Articles
Open Source Software or Proprietorial Software?
Author: Jeremy Flight, Iceberg Internet - 02 July 2011
At Iceberg Internet, our approach to providing sophisticated web solutions for clients is based around using proprietorial software products rather than someone else’s open source software.
This is because we feel that there are inherent problems with open source software:
Lack of support
Open source software has no support. If something goes wrong, there is no supplier that we (or our client) can turn to for help. We consider this to be too great a commercial risk for us and we do not want any of our clients to have to shoulder this risk either.
Conflicting updates
Open source software is usually developed by many unrelated people, each of whom contributes a specific feature or enhancement that they want to see included in the overall application. Contributors do not often work together – or even know of each other’s existence – and it is common for different people’s contributions to clash, which creates a significant problem for anyone using that software.
More difficult to enhance
Because they did not create it in the first place, it is significantly more difficult for website developers to enhance open source software in response to a client’s request. A website developer knows their own proprietorial software intimately and, consequently, can extend it however they so choose. We do this for clients all the time!
Security Risk
When a security exploit is discovered, all websites using that open source software are at risk. There have been numerous examples of this in the past where clients using (for example) WordPress for a blog or phpBB for a discussion forum are put at great risk when a security issue is discovered that pertains to that open source software.
By its nature, open source software makes it easy for a would-be hacker to see "inside" the application and learn about its inner workings. This makes websites built on open source software an obvious target for hackers!
Wrong Motivation
Open source software is often made available for free, which is naturally appealing to some website developers. They are able to charge clients for a solution that uses software they sourced at zero cost and the profit margin for the developer is high. This is the "easy option" for a website developer and it is the wrong motivation for using a particular software application in a client’s project!
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