OSS does not guarantee that you get the best software. I appreciate the argument that "if it doesn't meet your needs, you can modify it." Who does that? And do you scour source code and verify that it's doing things in the most secure manner possible? Blah, blah, blah. Use open source where it's prime-time: Server OS, Web server, LDAP, SMTP, *maybe* Java app server, database server. But buy a freakin' copy of quick books and move on.
I don't buy that the market has to dictate higher quality before programmer's willl write better code. Would a carpenter build a house knowing the roof would fall in if he thought the customer would buy it anyway?
The reason a large percentage of software is bug-ridden and unstable is because the code sucks.
Turns out it's usually simpler, easier, and less risky to just roll your own.
I found the opposite to be true. I am coming off a project where some developers wrote their own MVC framework in Java. In the end they have something that does half of what Struts does for hundreds of man-hours of coding. Go figure.
I think a lot of this comes from the "science" in computer science. The need to go out and discover something. To arrive at some "elegant" solution unlike anything the world has ever seen!
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OSS does not guarantee that you get the best software. I appreciate the argument that "if it doesn't meet your needs, you can modify it." Who does that? And do you scour source code and verify that it's doing things in the most secure manner possible? Blah, blah, blah. Use open source where it's prime-time: Server OS, Web server, LDAP, SMTP, *maybe* Java app server, database server. But buy a freakin' copy of quick books and move on.
I don't buy that the market has to dictate higher quality before programmer's willl write better code. Would a carpenter build a house knowing the roof would fall in if he thought the customer would buy it anyway?
The reason a large percentage of software is bug-ridden and unstable is because the code sucks.
Turns out it's usually simpler, easier, and less risky to just roll your own.
I found the opposite to be true. I am coming off a project where some developers wrote their own MVC framework in Java. In the end they have something that does half of what Struts does for hundreds of man-hours of coding. Go figure.
I think a lot of this comes from the "science" in computer science. The need to go out and discover something. To arrive at some "elegant" solution unlike anything the world has ever seen!