Open source
memo to management

I wrote a memo recently in an attempt to explain to the management where I work how software that costs nothing can be A Good Thing. I reproduce the memo here for the hell of it, after all, the message is wasted on at least some of the managers I sent this to. They do not seem to grasp the paradigm shift :)

All,

In my opinion we should resist the FUD and question our resistance to using open source solutions. We should be promoting open source solutions, applications and operating systems to clients and use it internally. This will save money through lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and improve quality. You can routinely buy support for such systems these days

I need to clarify a couple of points about what I mean by open source. Open source is a set of solutions, it isn't just programming languages or development tools, although it does those well. It is about re-use and ready made, customisable solutions. One example: IBM, Fujitsu and Sun Microsystems are selling Linux as a next gen critical workstation server OS. We should be selling solutions based on Linux and not on Windows or Solaris etc. There are a number of advantages:

1) no licence fees, most open source is free software, use anywhere as often as you like. Lower TCO
2) no licence management, less chance of getting done by piracy cops, no upgrade treadmill
3) you can buy support
4) Open source is generally more secure, more stable and of higher quality
5) the source can be modified for customisability, is transparent and 100% control
6) it is well documented free on the web as well as in books
7) bug and security fixes are released in hours, not weeks
8) guaranteed to contain no spyware
9) uses open, non-proprietary data formats
10) independence from proprietary or other changes. Virtually no chance of getting sued or commercial deals going bad.

There are many other open source solutions, not just operating systems, apps, but enterprise computing solutions. The situation is improving year on year. I can personally testify that [the project I am involved with] uses enterprise-strength open source solutions to facilitate Code reuse: the four open source products we use (for XML processing, error logging and Web Services SOAP client) have been invaluable: no commercial apps I am aware of are as good as at least two of the components we use, they are best of breed.

I offer the paraphrased paradigm [for producing IT solutions], Open source first, internal reuse second, buy third, build fourth.

If we ignore open source, we will keep designing solutions that are expensive for us to produce, regardless of whether we build them here or have third world countries build them. That is the point I am trying to make. If we concentrate on off-the-shelf proprietary solutions we have to share profit with the off-the-shelf company (notice the $$$$ our partners are making). If we sell open source based solutions, then the profit is 100% ours. And importantly there is much middle ground between the two approaches we should be exploiting, where proprietary and open source co-exist in the same solution.

Finally, I'll throw in a slightly heretical thought, please have an open mind here. I'll wager that the savings in licences would be astronomical if we ditched Microsoft Windows, MS source safe and MS office and used, say, Linux, (ms-compatible) Open Office and Revision Control System (RCS) for many or even most of our workstations and servers. Why keep forking out for licences, are we doing this just for the sake of it? It is an expensive and an increasingly unjustifiable habit in my humble opinion. I propose that we should change, or at least have the debate in order to save money.

End of Memo.

The difficulty is that management cannot get their heads around the concept of not paying for software. Dilbert is no exaggeration, I assure you.


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Intro to Open Source