Comments on: A Fresh Look at Open Source http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2005/05/12/a-fresh-look-at-open-source/ News, opinion, and fresh thinking for web developers and designers. The official podcast of sitepoint.com. Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:18:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Kevin Yank http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2005/05/12/a-fresh-look-at-open-source/#comment-5173 Kevin Yank Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000 1344862835#comment-5173 <p>Welcome back, Blane!</p> Welcome back, Blane!

]]> By: mrsmiley http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2005/05/12/a-fresh-look-at-open-source/#comment-5174 mrsmiley Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000 1344862835#comment-5174 <p>One of the biggest hurdles that the open source community need to overcome is the area of support. Large enterprises often seem more willing to part with their dollars because they "know" that if they pickup the phone someone will answer and hopefully give them a solution. Open source requires a paradigm shift in this area for the enterprise market where you go an source the solution yourself, or ask questions in forums and the like. Unfortunately, you are at the whim of the developers as to whether they can be bothered answering you questions or not. Granted a lot of high end open source solutions have very good service levels, but it could be the little guys that are giving the large players a bad image. For example, I've only just heard back on two bugs that I submitted for two projects on sourceforge. The gap between logging the issue and getting a response has been an unacceptable 2 years!!! The worst part is that one of the requests was raised against the sourceforge project itself.</p> <p>Open source developers have a tendency to concentrate on the program features rather than the business features. Once the community picks up in this area, particularly in support and service levels, I think the markets would more readily accept open source as a viable solution. More often than not, its not the application in question, but the business behind it (or lack of in some cases)</p> One of the biggest hurdles that the open source community need to overcome is the area of support. Large enterprises often seem more willing to part with their dollars because they “know” that if they pickup the phone someone will answer and hopefully give them a solution. Open source requires a paradigm shift in this area for the enterprise market where you go an source the solution yourself, or ask questions in forums and the like. Unfortunately, you are at the whim of the developers as to whether they can be bothered answering you questions or not. Granted a lot of high end open source solutions have very good service levels, but it could be the little guys that are giving the large players a bad image. For example, I’ve only just heard back on two bugs that I submitted for two projects on sourceforge. The gap between logging the issue and getting a response has been an unacceptable 2 years!!! The worst part is that one of the requests was raised against the sourceforge project itself.

Open source developers have a tendency to concentrate on the program features rather than the business features. Once the community picks up in this area, particularly in support and service levels, I think the markets would more readily accept open source as a viable solution. More often than not, its not the application in question, but the business behind it (or lack of in some cases)

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