Jimmy's weblog

It’s always nice to see a business oriented magazine taking a deeper look at Open Source software - in this case it’s CIO magazine with an interesting and in depth analysis of the following six popular myths about Open Source:

• MYTH 1: The attraction is the price tag - It’s really the performance and reliability.
• MYTH 2: The savings aren’t real - “. . .there’s a zero marginal cost of scale because open source doesn’t require additional licenses as an installation grows.”
• MYTH 3: There’s no support - “. . .existing users of open-source software appear perfectly happy with open-source support arrangements.”
• MYTH 4: It’s a legal minefield - If your lawyers are concerned, third-party indemnification is available.
• MYTH 5: Open Source isn’t for mission critical applications - Is banking mission critical enough?
• MYTH 6: Open Source isn’t ready for the desktop - “Siemens, for example, says it has performed extensive testing with ‘real-world, nontechnical workers,’ finally declaring that Linux has now matured as a desktop system. The tests confounded the company’s expectations.”