[luau] NEWS: Open Source Goes Mainstream

Warren Togami warren at togami.com
Sat Jun 22 23:45:00 PDT 2002


http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,209,00.asp

To get a better idea of what this means for CIOs, CIO Insight Deputy Editor
Terry A. Kirkpatrick recently convened a roundtable of nine experts to chat
about it-corporate IT execs who have deployed Linux, analysts who have
studied it, and vendors of both open and proprietary software.

If there was consensus in this diverse group, it was this: Open source
software should be treated no differently than any other software-the
migration, testing and support issues will look familiar. These are the
"hidden" costs that could wipe out any cost-savings on price. At the same
time, however, there may be unexpected savings on hardware.

Beyond the technical issues, though, there are other considerations. Linux
is both an operating system and a development model, "a dessert topping and
a floor wax," as one roundtable participant put it. Open source comes
"shrinkwrapped" in a philosophy of software creation and ownership that is
at sharp odds with the prevailing proprietary model, and this continues to
stoke a shrill debate between the two camps. Should these "soft" issues
matter to a CIO faced with hard business decisions? The discussion began
with the issue of cost-the price of open source software being its most
notable feature and something that tends to catch the eye of CIOs in these
lean times.

(continued in article)




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