SAS Mocked For Recommending 60% Proprietary Software, 40% Open Source (infoworld.com)

This week SAS wrote that open source technology "has its own, often unexpected costs," recommending organizations maintain a balance of 60% proprietary software to 40% open software. An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld: How they arrived at this bizarre conclusion is hard to fathom, except that SAS sells more than $1 billion worth of proprietary software every year and presumably would like to continue, despite a clear trend toward open-source-powered analytics... In a Burtch Works survey of over 1,100 quant pros, 61.3% prefer open source R or Python to SAS, and only 38.6% opting for SAS, with that percentage growing for open source options every year.

Worse for SAS, a variety of open source data infrastructure and analytics tools threaten to encroach on its bastions in data management, business intelligence, and analytics... Nearly all innovation in data infrastructure is happening in open source, not proprietary software. That's a tide SAS can try to fight with white papers, but it would do better to join by embracing open source in its product suite.
"In the paper, SAS correctly argues that open source versus proprietary software is not an either/or decision..." writes InfoWorld, but they note that the report also "put the percentage of open source adopters at a mere 25%, which is pathetically wrong." The article suggests a hope that the report "is the product of a rogue field marketing team, and not the company's official position." Adobe's vice president of mobile commented on Twitter, "I just wonder who in their marketing dept thought this was a good idea."

Comments

As unpopular as it will be to hear...

[Digital Avatar]

...they're quite right. Open Source is not magic pixie dust. As long as software is made with the same broken techniques, the same broken tools, by the same broken people, it will continue to be just as broken as proprietary software. I think after a decade and a half of pro-FOSS FUD it's finally gotten to the point where people are ready to admit that the promise of FOSS has fallen well short of the mark due primarily to a lack of market incentives to ensure software is produced using best current engineering practices.

Consequently, whatever your particular need, you may find that a FOSS application fits the bill where a proprietary one wouldn't, or vice versa. It just depends on exactly what functionality you want, and there's no hard and fast rule to guide you. You literally are forced to try different packages, see which ones are buggy, and then pick the one that's right for you.

Re:As unpopular as it will be to hear...

[Kjella]

Meh, I'd say the people who write open source software on a non-commercial basis generally have a passion for it, make more effort in making it work correct and work harder to hone their skills than coders just looking for a paycheck. What's missing is usually the time and resources, sometimes it amazes me how much gets done with a skeleton crew. Projects and packages where it turns out there was really only one maintainer and he suddenly got other priorities and things go into limbo.

Most projects are not like the Linux kernel where there's several candidates and a nomination process. Often it's more like if you want to write code or take ownership then tag, you're it. Or it's just nobody who is going to write that kind of software or functionality in their spare time. Or it just reaches a level of mediocrity that's good enough to get shit done and not enough care about polish or user friendliness or niche features. It's 2017 and MS Office and Photoshop is alive and well. I think I've heard since '97 that Office was pretty much "done", well shouldn't we be catching up then?

Re:Seems about right

[jopsen]

Well, with open source you have the option to patch... With proprietary you are forced to find a workaround or make a hack to the part of the system you control.

Personally, I usually do a work around and keep using upstream packages... Then file a PR/patch and when/if that lands go remove my workaround.

Just because open source software gives you the option to fix it yourself and roll our own patch packages doesn't mean you have to choose that road.
It depends on the situation.. But at-least you have the option! :)

Re: Elite

[sg_oneill]

I don't understand some of you people. SAS is one of the largest software companies on earth. If you don't know who they are what the hell are you reading slashdot for?

This is such a bad argument

[Sycraft-fu]

Every time there's a story about OSS software being less than perfect, someone always trots this tired crap out. "Oh if it isn't want you want you can just fix it!" That is complete bullshit and you should know it. If you don't, you are hopelessly naive.

First off, most people are not programmers and many do not even have the request problem solving, analytical, and mathematical skills to become one. If you aren't a programmer, you can't just go and fix software. Becoming a programmer isn't magic either, you don't go and read a book and then you are good. It takes years of experience to get proficient, and decades to really master and is something you need to spend a lot of time on. If you think you are some hot-shit programmer and you "picked it up just by reading" and "just do it in your spare time" then guess what? You aren't near as good as you think you are.

Second, even if someone is a programmer they may not have the requisite skills or knowledge to deal with a piece of software. Not all software is created equal, not all problems are the same to solve. Someone might be a programmer who's actually pretty good, but knows about making database code because that's what they do. However if they are trying to implement an algorithm for processing audio they might be lost because they don't understand how that works, it is another set of knowledge.

Finally, even if someone does have the skills, knowledge and experience to do it, maybe they just don't want to spend the time. We all have only so much time to spend in a day, maybe they are not interested in dropping a bunch of time to fix something that is to them just a tool. They'd rather pay to have one that works and spend their time on other shit.

So knock it off with the "oh it is open just do it yourself" crap. That is extremely silly, and you know it.

Re:Elite

[anegg]

Having worked for years with a US defense contractor, and being married to someone who works at a government-funded research and development organization, I can tell you that the word "cyber" being used as a noun rather than an adjective is well-ensconced in the US government domain. It appears to me that it generally refers to what I might call cyber security, but the usage of the term smears out to encompass other related domains as well. There are units of organizations that are called things like "the Cyber Division", etc. So Trump's speech patterns aside, his use of this term in this way simply mirrors the way the term was being used in this domain already. Trump's personal knowledge of computers is probably similar to his contemporaries - they know that they exist, and are widespread, but don't necessarily deign to touch the keyboards themselves (except Trump et al. with phones/Blackberry devices, etc.) any more than they pick up a pen to write anything, get behind the wheel of a car, or enter a kitchen to cook a meal.