Open_Source

[Steve Bertrand]

Wojciech Puchar wrote:
>>     The only rationale I've heard for closed source is that somebody
>> could
>>     steal the idea.
> 
> There will always be both of them. And that's OK as long as you can choose.

Yes, I agree.

I use Windows as my workstation, because there are some specific
applications that require Windows to run. The rest of the applications
on my workstation are open source win32 apps.

Visio is the main one. I've been told that there are alternatives to
Visio that will run on *nix. However, the alternatives either:

- take more time (time * salary) to get configured than the cost of the
software
- take more time (time * salary) to familiarize myself with the
alternative than the cost of the software
- don't provide certain functionality that I need

ISPs are very dynamic in nature. From my experience in both the
enterprise and ISP environments, enterprise need to stay focused on
stability, whereas the ISP needs to be more adaptive to new technologies.

In the enterprise, I've found that it is by far more cost effective to
run almost exclusively on commercial software. The number of IT staff is
kept to a minimum, and let's face it, it's easier/cheaper to find an
employee with a Windows background than it is someone who has extensive
real-world open source operations experience.

Being able to modify software to fit our ever changing environment is
key, and so is knowing that (for the most part), the ability is there to
communicate directly with the developers.

Another side-effect of using open source software is that over time, you
learn how things *really* work. For instance, if you have garnered up
experience running an MTA on FreeBSD (and understand the logs etc), you
will undoubtedly be able to fudge your way through troubleshooting an
Exchange server, it will just take a bit of time to know where to click.
The reverse is not really true (from my experience).

Speaking of logging, open source applications do log...properly.

Steve
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