It is now notable how many times that the Open source 'debate' comes up in discussion as those faced with making decisions about resources grapple with what choice to make about software. Open and free? almost too good to be true so what's the catch?
Well it's not free. The code might be but someone has to work out how to use it. It is just that you swop the dependance on a software house to dependance on the people who develop the code for you. There are lots of companies making good money from deploying and maintaining open source software.
It is a challenge to this company to ensure that all the various pieces of code in our core platform all work effectively work together. No matter how well we test and plan there are sometimes those unseen consequences from implementing one change on other parts of our solutions. Last week it was the new pivot table for reporting impacting on the editor tool we use but only for those using Firefox and Safari.
Fortunately it was a quick fix because we work within a secure and a restricted environment with respect to the code we use. It is difficult to imagine the challenges, where there is the possibility that the code that you have grabbed from a more 'open' environment, you then subsequently discover has changed when you need to make a fix.
It is not surprising that there is a growing trend of organisations who 'purchase' the creation of a solution using open source software are then reluctant to make it available to others.
We support the principles that underlie the Open source movement and our customers frequently share and benefit from changes to our core NOW.net platform that others have requested and funded. However we also recognise that our customers require quaranteed reliability and stability which is why we will continue to be .net and meet that relatively small cost.
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