Decision of the criteria for open source and proprietary software-Computing

The selection of operating systems was once one of the most important decisions IT managers had to face when considering their options for service delivery, be it for servers or desktops. Until a decade ago, such choices were limited to choose from a range of proprietary operating systems supplied by vendors. But the past 10 years have witnessed a new option to take into account in the form of open source operating systems. What drives the selection process, the choice between open source software and operating systems supplied by a vendor?

When considering or open source operating systems software or by a commercial ISV be provided, the influence that the decision-making process, in essence, the same as they always are. Some characteristics of eight or nine are the most important items are eligible, including licensing models and costs, application support, availability of skills, operational support options, performance requirements and risk analysis. Of these, the three or four tend to dominate the selection processes. When watching PC solutions it is also important to remember that the user experience of the solutions and their comfort can be large selection factors.

On top of the selection when choosing between operating systems is a factor that absolute importance. The application works on the OS or someone should port it over to a new platform? After all, nobody runs an operating system because they want to run the OS for its own sake. It's there to anchor an application, database, or another service and make it available to users.

When open source operating systems first came to the forefront, some commercial applications were supported on the architectures available, thereby severely limited number of choices. Today, this is changed, with many commercial Isvs now more than happy to use their software on the leading open source platforms, often next to Windows, Unix or other of the major server operating systems supported. Unless the application does not support a specific OS, this factor alone may not be a large selection of bifurcation point between an open source and commercial operating system.

If the pending compatible with both open source and proprietary operating systems, other factors come into play. Among these are the business of licensing model and costs. For commercial Isvs everyone understands that there are to pay license fees, possibly with associated support and maintenance/software upgrade costs for administrative processing.

The same cannot be said of open source operating systems, where in some minds the perception exists that "open source" equates to "free". In fact, many of the major distributors of open source software in General, and of operating systems in particular struggling to explain the conditions for the use of the solutions which they put at its disposal of its customers. The confusion is particularly acute as Linux distributors, such as RedHat and SuSE, the basic software for no cost but support subscription services to help organizations keep the operating system to function and offer assistance if problems are encountered.

Given the fact that open source software, by its nature, readily available for inspection and modification (from the perspective of a source coder), with active communities work to develop, improve and troubleshoot problems when they occur, it is theoretically possible for information workers within the enterprise problems that they are without paid services of the supplier.

But few organizations have the skilled staff available internally, solving problems, not in the least to do within the very short time frames on which service problems should be solved now routinely, let alone with the possibilities to test them. In addition, support and maintenance of software platform per se is widely regarded as a distraction in a mainstream IT environments where all resources are stretched.

This is where the vendors of open source operating systems provide support contracts. In truth, would be just from the viewpoint of risk little organizations consider using software to deliver mainstream business services without any form of external aid instead, contract unless they are extremely confident in their own possibilities to solve his, fast, problems. And here's the rub, because once you sign up for such a contract for open source software, often you find yourself as limited as you with commercial solutions. In some cases, for example, you may be required to pay a subscription for all instances of the software used in your organization, or you support for them or don't want.

As with commercial operating systems, the contracts for open source operating systems should therefore be read with care and diligence, supported as possible by engaging professional advice to ensure that the conditions and arrangements for support and business use. The subject of the license fees, to distinguish between open source and commercial software may not be as easy as it can be assumed.

On the issue of "costs", it must also be acknowledged that, while the cost of acquisition and support, when all the terms and conditions are understood, can easily calculate, over the lifetime of such systems, it is likely that it will be the management overheads that the majority of the total cost of ownership. It is therefore important to understand how good governance of the Organization and management tools of the operating systems under consideration. While many management frameworks are now able to integrate – should at least to some degree – with open source operating systems, the exact possibilities be examined to ensure that additional costs for the acquisition of Administration facilities not unexpected.

Of even greater importance is to ensure that the skills the IT management team has the needs of the chosen platform available match, and/or a cross-training or recruitment requirements into account. In many organizations, the familiarity with open source software, especially Linux, is now achieving the same level that the longer established commercial operating systems, but this is not the case everywhere, especially in smaller organizations. Skills to advanced features such as fault tolerance, clustering must also not be forgotten, where relevant.
Tony Lock is Program Director at Freeform Dynamics

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