The Business Case for Open Source Software

An anonymous reader writes "An InfoWorld blog entry makes a business case for open source software, and attempts to explain the business benefits of OSS to management and business owners. The primary benefits the piece uses to argue in favor of OSS include no licensing fees, and no license keys. The article also argues that OSS results in freedom from 'ownership' by software vendors. 'Never again will you fear the BSA (Business Software Alliance) knocking on your door wanting to perform a software audit. The BSA even takes out advertisements on Google search pages for and up to $200,000 reward a disgruntled ex-employee can receive for reporting your company to the BSA! That's quite a powerful motivator...'"

Comments

Re:My experience

[MMC Monster]

I'll take this as sincere and not a troll.

Get a new lawyer for the company. The GPL states that whoever has access to the executable should have access to the source. You said yourself that you only wanted to release the executable within the company, so the GPL doesn't really apply.

As for gcc, if you modify gcc itself and send out copies of gcc outside your company (which is *extremely* unlikely; if you have resources to do that, you are not in the right field.), then you may have to release source. Otherwise: gcc is a tool to compile a program, just as pencil and paper are tools to write the program. You are not bound by the GPL on what you write. Now, if you link to a library that is GPL (not LGPL) licensed, you have to release source to whoever gets the executable.

While here in India...

[jkrise]

the business case for Open Source Software in the enterprise market is already well established. Some reasons:
1. The average IQ of the 'EDP Manager' .... (or should I say IQ of the average EDP Manager) seems much higher than elsewhere... so he can't be fooled forever.
2. Closed source software is so very expensive, enterprises choose to build their own systems; and they mostly choose J2EE and Eclipse. The LAMP stack is packing up with amazing velocity as well. ROI can be seen in a single year, with many apps.
3. Not much of lock-in has occured already - very few companies have data locked in .doc formats... not many firms have BI or Analytics... so leap-frogging ain't a big issue.
4. The hardware specs are roughly 10% in the OSS space.... and that matters a lot as well.
and lately:
5. It is getting more and more cumbersome pirating Closed source s/w - be it OSes, Office, SQL or whatever. Most EDP mgrs over here have been on the same company for a decade on average; and they're pretty amazed at what OSS can do.

A recent Java conference (paid, mind you) had over 10,000 attendees! RedHat is doing very well... not many people know or care about Novell... many state govts. have mandated and stipulated Open Source specs...

Somehow, people this part of the world do not seem to wait for Gartner reports or NYT articles before experimenting with OSS.

Re:My experience

[Zonk (troll)]

Although we met several technical challenges along the way (specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process went smoothly. You've used Windows too much. ext2/ext3 do not need defragging. If you insist of defragging, then use XFS and run xfs_fsr to defrag.

So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. You need to get a lawyer that has decent reading comprehension. You only have to distribute the source if you distribute the binaries outside of the organization.

It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. GNU General Public License.

Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. The GPL is only a distribution license, not an EULA. If you don't distribute it outside of the organization it doesn't apply.

Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable. You seriously need lawyers that can read. Take a look at OS X. It's compiled with GCC and it's not GPL.

I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. Read the full text of the GPL. Read the full text of the Windows XP EULA and the EULAs on all of the updates you have to apply to not get 0wn3d. Which is draconian? Hint, it's not the GPL.

"Cut and Paste" troll alert...

[advocate_one]

originals are Here and here...

FUD

[utnapistim]

Never again will you fear the BSA (Business Software Alliance) knocking on your door wanting to perform a software audit.

As I see it, this is actually one instance where you only fear something if you've done something wrong; I mean ... why should you fear an audit if you're using legal software?

I am using Linux at home almost exclusively, but for business cases, I've seen the following scenarios:

• small company with legal software (Windows network), the small one being audited by BSA (and nothing bad happening).
• small company with illegal software (also Windows network), got a big fine and then switched to Linux (instead of buying Windows) as a legal alternative;

Either way, if you use proprietary software as a business, you should buy it (its part of your running cost, if you want that software).

Also, the entire entry does not take into account the TCO of Linux, which can be a decisive factor. I'm not talking here about Linux versus Windows (though there is that), but I've seen Linux dismissed in our company in favor of SUN/Solaris machines and HP/AIX due to a much higher maintenance/configuration cost for Linux.

Re:FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

As I see it, this is actually one instance where you only fear something if you've done something wrong; I mean ... why should you fear an audit if you're using legal software?

How do you prove it is legal software? Just show the shrinkwrap box? Bzzzt! Try again. The BSA wants proof of purchase; that includes sales receipts. Frankly, I am not sure I could find the shrinkwrap boxes for any of my legal copies anymore, let alone the damned receipts. There is no presumption of innocence; contrary to all US law, you must prove yourself innocent - the BSA does not have to prove you are guilty.

Check this case:
http://www.sun.com/customers/storage/ernie_ball.xm l

The company was found to be out of compliance by a mere eight percent for its Microsoft desktop products (and even that small figure was accidental non-compliance, resulting from PCs being passed down to administrative staff without first having the hard drives wiped clean). Rather than fight the accusations, the company elected to pay the $90,000 in fines and legal fees...

Why wait?

[Svartalf]

TurboTax has DRM that messes with your machine in ways that can trash it- in and of itself
that merits changing off of the product for a comparable solution.

TaxCut doesn't seem to do this and works completely correctly under WINE and CrossOver,
even down to printing the forms. I've done my taxes for the last 4 years without needing
to reboot into XP. No hassles once you've got the web foundation fonts installed in WINE.

It just simply works. It's not as good an answer as a native version of either tax program,
but I suspect you may be waiting another couple of years for that to happen. Why wait if
that's the only hold up for you?

Re:OSS

[kebes]

To my mind this is the actual problem with OSS. Accountability is nill. With MS products the same defects are there (though less so as it turns out (predictably)), but in their case at least we know who to blame and can expect the product to be fixed. With OSS I see no way to assure that.

That's not even remotely true. You expound the myth that there is accountability in proprietary software, whereas there is not with OSS. In reality, after you pay for your proprietary software, you have absolutely no guarantee of bug fixes, and no guarantees that changes to the product won't break backwards compatibility (e.g. "mutate"). Don't like it? You can either stick to the current version, or buy the next version, or pay them more money for support contracts that make guarantees.

With OSS, after you freely download the software, you also have no guarantees of bug fixes or interface stability. Don't like it? You can stick to the current version, or freely download other versions, or pay those who make the software for support contracts that make those guarantees, or pay a third party to make those guarantees, or hire people in-house to modify the code to suit your needs, or contract a third party to make those code changes, or port your data to a different software product.

In any case, it's up to a business to evaluate their software needs on a case-by-case basis. But please stop spreading this "because you pay for it there is some guarantee of accountability" myth. Anyone who has tried using phone support for commodity software, or who has read through an EULA, knows this to be a joke.

Re:Oh, nice FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

BSA audits aren't FUD they're fact. I give you Ernie Ball (a manufactor of guitar strings and accessories), and the owner's account of a BSA audit. Directly afterwards, he migrated the company to OSS and isn't going back.

Re:Not the same thing though-Incorrect.

[zotz]

"I think the point you're missing is that in both cases there's an implicit threat hanging over anyone who uses their software."

Actually, I think it is you who missed the point I made. To my knowledge, no one has ever had problems if they are a simple user of a GPL program. Now the story is different for those who make and distribute or sell copies and for those who make or sell derivatives.

If you know of people getting in trouble for simply running GPL programs, I would like to hear about it.

all the best,

drew