Samooha Open Source - Todo or strike off?
In the changing world of business equations and dynamics we took an internal vote to go in favor of making Open Source, Samooha, the platform we put together for all size businesses to adopt in the present and future circumstances of changing connected world.
We had 80% vote in favor to Open Source but the 20% stopped us from moving forward. A caution we are currently taking are in the interest of all the stake holders. Here are a few links which one can take a look which speaks for and against.
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Lack Of Support Slowing Spread Of Open-source Applications
Many large companies are reluctant to use open source products without the safety net of a single support provider, said a panel members at the Open Source Business Conference
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,108831,00.html
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Professional Open-source Grows Up
More companies are using the model of offering open-source software with a free license, while using professional services, maintenance and support for these products to derive revenue.
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/story/0,10801,108808,00.html
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The major reason I see is in the form of disintegration of vendors who hold the derivatives of the orginal work.
Another interesting observation that stuck to me recently with LAMP was while there are several flavors of Linux as OS distributed all over we do not see any popular flavors of Apache, MySQL, PHP being actively promoted. I have not thought much about the necessities or the lack of interest to extend and offer them. So at least the choice propaganda does not hold good according to me. I might be wrong. But the necessity to Open Source a business application or platform may have both the benefits and the threats of disintegration of the community. We learnt some lessons with an Open Source ERP on which we had direct experience.
The recent courting of MS with Sugar CRM and of Oracle with a couple of other Open Source DB is another pointer to understand that the gap is narrowing down with these 2 schools of thoughts. Open Source is learning to get more organized and business minded for the sake of continuity while the Proprietary side is learning how to become more transparent.
Here is a captioned post I made on another network about the association of MS and Sugar CRM
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Tom and Jerry slept together happily there after!!
This was the day I did foresee in the year 2000!
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+and+SugarCRM+partner+on+open+source/2100-7344_3-6038966.html
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However, I continue to evaluate the possibilities of taking the right decisions only when the end users and community ask for it or have a say. And should we be surprised if Samooha written in Java to be available under Microsoft Community License :-) if in case they are compatible?
Welcome any valuable observations and comments from knowledgable members here.
Have a nice weekend pondering over the future!!
