Do we need open source vendors?

By Muggie van Staden

One of the biggest misconceptions about open source software (OSS) in the enterprise is that it is software that can be rolled out without the involvement of a vendor. But in reality, in any enterprise software deployment, there will always be someone that needs to play the role that the vendor plays in the commercial software space.

What I do mean when I say that there will always need to be a vendor? To put it simply, I believe that there will always need to be someone you can count on to provide the support and services that you can’t depend on the open source community to provide.

Some examples of these services include technical support, product road maps, indemnification, technical certifications for third-party hardware and software and professional services from certified third-party firms.

Let’s look at a few examples of the services and benefits a company might gain from working with a professional OSS software provider such as Red Hat or Novell and how enterprise OSS providers help you manage your risks.

Certifications

One of the primary advantages of working with one of the enterprise OSS providers lies in the fact that it will have formal certification programmes for software and hardware partners, technical professionals and resellers. This helps you to immediately and significantly lower the risks of a technology deployment.

You’ll know, for example, that your Oracle database and HP server have been put through a certification process with Red Hat or SuSe, meaning that you’ll have no compatibility problems. When a new version of your database or a firmware update for your router is released, you’ll know whether or not it has yet been certified for your Linux operating system.

You will also know that the people who support your infrastructure — in-house or at your service provider — have been trained to work with the software that you are counting on to run mission-critical parts of your business. And you’ll also have the peace of mind from knowing that the reseller that is rolling out an open source solution in your enterprise has a formal agreement with, and probably some sort of certification from, the vendor that developed your software.

Support

If you are going to roll out a community-based OSS application or platform, you’ll be depending on your internal software team as your primary line of support and the open source community for secondary support. Although the open source community is hard-working, responsive and never seems to sleep, few enterprises are willing to leave the support of mission-critical systems up to the goodwill of a community of volunteer developers.

But with an enterprise OSS vendor, you will have access to the depth of resources you would expect from a proprietary software vendor. In addition to certified resellers and consulting partners for the vendor’s products, it will also have extensive online knowledge basis and helpdesks of its own to offer you.

Product roadmaps

One of the major benefits of proprietary software lies in the fact that you will usually have access to a formal product roadmap which will encompass major and minor new releases of the software that you are using. This helps to reduce risk and ease change management in the enterprise software environment by helping you to plan for major version changes.

When choosing between enterprise and community open source, rather than waiting for the community to release ad hoc updates to the software you are depending on, the open source vendors’ road map will give you a good idea of the fixes, enhancements and new features the vendor plans to add to the product. You will also know when they are expected to be released.

Open source has a number of well-documented benefits and many of these arise from the fact that open source is developed by a community that improves the software without expecting any direct financial compensation.

But depending on the community alone to develop and support the software that powers your technology infrastructure could open your business to a range of risks. Bluntly, you cannot count on the goodwill of people working on an open source project in their spare time for the support and enhancement of your mission-critical systems without having the security provided by the backing of a respected vendor.

Of course, if you believe that your in-house software development team can configure, deploy, develop, customise and support your OSS as cost-effectively and at the same service levels as you’d expect an external vendor to, you are welcome to count on community software to run your environment and effectively become a vendor yourself.

Most internal IT departments, however, will find it hard to compete cost-effectively with the thousands of professionals that open source providers such as Red Hat employ, or to match the deep experience they have in enterprise open source.

Working with a professional OSS provider allows you to enjoy the best of both worlds: the low costs, flexibility, innovation and openness of open source software, combined with the peace of mind that comes from working with an enterprise software company with extensive R&D capabilities and a massive support infrastructure.

Muggie van Staden is the MD of Obsidian Systems