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Making Open Source Pay
cenonce writes "This short, but informative, article over at Tom's Hardware Guide does a nice job of explaining the difference between Closed and Open Source Software and how it can save the suits money (as well as make the tech staff's lives easier)."
Oh if it doesn't work, just fix it yourself!
Come on mom, I don't know why Mozilla is crashing, just download the source from CVS and fix it yourself.
Just shows how out of touch the open source community is.
Along with your lame HOWTO's that are based on builds 3 verions back.
Yeah, but that doesn't usually have much impact on your typical business manager. If you try to sell them something, and start talking about free speech and/or free beer, they'll just think you're bizarre. What does that have to with running a business?
A better simile, I've found, is to compare their computers to a delivery fleet. It's fairly obvious to even a PHB that a fleet of vehicles needs maintenance. And, while they might not want to get their hands dirty working on the innards of their vehicles, they know enough to hire mechanics for that. And those mechanics need the shop manuals for all the vehicles.
Tell them that "closed source" software is a lot like a vehicle without a shop manual. If something goes wrong with such a vehicle, all you can do is report it back to the auto company that you bought the vehicle from. They'll fix it when they get around to it. Or maybe they won't bother fixing it, figuring that they can get you to buy a new vehicle if they drag it out long enough or say it's not repairable.
Similarly, you tell them, things are going to go wrong inside their computers. You need "shop manuals" for all your software. With software, that's called "source code". If your computer support group doesn't have the source code, then they'll be stuck with just reporting problems back to the software vendor. And that vendor will be just about as interested in fixing your problems as the truck manufacturerer is interested in keeping your fleet running. More likely they'll try to sell you more (New! Improved!) software.
But if your people have the source code (for software) or shop manuals (for vehicles), they can dig in, figure out what's wrong, and fix it.
Yeah, studying the source isn't easy. But have you ever leafed through a shop manual? There are people who can understand those things. And, as with mechanics, the software people have friends and colleagues that share information about problems. With software, this is mostly done via the Internet, and you really want your IT people to know how to use it to find information.
Most managerial types are smart enough to understand all this. We just have to get across to them that trusting software vendors is no smarter than trusting auto dealers. You need your own people to do the job, your people need the information required to do the job, and they also need to communicate with their cohorts in other organizations to find information fast when something's failing. But without the source code, there's often nothing your people can do, and you're stuck with begging the dealer for help.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Quite possibly the best quote I've ever read on /.
Heh; I'll be happy to take credit for it. Actually, I've seen very similar comments from other people. But feel free to spread the meme:
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trusting auto dealers.
And you can easily follow this with the explanation that open-source software means that you don't have to trust the software vendor. You can (hire people to) take a look at the source, fix bugs, and add features. And, most importantly, you (or your people) can look for things that shouldn't be in there, and remove them.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.