Is ignorance open source's biggest enemy?

I really like Simon Phipps' comments about CIOs who eschew open-source software because of a perceived lack of support. The problem is not a lack of support. The problem, as Simon indicates, is a lack of understanding about the quality and availability that open-source vendors provide:

Phipps claimed that the "commercial strength support" available for open source is comparable with that provided by proprietary vendors. He also explained that administrators have the option of "hiring experts to train their staff".

"The reason that open source works well for businesses is that it puts you back in control of what you spend money on and when; it doesn't mean that you don't spend money and doesn't mean that you're solely responsible for support," he said.

Amen. How many years has open-source been around? It's shocking to continue to see unmitigated ignorance of the breadth and depth of open-source software and support thereof. Unfortunately, the ignorance is generally at the top of the IT hierarchy. CIOs apparently have no clue that they're running open source in abundance, and often paying for excellent support thereof.

I wish I knew how to immediately remedy the problem, but I don't. Time and patience may be the only answers....

[PACSferret]

Its a real problem. Last week I pitched to a group of VCs who immediately came back with the reponse "open source is fine, but nobody want to trust enterprise level systems to some guy working in his back bedroom in his spare time". Was that my fault? The figures I presented included staff costs of over ?1M p.a. in the first 3 years but that got lost in the preconceptions around OSS. As with any good presidential election, once the question is set, the guy who has to answer has lost the argument, so I know to pre-empt that hurdle the next time.
I have worked alongside IT professionals (not CIO) who take the same line (after buying support for a OSS product!). To be fair, OSS has been around for a long time, but with notable exceptions, commercial support/sponsorship is relatively recent. That said, it isn't like C-OSS models aren't all around us but for some reason it is taken longer than it should to enter folk's consciousness.

[sarah.stokely]

Amen to that. I wrote a feature for MIS Australia about this very problem, it will appear later this month.
Fortunately with the change of government there's been a better climate for consideration of open source and open standards. I attended a very interesting community consultation on these topics recently and blogged about it:

http://www.theopensourcereport.com/2008/04/08/kate-lundy-open-source-could-be-the-big-gamechanger-for-government/