Open source software - Friend or Foe?

Bista Solutions Inc. - Open Source Applications

This question was raised in one of the most popular social media networking sites that whether Open Source Software (FOSS) are Friend or Foe. The questions was very much positively answers by most of them and also by the group of individuals in our organisation, not because we are exploring open source but considering many advantages of Open Source Software today.

As I earlier discussed in my posting that if software reduce the cost by provided free itself will not serve as an advantage for its positive points, also the same I have discussed previously that Open Source doesn't mean that the software is free. You might be well aware of the telecommunication schemes where they provide you mobile or handset free of cost but to use it you have to pay the bills. Same is the case with FOSS that it just reduces your software cost but you have to pay for maintenance, Customisation and so on.

Software or Application which is available with a help of certain clicks are obviously considered as friend today. But there are other things one should consider while understanding - Open Source as a whole for which understanding the differences between FOSS and Non-FOSS (Proprietary) will provide us with a better understanding for the same.

As my posting is not concentrating on Comparison with Proprietary software it’s only the Advantages and disadvantage on receive while implementing Open Source Software.

So what people say:-

Open Source is good because:

- It allows you to have an open thinking from a conglomeration of users/programmers that one could never assemble through employment

- You have nothing standing in the way of change - no standard operating procedures, no change management, etc

- You have no proprietary hooks in you that will cost you a lot of money to license

Open Source is bad because of the same reasons it is good:

- People feel that open source is bad because the versions sometime change too rapidly.

- No idea of how good the code is designed

- Sometime because of change there is no testing procedures to make out issues before the code is made public

But all the above disadvantages are depend on the kind of FOSS software you are selecting for the implementation. It is very much important to `see' through the various shades of the advantages and disadvantages of open source, and if possible try to analyze with quantitative methods if open source can be helpful in a given situation, or for a given user or company.