answer my question. With newsgroups and IRC channels, someone might answer my question but only if I'm willing to wait, surf a lot, or put up with a few hundred "what a st00pid newbie you are" responses that invariably get made.

2) Speed of change (not 'velocity')
At least Linux patches improve the product. You have the choice of not applying them, where as, not applying windows patchs means opening yourself to zillions of worms.

Are you going to argue that Windows patches don't improve the product? I mean, really, they're not that bad. WinXP SP2 (which I'm running at work) adds some useful enhancements like pop-up blocking, a better firewall, and several other real, tangible improvements. Even though it's in beta it hasn't broken any of our apps, nor has it opened us to "zillions of worms." We've never had a worm invade our network due to good perimeter security and locked-down workstations and servers.

3) Lack of roadmap
Yes, so one is not constrained. This creates co-operative competition. I.e. I use your code to make a better product. If I don't agree with your roadmap, I start a new fork. This makes open source software development far more successful than the closed source monolithic alternative.

Sorry, but businesses don't operate like this. Companies expect roadmaps, plans, and so forth because they have to plan for these things down the road. You apparently missed the point of the article writer, who pointed out that companies by and large dislike the chaotic environment of open source simply because it's chaotic. This "creative co-operation" mumbo jumbo doesn't wash in the board room.

4) Functional gaps
They are changes. Not gaps. You have the choice with OpenSource. Not with, say, Windows. (Not trying to bash Windows ;) ).

No, they are gaps. There are some things you cannot do with open source that you can do with proprietary software. Mostly its because of a lack of industry-standard software on the open source side of things. This is changing, though slowly. When we can run Photoshop and AutoCAD on Linux natively and have it supported by their respective software authors, then we can consider it. Until then, GIMP and whatever AutoCAD clone Linux has just won't cut it. Gaps.

5) Licensing caveats
Read a typical Microsoft EULAs. See how many rights have you got. (Not trying to bash MS ;) ;) )

Look at the current SCO furor. Right or wrong (I personally think Darl McBride is the antichrist), SCO's creating trouble for open source adopters. Linus himself recently commented that he considered intellectual property rights to be the single biggest threat to Linux over the next year. This kind of uncertainty doesn't sit well with businesses.

6) ISV endorsements. Independent Software Vendors: Who listens to them anyway?

Although this may have been intended as humorous, what you've revealed is how little of an understanding most Slashdotters have of how companies make decisions. Until the greasy-fingered, long-haird geeks of the world figure out how businesses work, they're not about to listen to you.

Hypocritical companies

[StormReaver]

"Open source application server maker JBoss offers 24-hour support and is certifying its software for the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standard, but the small company is going up against companies like BEA, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. Convincing a CIO that it can deliver better, , more cost effective support than its billion dollar competitors is a credibility and growth challenge for JBoss and its brethren."

Here is a model of hypocrisy. Roughly translated, it means: "we probably won't buy support from Open Source providers anyway, but we're not going to let that stop us from complaining if the support isn't there."

Accountability

[markalot]

I hate to say it, and I don't want to make some hard working open source coder accountable for his/her mistakes, but nevertheless it's gotta be one.

I download PHP and some other tools to get a web site running, wham, something doesn't work, research, research, finally find some note that one author made a change to one module that breaks PHP support, but the PHP folks say it will be fixed in the next version.

You think that's gonna sell in the real world? How many commercial packages can afford to ship broken?

Now, how can I sell this idea to a company. Broken is good because hey, we have the source and we can fix it?

Evidence of the winds of change

[ishmalius]

I was mildly surprised to see such a pro-Linux article coming from ZDNet. In the past they have been a solid Microsoft advocate. This seems to be another sign that Open Source is gaining its critical mass.

He is full of crap and CIO's are idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source software introduces more complexities in software maintenance, but also promotes more secure and reliable code through rapid bug and vulnerability fixes.
Bull, I use thttpd and haven't needed software maintenance ever. Same with xitami, same with perl version 5.whatever I pick. Its not every freakin package that needs to be updated with Open Source stuff, but I do get the latest pureFTP because they are security fixes, but how many of those are there compared to IIS patches?

Lack of Road Map
That's funny, I haven't seen a TODO file with any MS product ever, this is pure FUD, most FOSS projects have a much more clear and open "roadmap" than any commercial product except when a commercial product wants to derail sales of competing products, then they announce exciting new features just around the corner...

Functional gaps
He doesn't even make a case that this is a problem, which it is not. As repeated here and other places many times, innovation happens at small commercial software companies and through FOSS projects and then is bought/stolen by MS and released to the oblivious IT Management World as MS innovation and they are none the wiser.

Licensing caveats
Please, read groklaw, or take the opposite stand - IBM says GPL (like copyright) works and SCO doesn't own jack.

But, it's clear that software development and business models are changing as a result of open source code.
The only thing that is changing is that there is an Open Source OS and now F/OSS is cool, hip, trendy, buzzworthy, etc. I have to go RMS on him and say that these IT Management level idiots never had a clue about how much of their business ran on lowkey, "not cool cause its not linux" FOSS - bind, sendmail, qmail (we don't like that Dan doesn't have an explicit license that we can poke at, waah!), postfix, mailman, php, perl, *BSD, etc, etc, etc. Now their all "concerned" because there is no formal support - if they knew that their Oracle guys got answers from the Oracle newsgroups and mailing lists and never from the "support" that they are paying 10's of thousands of dollars for, maybe they would have a clue that paid software support is 99% bullshit.

Bottom Line:
Open Source has issues, blah, blah sell trade rag advertising, blah, blah, blah.

Here's one -- Dependency Hell

[Eberlin]

Ok, so I was running RH9 for a while now, doing the apt-get update/upgrade bit. Got restless and wanted KDE 3.2 so I went to the apt-kde sourceforge place and it worked for a while. Then a recent update/upgrade borked my system. No way out but reinstall. After a reinstall, I could've sworn I followed the well-meaning post on a message board about how to reinstall fonts. Locked up X until I undid all the changes from the command line and rm -rf'ed the font directory I created.

So with an operational system, I decide to go mandrake (don't like the idea of a network install with SUSE and wanted kde-friendly over fedora). Installed it, configured the network connection, rebooted...BOOM, suddenly network connection goes out. Another search on help boards suggests turning on ACPI from somewhere in drakconf. Hunted it down and am in the process of restoring files backed up from my old RH installation.

Just a few minutes ago, I got a segfault from kopete when I was trying it out just for fun. Thinking to install gaim to see if I can get THAT stable.

I love the Open Source, folks, don't get me wrong. However, I lose a bit of cred when I start talking about how tough it is to bork a Linux install. It ain't the viruses and worms -- it's the politics (lack of KDE support in RH), the scattered help sources, incompatible distros, and multiple package sources that end up borking other packages as part of a dependency hell.

Sorry, had to vent -- been mucking with this thing for two days now just trying to restore. On a good note, the 2.6.3 and KDE 3.2 seems pretty quick so far. Much quicker than RH9 was, anyway.

You want Linux adoption? We just may have to dumb it down so much that we take the fun right out of Linux. In short, most people won't jump through that many hoops just so they can run Linux.

number 1 reason

[Anonymous Coward]

The number 1 reason why open source fails to be adopted in corporations is that open source fails the largest costs of using a software package:
1. support
2. installation
3. deployment
4. documentation
5. deploying updates

The initial cost of software is not a big deal to companies because they spend many times more than that after the software is purchased.

Re:number 1 reason

[cascadefx]

According to the announcements at Novell's Brainshare this past week, it looks like all but documentation will be taken care of:

1. support

Novell, IBM, and HP are teaming up to offer 3 pronged support options (including training) for Linux and the products that Enterprises will run on top of it.

2. installation

Not only will installation be covered, but so will migrations away from Windows ( automagically ... the demo is cool to watch) with the new version of Zenworks from Novell. Installation support is offered by Novell, HP and IBM.

3. deployment

Also covered by Zenworks with its new integration of Ximian's Red Carpet.

5. deploying updates

Again, Red Carpet and Zenworks offer solutions to this.

Roadmap? Roadmap! Don't make me laugh!

[Eric Smith]

The article says:

Many open source projects suffer from an informality that causes CIOs anxiety. Most IT executives want a clear roadmap for products so that they can better plan for their future and select vendors.

Most proprietary software vendors don't offer any roadmap, and where they do, it's usually too vague. The roadmap usually changes dramatically over time, and the software is often years late. Look at what happened with the mythical "Cairo" release of Windows NT, and now with "Longhorn". How is this sort of roadmap of any use to CIOs and IT executives?

Open source software typically doesn't make any promises, so there are none to be broken. But where there is a roadmap, in my experience the open source projects do a better job of meeting it than proprietary software does. Still often behind schedule, but typically not by as much.

Although not as vile as the typical anti-open-source journalism, this is nevertheless just a FUD story.

Eric

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads! -- Emmett "Doc" Brown, Back to the Future

I Agree! Almost.

[ljavelin]

I agree with the points as presented - I believe that they can be a barrier to entry.

On the other hand, not all open source products suffer from those "barriers", and many closed source products do.

Lack of formal support? Damn, most of the packages my company purcahsed don't have any formal support. I remember one commercial software package we bought for about $100,000: the sales guy sold us some support, charging us 10% of the initial purchase price annually. But that support was ineffective. When we found major bugs, they took many months to address them (if ever). And finally, when the vendor was bought up by a 3rd party, the product was abandoned and is now truly unsupported. Bummer for the CIO, who now has to go to the plate to fire up a $1 million replacement project.

Need a roadmap to a VM

[alext]

3) Lack of roadmap

This is a valid criticism, but only when compared with the Oracles and Microsofts of the world.

FOSS projects have roadmaps, but there's no strategy at the level of platforms or information systems in general - each project is an autonomous part of the IT elephant. This means that no one can rationalize and coordinate between projects.

Is this a problem?

It might be. Look at Dotnet vs. Linux + Java or Mono or PHP. If MS got their act together they could simplify the Dotnet world a lot, offering a consistent and complete environment for information management. Meanwhile, we'll still be dealing with such mixed bags as file permissions, database permissions, htaccess files and Java security policies since these are all separate projects with no prospect of rationalization or consolidation.

Fortunately, at least with present MS management silos, this is unlikely to happen, however the general air of complacence concerning the unstoppable march of FOSS is probably misplaced.

Corporate customers could solve most of this

[Angst Badger]

Where issues of licensing, support, and future plans are concerned, corporate customers can in most cases get what they want by acting more like, um, customers. With the exception of a few hard-core ideologues like RMS and his camp, the overwhelming majority of open source developers would be only too happy to cut special licensing deals, commit to varying degrees of tech support, or implement special features if the interested parties would just cut them a check.

Now, I know that for many of us, our primary business isn't business as such, but most of us probably aren't averse to cutting a deal for a fair price. We're just not too interested in jumping through hoops for free.

Dependency Hell Is A Solved Problem

[krmt]

When people bitch about how long Debian takes to release a new version, now you know exactly why. It's hard to get software in really solid shape in and of itself, and then on top of that you have to get the packages working together nicely. This is hard work, and you've now seen why. Sure, you can always grab pre-release packages from outside sources, but these haven't gone through the Q&A that your distro provides. Packages coming from within the distro itself should play nicely together. That's the point of a distro, after all.

If you want to suggest these things to your bosses, be prepared to live with the tradeoffs. You can have stable software that's nice, but you'll pay the price in that it won't be shiny and new. Or you can have the new stuff, but be prepared to play "perpetual beta tester".

Any Linux install is easy to fuck up, if you try hard enough. You obviously tried very hard to fuck yours up, and did a good job of it. If you're suggesting Linux to a professional admin, hopefully they'll be a little more clue'd in about how their system works than you are, and will be able to deal with their system properly. As an example, I run Debian unstable on my desktop, a system which is known for having bugs pop up from time to time. But I know how to deal with them and it's never ever amounted to a reinstall, and only about twice in the last four years has it even interrupted my workflow. As another example, Gentoo allows you to completely fuck up your machine if you want very easily, and yet tons of people can't stop gushing about how easy it is to use. If you know how to deal with potential problems, Linux is an amazing choice, mainly because those problems are relatively transparent compared to something like Windows.

Oh, and I don't know how it is for Fedora or Mandrake, but in Debian, the majority of the docs that you'll ever want are located in /usr/share/doc/packagename or the program's manpage (if a program doesn't have a manpage, that's considered a bug). It's very rare that I have to go outside those two sources to figure out how to do something on my system.

What about the rights of the mother?

[fmaxwell]

Hell yes, there are barriers to open source adoption. Most women who give their babies up for adoption don't want to be contacted by the child in the future. Nor do they want everyone on the Internet to know that they had a child and put it up for adoption. The source of a baby put up for adoption should remain a secret. Otherwise, there will be fewer women willing to put their babies up for adoption. Why are we even discussing this?

(Being a typical Slashdot user, I didn't really read the article, but I'm sure that I know enough to comment just based on the title.)

And still a few more....

[Anonymous Coward]

11. #7 is true because they listen to what customers want and respond to it, while OSS shows little more than contempt for users unless they are hardcore, long-time *nix geeks.

12. Most OSS is horrible. It's free, and people still pay to use Microsoft products. Think about it. I say this as a Firebird user and part-time Linux user. Most of the apps are incredibly horrible.

13. Installing or tweaking Linux is still incredibly cumbersome, and next to impossible for someone who hasn't used it for years. This doesn't mean MS is perfect by any stretch, but they've done a much better job to help the user configure things.

14. Political OSS zealots who fabricate or exaggerate MS problems or OSS benefits, which never come true and invariably leave the switcher feeling duped and let down.

People are ripe for jumping ship after years of worms (mostly due to stupid users and stupid admins who don't patch their systems) and other issues. Nobody is giving them a good way to switch or a compelling reason. That isn't MS's fault.

Counterpoint article from CIO Magazine

[StarWynd]

There was an article from CIO Magazine earlier this month which dispells some of the myths surrounding open source from a CIO viewpoint. An interesting read.

custom kernel??

[btSeaPig]

For example, what happens if Red Hat wants a specific modification in the Linux kernel but Linus Torvalds and the Open Source Development Labs don't agree?

uhh.. It happens all the time dan.

It is a BULLSHIT argument

[SmallFurryCreature]

Or did people forget how often MS has ignored roadmaps en planned release dates? Wasn't there a whole story on how all the suckers who bought license 6.0 have gotten no new software for their money?

Now all of a sudden there is XP Rebloated or something shoved into this fantasy roadmap and longhorn has wandered of god knows where. Yup MS has roadmaps alright. It just doesn't follow them. But I suppose they are usefull you can read them and what is on them is EXACTLY what will NOT happen.

But why do they fall for it then? Because people are stupid short-sighted lazy and greedy. Roadmaps are nice things to show in powerpoint presentations to management when they are wondering why that huge IT budget still isn't delivering solutions that just fucking work.

"At the moment there are some problems wich we are working with but Look, a chart here says MS will fix it all no later then tomorrow". Kinda sad that grown men and women still don't get that one.

Most of the other arguments are bullshit ones. One not mentioned but still often used is "Opensource has no guarantees, no one I can sue" this is apparently used by companies without lawyers. Since any lawyer will tell you that sueing MS is pointless. Windows destroyed your data? Though. Of course this is true for all software for some reason. If I buy a truck and it explodes destroying my factory the truck manufacturer will have to pay for it but software seems to be a "you bought it, your risk" kinda product.

Oh well, off reading the rest of the comment. Kinda intrestting to keep track of them. Have you noticed people switched from the old "I don't use linux because I like my soundcard to work" to "I don't use linux bacause I like my digital camera to work"?

Re:Change #1...

[XorNand]

Citrix CALs run about $300 per seat. Windows XP Pro is about $300. Kinda defeats the purpose.

People's linux or IBM's linux?

[ignavusincognitus]

So let's imagine a world where these hurdles are all removed.

• Lack of support: you can buy phone support service for linux, on a per-instance or periodic rate. But it's only guaranteed to work on a particular version of a kernel and provided you did not install any third-party modules. Any support company that gives you better guarantees will so go bankrupt as it'll be paying its employees to do google searches for you on why module X does not work in configuration Y. Actually this part has largely already happened.
• Lack of Roadmap: The features that go into "enterprise" versions and their timing are determined by big companies which are the only ones who can develop them in the first place. This applies to mainframe kernels, big databases, major software packages, etc. This is the only way to keep the big customers happy.
• Licensing caveats. Sooner or later everybody that has a legal department gets cold feet and orders their IT department never to use any linux distribution that doesn't offer lawsuit protection.

What do we end up with? A flavor of linux which the enterprise world is willing to accept - level-headed, release-engineered, supported.

And what happens to the grassroot linux? The lonely hacker coding for fun into the night. The reckless sysadmin replacing a windows group server with an old box runing samba. The enthusiastic team making up yet another distro. Who will take care of them? Will linus keep accepting their lowly patches? And even if he does, will IBM and Red Hat pay much attention to his kernel anymore?

I think that having Linux the kernel well-accepted and established is the worst thing that can happen to Linux the social movement.

I hear you!

[mabhatter654]

If OSS is going to be adopted, it will have to come from the bottom up. Big companies have too many software solutions already. Most of the medium to large companies are barely keeping their MS solutions bandaged together...WITH offical support!!! They all changed from nice simple mainframes because MS was supposed to be "easier". Now most companies just want to leave well enough alone and simply cut costs as much as they can by cutting IT labor and using old versions until they break.

The problem is that MS has got everybody fooled that simply updating the OS from 1 version to another is "porting" their systems. I never understood how MS has got away with it for so long. Look at the IBM AS400. Most companies have had 10 year old plus software running on these things and simply "upgrade" by "restoring" the old software from backup and continue on their merry way. We just moved and entire company from one box at our location to another box at the new company overnight! and they kept running on monday morning...try that MS!!!

Re:I hear you!

[JPriest]

MS does do that, all our stuff that ran on 95 and NT4 runs fine on XP. It's Linux that does not seem to do the binary compatibility thing very well. You used the biggest flaw Linux has, claimed it is a flaw with MS instead, and got modded to like +10 Insightful.

I don't know about other large companies, but many tech companies are using some Solaris/Linux work stations with most of the web servers and databases running on UNIX or Linux.

It seems like many of the smaller companies that are using the domain controller for the database, web, ftp server etc.

But hey, someone must agree with something you said.

6 Reasons for not using calculus

[clovis]

1) Lack of formal support,
Just try and find out who's responsible if you use calculus to design a bridge and it fails.

2) Speed of change (not 'velocity'),
Not much change since we went from using fluxion to differential notation 300 YEARS AGO!

3) Lack of roadmap,
Nobody seems to know what innovations will be forthcoming in the next release. It's almost as if Newton and Leibnitz were dead.

4) Functional gaps,
What can you say about a tool that solves hard problems with 'Monte Carlo simulations' sheesh

5) Licensing caveats,
Do you have a copy of the TOU?
I've never even seen it! Is it OK to reverse engineer Green's theorem?

6) ISV endorsements
I haven't seen a single Fortune 500 company advertisement that even admits to using calculus in making their products, much less endorsing it.

Implications of OSS are good

[Dystopian Rebel]

What keep bringing me back to open-source applications are (in order of importance):

solutions to specific problems (a person decides to solve a problem so he writes some code and makes it available; I find I need to solve the same problem),

portability (same app running on different boxes with different OSs), and

learning opportunities (I want to understand something better; open-source means Free Information).

I always recommend open-source solutions when making proposals. People may have to learn how to use the tools, but they will be better employees for gaining the knowledge. Any company that systemically refuses OSS doesn't want to empower anyone and (foolishly) feels somehow safer if their figurative balls are in the grasp of Microsoft (for example).

Apple fanatics put Linux zealots to shame

[Nice2Cats]

"Rabid zealotry" is in the eye of the beholder.

As the new owner of an iBook, I have had a lot more to do with Mac owners lately, and let me tell you: Linux zealots can't hold a candle to an enraged Apple fanatic -- take for example the death threats this guy got when he did a parody of changing his PowerMac G5 into a PC. Linux users just don't get that excited, certainly not over hardware.

But then, everybody seems to think Mac users are some sort of peace-loving hippies, and the Linux people are radicals. Guess Steve Ballmer running around and calling us anti-American communists does have an effect after all.