Open source is more than a bargaining chip

A quick glance at the number of headlines centred on open source in the technology press over the past year is all it generally takes to become convinced that the alternative development methodology open source promotes is gaining momentum.

However, a deeper look at those news clippings reveals that apart from picking up momentum, open source solutions are becoming more viable than ever before in the enterprise.

The Linux operating system has gone from being an exclusively 'techie toy' to one that's fast becoming the heart of all data centre strategies, server consolidation strategies and a viable alternative to conventional proprietary client platforms.

In the same right, OpenOffice and other open source productivity tools such as Mozilla's Firefox browser are showing healthy growth in market share.

Stories abound of government departments, educational institutions and companies large and small beginning to benefit from the open source development paradigm and the fruits of those development efforts.

Yet, many CIOs continue to use open source as a bargaining chip to reduce their proprietary software licensing costs, gain special concessions from some vendors and improve their status with vendors.

Generally when open source is used as a bargaining chip, it hasn't been thoroughly researched.

Allison Singh is systems engineering manager at Novell South Africa.

While this is undoubtedly an innovative way to reduce costs and pay less for proprietary software, it is unfair on the proprietary vendors and is potentially doing a disservice to the company the CIO works for.

Generally when open source is used as a bargaining chip, it hasn't been thoroughly researched. And by not looking at open source properly, these CIOs could well be foregoing access to software or solutions that not only save them money, but are capable of increasing functionality.

A couple of examples strongly bear this statement out. Take examples such as Apache, Firefox, Beagle, AppArmor, the OASIS open document format and the virtualisation features offered by XEN into account.

All are examples of open source solutions that are truly leading the market either in their speed of adoption, their forward-thinking nature or their plain and simple superior feature set. This doesn't even take cost into account.

Besides leaders, all of these solutions are ambassadors for a set of solutions in the open source community that are gaining momentum, credibility and new followers at an amazing rate.

This fast and ever-growing uptake is the primary reason CIOs should be investigating open source and continue doing so every couple of months, constantly on the lookout for new open source technologies and revisiting solutions that 'weren't entirely' ready when the last evaluation was conducted, but showed good potential.

The rationale they should use to motivating for the funding required to continue these investigations is simple - with companies switching to this model of computing, there will undoubtedly come a time when their organisation will find it compelling to switch. Unless regular investigations are conducted, the ideal time may well come and go.

The ideal time frame between evaluations is six months or less - it to some degree flies in the face of the fact that most CIOs evaluate Linux and open source every two years.

The reason the time frame needs to be short can be attributed to the fact that the open source paradigm is different to the proprietary software paradigm, in that changes take place daily and the pace of development is so much faster.

This is evidenced most notably by the short period of time it has taken for open source to become such a massive force in the industry, in comparison to the length of time proprietary vendors have been around.

If the short development times and accompanying viability of solutions in the open source realm are not evidence enough, it is the fact that open source is something CIOs can no longer ignore - there's not much else that will convince them.

Linux has today become well entrenched in the enterprise space and is showing strong adoption in all verticals. Rather than using it like a 'big stick' to beat their vendors, CIOs should attach a carrot to the front of that stick and use it as both an incentive for themselves and all of their IT suppliers.

In doing this, the most viable and suitable solutions for the enterprise will be utilised and CIOs can rest assured they are getting the best value for money.