Comments on: Open source's next chapter?

Dot-bomb survivor Kim Polese sees the seeds of an industry renaissance fed by the increasing corporate use of open-source software.

Open Source Breaking Vendor Lockin

I think that one of the big value propositions of the Open Source
movement is breaking lockin. I wrote a blog entry that I think is
complimentary to this article.

http://www.sourcelabs.com/willpugh/

Will Pugh
Chief Architect, SourceLabs

[David Arbogast]

Read your "blog"

I agree that vendor lock-in can sometimes be a difficult issue to deal with, but it is the contract negotiation phase where this needs to be addressed. Your thoughts on open-source and its growing role are not really new. While very logical, it seems I've been reading the same thoughts since, oh... probably around 1995 some time. While open-source has made tremendous progress, it still falls short of the predictions that were made 10 years ago, and predictions that are being made today. After stating so many of the benefits in your blog, why do you think this is?

She's Hot! Please post more pics!

We need more hot looking ladies like her running our tech companies!

What better way to boost morale after the Bush election fiasco?

[David Arbogast]

wow...

A sexist liberal...
Who woulda thought...

Free yourself (and lighten your budget)

Government and public institutions need to consider using more free and open source software as a matter of principal. There are many good reasons for this, for an authoratative explanation read this:
http://www.aei.brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/page.php?id=214

Business too. Why should it be difficult to mix public responsibility and ethics with money? Slavery is cheap, but we don't do it anymore, right? (We actually outsource it: We have it done for us in Indonesia by child workers - the cynic replies!)

The biggest barrier to free/opne code software adoption is the reluctance of IT managers: they fear that their IT budgets will be cut. "Here, use this open source software and, BTW, we've slashed your budget by 30% for next year". I hear about this fear all the time, but mostly during the coffee break or in the hallway. At the meetings its more like "the TCO does not give a clear indication so lets stay with what we know and not take on unecessary risks."

As long as free and open source software is promoted as a cheaper alternative (which it is often, but not always), it will encounter resistence amoung IT managers and will be slow to catch on.

To fix this, software license terms and conditions need to be as important an issue as cost and technology. There are principals to be reckoned with. Next time you install a non-free-open-source program, take some time and read the license before clicking "I accept". Doing this is a degrading act and openly confirms to the vendor: "Yes, I am an idiot, please go ahead and abuse me."

What you are asked to accept you would never do if you were buying shoes, a car or a TV, or any consumable. The reason why we accepted proprietary licenses in the past is because we had no, or where unaware of, alternatives. Today there are many, and many of these come with free or open source code. I suppose many have heard of Firefox or OpenOffice.org, but it goes much further: the other day I found a wealth of content management software here:
http://www.opensourcecms.com/