This post focuses on these advantages of Open Source:
- Competence can be inhouse and not just on a support line
- Defines what is more or less standards of how software us built today
- No up front costs and procurement process
Inhouse competence
By hiring or employing the adequate Open Source competence software companies can get a head start on a project. The good thing about this is that the competence is not on the other side a phone or just being an email address. When challenges are met or there is a problem in production, the competence is right there with you.
Software standards
There is a lack of defined standards on how software should be designed. By design I mean what this article by Jack W. Reeves says. I do not doubt the value of visual software design, but this is just a vehicle for making the correct code design.
A lot of Open Source products has made such a strong foothold in software development that they more or less dominate in some categories of applications, e.g. the Spring Framework . Spring framework is very flexible, but by following the recommended conventions you will probably run into less trouble (not that impedes more trouble than other frameworks). That said, Spring is not very intrusive, so it should be pretty simple to adjust to conventions that is often also common sense.
When you adhere to the common sense conventions it mostly makes the software produced easier to use with other components and frameworks. It is necessary though to have the necessary competence when decisions is made along the way, just as you would with proprietary products. The difference, again, is that you do not have to get it from the vendors support or experts.
No procurement process
There is no costs, or at least they are very low, so getting permission to use Open Source is not an issue to discuss with the financial department. It is necessary to evaluate different products, also proprietary when they exists, for the project. Until now commercial products has often won these evaluations, but mainstream development is taking a new direction. I am not surprised that is happening right now, as the financial crisis raises questions about costly software.
An important consequence pointed out in the Agile Executive post, is that the software lives before the eyes of the user because with Open Source you can move as freely as the available competence is able to produce new features. This is very attractive, as the users keep coming back for exploring new functionality.
Another important point here is that when new technology surfaces, there is easier to switch when there has not been investments in commercial products. Software with a good design is flexible and makes as few assumptions of it's surroundings as possible.
Be free and unique
Now to the point of this post! Open Source let you, with the right competence, focus on the things you are good at, and deliver faster than with proprietary products. The business value or end user experience is what counts. Users mostly does not care how software is designed, but they value good software.
When you can focus on this, chances are that the product will be better and the users more happy. Unhappy users can express them self freely and quickly on the internet, especially after the advent of Web 2.0. A product must often rely on the word of mouth. With Twitter and the like being adopted at a blazing speed, word of mouth is spreading very fast.
Examples that this is true is flourishing:
- Android
- Google Chrome, the browser no one expected and got Google a lot of positive attention
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