Open Source & the Economy
I’ve read two interesting posts this week about the financial benefits (or lack there of) of going with an open source solution. The first was a summary of a report from Gartner that states:
The economic slowdown should benefit open source software but whether open source software will benefit its owners is up in the air.
That’s according to Gartner Group predictions for 2009, which claims that over the next few years most enterprises using open source won’t manage those assets correctly and most won’t achieve any cost savings over proprietary software.
The second a post by Matt Asay at The Open Road:
CFO Magazine is running a great story about the cost savings available from open-source software. This is a topic that you’ll hear open-source vendors crow about, but it’s somewhat rare to actually get a CFO on the record about her benefits from open source, so it’s notable.
…
Open source has hit its stride, and often the open-source competition is actually better for enterprise requirements than the proprietary alternative. For example, if an enterprise is running Web applications, it would be daft to not at least consider using the leading Web database: MySQL.Better software, lower price. What’s not to love?
The thing is - they’re both right! Open source can be a cost savings - but if the company doesn’t know how to handle that money then they’re still going to be broke 
It’s important to note that in the first article, the focus isn’t on the actual cost of maintaining an open source app - it’s on the company’s management of their funds.
Joe Lucia, who I’ve heard speak a few times, talks about this a lot. In fact, he asks that we take that cost savings over the proprietary systems we’re replacing and reinvest it into open source development so that in the end we’re not really saving any money, but investing in making our new product that much better.