Forum OpenACS Q&A: Open Source sales doc

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Posted by David Walker on
I've written a document targeted at CTOs encouraging them to adopt open source platforms and support open source projects. I'd appreciate your reviewing it and providing feedback.

It is at http://www.vorteon.com/editorial/open_source.html
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Posted by Yon Derek on
A piece of propaganda if I ever saw one.

"I have used closed source and proprietary products and found them unwieldy, impossible to troubleshoot"

Well, I have used open source products and found them unwieldy and impossible to troubleshoot. I don't see, however, how your (or mine) personal opinion makes much of an argument.

"The money expended results in a savings down the road and products that do not go away if you are suddenly strapped for cash."

Yeah, I still have the shakes when I recall how my Oracle installation went away when it found out I'm running out of cash. Taken as it is written, this sentence means that proprietary software somehow destroys itself when you don't have the money. ?

"Programmers can complete your in-house projects much faster by taking an open source and free project that fits 90% of your requirements and customize it the final amount and fulfill your needs with a higher quality product in a much shorter period of time."

Care to provide any examples to backup this statement? Do you have any proof that existing open-source project fit 90% of requirements for a typical in-house project or did you just invent it to support your argument about the superiority of open-source? Do you have a single example of such thing happening? If yes, why it's not in the document?

"and in a hulking majority of the time these projects will not have to be rewritten or upgraded as os versions change. try that on windows"

Aka. upgrade myth. Any examples of programs that need to be rewritten when the version of Windows changes? Microsoft is religious about backward compatibility. I can take a DOS program compiled 10 years ago and it'll probably run on Windows XP. Not try *that* on Linux. Read http://joel.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$117, Joel's piece for one example of that (in short Microsoft added special code to Win 95 to make SimCity work despite the bug in SimCity (which happened to work on Win 3.x because it didn't have memory protection)).

Linux is much worse in the upgrade scenario than Windows. Every major kernel release requires re-writing and updating user-mode utilities. Upgrading a compiler or C library is stricly for risk takers who want to bleed on the leading edge. Binary compatibility virtually doesn't exist even within one distro (due e.g. to change of the executable format, at least one binary API-breaking change to libc) and you can't even dream about cross-distro compatibility in Linux. +1 for Windows in this case.

Command line interface for system administration. +1 for Unix (which is != open-source, by the way, you can say the same about Solaris/HP-UX/AIX so it's not strictly a pro open-source argument).

"Help desk personnel can troubleshoot and fix problems remotely easily. Unix-like open source operating systems are built such that anything that can be done sitting in front of the computer can be done by the help desk person at their desk."

Not true. If a user has a problem with a GUI app help desk person won't help much. Remote Assistance in Win XP is much better in such scenarios. +1 for Windows.

"In contract the number 2 web server, a closed source product, has been riddled with security holes and is very expensive to implement."

A typo. Security problems: +1 for Apache. Do you have any evidence to backup the statement that IIS is "very expensive to implement". Very expensive as in "free"? Very expensive as in "requiring less knowledge to setup and deploy"?

The feedback: if you make statements, provide evidence. Without the evidence (and you provide none, just assertions that the reader is supposed to take for truth) this document has all the quality of a Slashdot post. -1 Informative. There's little in the document that shows how open-source is better, none of it is backed up with any kind of evidence and some parts are off-topic. Don't mistake wishful thinking for argument making.

Writing could use some improvement. Some statements ("Your network infrastructure can benefit from the knowledge that built the internet.", "world of contrived obsolescence", "impossible license management") just don't make sense and a lot of it (like the introductory rant on Windows) does not advance your argument in any way. Sentence like "You can tell I have a high opinion of myself" has no place in a general advocacy article not to mention that it just doesn't follow; there's nothing in previous paragraphs that indicates that you have high opinion of yourself. In general, cut such self-important stuff (like "You'll thank me later").

As a strategic advice: if you try to show that X is good, don't point out weak points of X. At least not if you want to get a PR gig in the future.

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Posted by Roberto Mello on
Care to provide any examples to backup this statement? Do you have any proof that existing open-source project fit 90% of requirements for a typical in-house project or did you just invent it to support your argument about the superiority of open-source? Do you have a single example of such thing happening? If yes, why it's not in the document?

I can provide several. My latest was when I was building my MP3 Jukebox. Instead of writing all the software, I just wrote a module for IRMP3, and used that with LcdProc and mpg123. Another example which should hit you in the face is OpenACS. But you're missing the point probably because of your bias.

Linux is much worse in the upgrade scenario than Windows. Every major kernel release requires re-writing and updating user-mode utilities. Upgrading a compiler or C library is stricly for risk takers who want to bleed on the leading edge. Binary compatibility virtually doesn't exist even within one distro (due e.g. to change of the executable format, at least one binary API-breaking change to libc) and you can't even dream about cross-distro compatibility in Linux. +1 for Windows in this case.

You like to exaggerate. I've upgraded from 2.0 to 2.2 to 2.4 and didn't need to recompile my applications.

Not true. If a user has a problem with a GUI app help desk person won't help much. Remote Assistance in Win XP is much better in such scenarios. +1 for Windows.

A help desk person won't help much in either case. I don't see why this is a +1 for windows since it's just as available with GUI applications on free operating systems. In fact, using VNC I could help someone in different platforms.

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Posted by good bye on
I'll have to agree with Yon in that the document in question is not very well written, even as a propaganda piece. He's pointed out a number of problem areas that I agree with.

Instead of arguing whether or not Open Source is "better" than proprietary (which always seems to mean "microsoft products") it might be more useful to use this thread to open a discussion about how a company that focuses upon providing "solutions" based on open source software can thrive. Thinking about this is especially important now that the economy has taken a dump and most existing businesses do not want to spend money on closed source OR open source IT projects.

I think the best approach to take is to be SPECIFIC rather than general. Use actual examples where open source has saved money (and time). Use actual dollar amounts. Use quotes from impressed clients.

The Vorteon website actually seems to be pretty good in terms of explaining what Vorteon can do. I think the editorial piece detracts from the rest of the site. You are probably better off writing stuff like "Vorteon did X for client Y, they loved it...so if you need to do something similar to X, let us know."

And, not to be a total dink, but... this is the OPENACS forum, and its a GOOD THING that most of the time the discussion is focused on OpenACS. I would hate to see it devolve into yet another general bboard about us vs. microsoft or whatever.

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Posted by David Walker on
"I have used closed source and proprietary products and found them unwieldy, impossible to troubleshoot"

Recently I troubleshot a problem with my AOLServer install where I was able to modify the AOLServer source code and track the problem down in one weekend. Without the source code available I just have to continually guess my next move.

"The money expended results in a savings down the road and products that do not go away if you are suddenly strapped for cash."

The new licensing as a subscription schemes mean that if your business is depressed at the time your subscription time ends you could very well see your software disappear.

"Programmers can complete your in-house projects much faster by taking an open source and free project that fits 90% of your requirements and customize it the final amount and fulfill your needs with a higher quality product in a much shorter period of time."

I've worked at several jobs that, instead of using open source, built in-house projects from the ground up. Some of these projects dragged on for years but now I could just go to http://www.freshmeat.net and pick a good-match project, program a few features, and have the project finished in a couple of months.

"Help desk personnel can troubleshoot and fix problems remotely easily. Unix-like open source operating systems are built such that anything that can be done sitting in front of the computer can be done by the help desk person at their desk."
Troubleshooting a GUI app when users are on the same network.

xhost +user.with.problem
ssh user.with.problem
export DISPLAY=help.desk:0
gui_app
	... troubleshoot here

"In contract the number 2 web server, a closed source product, has been riddled with security holes and is very expensive to implement."
Thanks for pointing out the typo.

IIS requires a minimum of a 10 user NT or 2000 workstation license to start. That's at least $250 U.S. and you are limited to 10 connections, not 10 users (1 user with a page that uses 11 frames will see a "Too many users" error). A real server license costs more and IIS cannot be installed without it.
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Posted by David Walker on
and yes.  It is a piece of propaganda.  Propaganda as connected to
products and services is normally referred to as marketing and is a
very common practice.  More common by the proprietary software
people.<br>
<br>
Rolf,
This piece isn't a part of the Vorteon web site as the only link to
it appears here.  I had to post it somewhere and that seemed the
most logical location.<br>
<br>
I don't want to see the discussion here as an us versus proprietary
software discussion but I do have to have that discussion with
clients when I'm convincing them that we can do the job better and
why we can when we're competing against a shop that uses entirely
closed source products.
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Posted by Andrew Grumet on
Just closing a tag.