Open Source Software is getting good - Are you falling behind?
Matthew Vona
December 19, 2006
Open source software has historically been affiliated with minor or 'un-supported' software. Companies (in particular IT departments) have often turned down free, Open Source software alternatives in exchange for more costly, closed source applications because any number of the following commonly held beliefs:
Nothing good is free (i.e., closed source software must be better).
We lack the staff to support that cryptic 'Linux' based software.
We need commercial support, and Linux just doesn't have that.
For the longest time, I subscribed to the above credos. After writing a three piece expose on the Open Source movement and its impact on Laboratory Information
Management Systems (LIMS) however, I soon realized that "the times...they are a changing". LIMS applications are serious and integral components of the medical and scientific infrastructure. You wouldn't want those blood bags mixed up in the lab would you? How about your test results? Such conservative companies serve as a barometer of the acceptance of the open source movement.
Slowly but surely, sector by sector, the young Penguin upshot is being chosen by the larger and more conventional companies. They're not choosing it because it's 'neato', but because it's a safer and more prudent investment. Let's analyze the reasons for making the switch in counterpoint to the aforementioned reasons against open source:
Nothing good is free (i.e., closed source software must be better).
For many years this was true, if not from the functionality perspective, then at least from at least the usability perspective.Microsoft and Apple seized the "every day" computer user in a time when there was no such thing. To do this, they had to perfect usability, even though the mainframe and Unix were undoubtedly superior in a strictly technical sense. Now, however, even this is less and less the case. Let's look at a few examples of how this paradigm of superior usability by the 'closed source' alternatives is beginning to falter.
OpenOffice.org is an "office-like" suite which offers all of the usability of MS Word, Acrobat Writer, and Excel combined at no cost. You can still read from, and write to, Word Document format if you need to. You can even save your document into Adobe PDF format without buying Adobe Writer. And guess what, if you're scared of trying out Linux, they have even ported this out to Windows free of charge! So, if you have any doubt that this free software couldn't match up to MS Office, download and install it on your Windows machine. The money you save by not licensing Office and Adobe Writer should be incentive enough to at least keep an open mind.
GIMP is a "photo shop-like" program which layers, uses vectors, generates icons, and does most of the stuff that Adobe does. Here, I have to say that Adobe is slightly more usable. But, for the price of Photo shop I didn't mind spending a little time getting acquainted with GIMP. And guess what, just like OpenOffice, they have even ported this out to Windows free of charge! So you could download and install this in Windows.
Blender is a free 3d animation program much like 3D studio. And, like the previous two examples they have even ported this out toWindows free of charge!
I am convinced that after seeing the quality of just these few aforementioned programs running under Windows, you'll at least install a single partition of Linux on your machine like Unbuntu..at least out of curiosity. The installation for this distribution is worry free and so fully automated that you will think you're installing Windows.
Finally, the Open Source crowd has even made an OS which boots and runs entirely from your CD or DVD. We feature and review a scientific distribution called Quantian which does exactly that. If you don't like it, reboot, eject the DVD, and you'll never know it was installed. We give detailed instructions on how to do this here.
We lack the staff to support that cryptic 'Linux' based software.
This used to be a pretty good reason. In fact, Microsoft even used this to demonstrate how their products used to cost less...some years ago anyway. Now, your staff would be surprised to learn how easy administering Linux applications has become. Much like windows, everything is becoming very GUI oriented and intuitive to run. And for those applications which can be tricky to administer together (i.e., Apache, PHP, and MySQL), free packages like XAMPP have been built to make even that easier. The once steep learning curve that was Linux has been decreased dramatically and is at least worth evaluating.
We need commercial support, and Linux just doesn't have that.
At the time that I wrote my second article on Open Source LIMS, I believed this argument until I interviewed Rob Knapp from Carnegie Melon University. In my mind he killed this argument by saying "...look at the open source model. First, you can download the software, install it normally for free. Not only that, but if you don't like the support being provided by your vendor, you can find another vendor that has the same access to the source code as the original author."
Effectively Open Source increases your support by allowing different companies to compete to support the same product. They benefit because their cost of development is less. I know at least two people who would love to hire a small company to support the software they purchased from a monolithic corporation.
In summary, it is my belief that the OpenSource model is spurring on competition and producing better and more flexible software at lower cost not only in the world of LIMS, but in every day offices and homes. If this statement is true, then Open Source is synonymous with progress... and history demonstrates what happens to those who attempt to stifle it.
MJV
Nothing good is free (i.e., closed source software must be better).
We lack the staff to support that cryptic 'Linux' based software.
We need commercial support, and Linux just doesn't have that.
For the longest time, I subscribed to the above credos. After writing a three piece expose on the Open Source movement and its impact on Laboratory Information
Management Systems (LIMS) however, I soon realized that "the times...they are a changing". LIMS applications are serious and integral components of the medical and scientific infrastructure. You wouldn't want those blood bags mixed up in the lab would you? How about your test results? Such conservative companies serve as a barometer of the acceptance of the open source movement.
Slowly but surely, sector by sector, the young Penguin upshot is being chosen by the larger and more conventional companies. They're not choosing it because it's 'neato', but because it's a safer and more prudent investment. Let's analyze the reasons for making the switch in counterpoint to the aforementioned reasons against open source:
Nothing good is free (i.e., closed source software must be better).
For many years this was true, if not from the functionality perspective, then at least from at least the usability perspective.Microsoft and Apple seized the "every day" computer user in a time when there was no such thing. To do this, they had to perfect usability, even though the mainframe and Unix were undoubtedly superior in a strictly technical sense. Now, however, even this is less and less the case. Let's look at a few examples of how this paradigm of superior usability by the 'closed source' alternatives is beginning to falter.
OpenOffice.org is an "office-like" suite which offers all of the usability of MS Word, Acrobat Writer, and Excel combined at no cost. You can still read from, and write to, Word Document format if you need to. You can even save your document into Adobe PDF format without buying Adobe Writer. And guess what, if you're scared of trying out Linux, they have even ported this out to Windows free of charge! So, if you have any doubt that this free software couldn't match up to MS Office, download and install it on your Windows machine. The money you save by not licensing Office and Adobe Writer should be incentive enough to at least keep an open mind.
GIMP is a "photo shop-like" program which layers, uses vectors, generates icons, and does most of the stuff that Adobe does. Here, I have to say that Adobe is slightly more usable. But, for the price of Photo shop I didn't mind spending a little time getting acquainted with GIMP. And guess what, just like OpenOffice, they have even ported this out to Windows free of charge! So you could download and install this in Windows.
Blender is a free 3d animation program much like 3D studio. And, like the previous two examples they have even ported this out toWindows free of charge!
I am convinced that after seeing the quality of just these few aforementioned programs running under Windows, you'll at least install a single partition of Linux on your machine like Unbuntu..at least out of curiosity. The installation for this distribution is worry free and so fully automated that you will think you're installing Windows.
Finally, the Open Source crowd has even made an OS which boots and runs entirely from your CD or DVD. We feature and review a scientific distribution called Quantian which does exactly that. If you don't like it, reboot, eject the DVD, and you'll never know it was installed. We give detailed instructions on how to do this here.
We lack the staff to support that cryptic 'Linux' based software.
This used to be a pretty good reason. In fact, Microsoft even used this to demonstrate how their products used to cost less...some years ago anyway. Now, your staff would be surprised to learn how easy administering Linux applications has become. Much like windows, everything is becoming very GUI oriented and intuitive to run. And for those applications which can be tricky to administer together (i.e., Apache, PHP, and MySQL), free packages like XAMPP have been built to make even that easier. The once steep learning curve that was Linux has been decreased dramatically and is at least worth evaluating.
We need commercial support, and Linux just doesn't have that.
At the time that I wrote my second article on Open Source LIMS, I believed this argument until I interviewed Rob Knapp from Carnegie Melon University. In my mind he killed this argument by saying "...look at the open source model. First, you can download the software, install it normally for free. Not only that, but if you don't like the support being provided by your vendor, you can find another vendor that has the same access to the source code as the original author."
Effectively Open Source increases your support by allowing different companies to compete to support the same product. They benefit because their cost of development is less. I know at least two people who would love to hire a small company to support the software they purchased from a monolithic corporation.
In summary, it is my belief that the OpenSource model is spurring on competition and producing better and more flexible software at lower cost not only in the world of LIMS, but in every day offices and homes. If this statement is true, then Open Source is synonymous with progress... and history demonstrates what happens to those who attempt to stifle it.
MJV