Enterprise open source Toolkit

In association with Network Liberation Movement

Story: The problems with open source

Posted by: Jeremy Chatfield (Tuesday 9 August 2005, 4:50 PM)

This is just the sort of writing from ZD that stops me from bothering to read ZD articles for months. Yes, it is true that if you install Debian, for free, you get no training and only free support via a forum. And the same is true of Mozilla/Firefox. One is an OS and the other is an optional browser... Don't get confused because they are both OSS.

If you get a supported version of Linux, such as Red Hat, then you get support on a comparable basis with Microsoft. If you don't, then, um, you don't. Where's the beef?

OTOH, if you have OSS, and you are a programmer (in the language of the application) then you can get the source, see why it does what it does, and change it to be more suitable for your needs. Try that with MS.

OSS offers the competent programmer more opportunity to do excellent things. OSS offers the learning programmer the opportunity to see how it is done. MS offers an uncertain degree of risk reduction - in return for other risks, like frequent reboots, and no chance to tailor marginal programs to work better.

And the choice is not so stark as you paint. There are many copies of Windows running Apache. Indeed, Apache, a core piece of OSS, probably saved MS as a internet server operating system, because IIS was such a piece of dog-meat. If Apache had not been available, I suspect that Unix and OSS servers would have taken their place.

The article is flamebait and adds little to the sum total of human knowledge. ZD is capable of insightful articles, but this is not an example. I'm giving up on wasting my time on ZD, again, until there are signs that the editorial standard has improved.