9 In 10 Parts: Open Source Vs Proprietary Solutions: Buyers Beware Of Vendor Blues:

July 15, 2007

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by israelrothman

One of the most important considerations when purchasing products, services and/or software solutions for a website is the reliability, versatility, and loyalty of the vendors on which this important facet of your business depends.

There is much misinformation and scare tactics are common among vendors who have an ax to grind: they seek to scare you and keep you in the dark to control you and your purchases by keeping you ignorant and/or dependent on them for your technology.

Custom written, proprietary solutions have this disadvantage, and, unless you are a huge company with the resources to own and replace if necessary the personnel on which such an application depends, I must recommend that you use only open-source solutions. The problems with proprietary solutions are many:

The secrets are outdated by the time they are protected, because the market moves so fast.
You may as well give the vendor all your stock and control of your company, since you will be completely dependent on them, and them alone!
The creator of such a solution becomes indispensable: if something happens to him/her you are out of business.
Proprietary solutions are expensive, and the purveyors of this technology will protect their investment by re-selling it beyond it relevancy to the ever-changing market. (they will protect and adhere to their knowledge and code base even when it is outdated - usually takes about ten minutes these days)

I could go on, but I think you get the message that I am partial to open-source solutions for most web applications.

While it takes some effort to keep up with changes, upgrades, and plug-ins for these applications, they allow a constant research and development environment at no cost: developers all over the world are constantly updating, improving the code which is owned by nobody, and can be worked on by many.

Plug-ins and add-ins are constantly being developed, and a huge troubleshooting knowledge base is available online, and security holes are plugged as quickly as they are found: that’s right, these solutions are actually safer and more secure than the secretive counterparts which are often peddled with fear of hackers as a closing ploy.

I would be interested in your feedback, vendor horror stories, etc if you would offer your feedback here:

http://socialmediasystems.com/forums/topic/caviot-emptor-buyer-beware-of-vendor-subversion?replies=1

And stay tuned, next week we will complete this ten part development series up by making some philosophical points and bringing it all together.