Having written my thoughts on what the issues are today concerning existing proprietary software and platforms, you might ask what the solutions in solving these issues are. Is open source technology the ANSWER?
NO, open source is not the only answer. Open source as defined by the Open Source Initiative and gives users freedom to do what they want on a piece of code but more importantly collaborate to improve the code so that in return more people are able to use it as a complete software. There of course multiple foundations and communities supporting open source such as the Eclipse Foundation , the Free Software Foundation , the Apache Software Foundation and a lot more. However in some cases these communities does not agree with each other regarding the definition of open source which is evident in the non-compatibility of their OSI approved open source licenses.
To truly address the issues concerning proprietary software, part of the ANSWER lies within the organisation who provides the platform or software. YES, you need open source licensing to deliver total freedom to users and it should also be fully supported with an enterprise level of support and not only form the user community. Just imagine how bad it is for a company acquiring a piece of software for free, implements it in their business and then later can't get support to address any problems or mistakes they might have created.
Furthermore as user requirements evolve, the platform should be very agile to be always in the forefront of technology advancement. In this sense part of the ANSWER is through collaboration between organisations and community contributions to ensure that evolution and revolution are captured and implemented as innovations during the platform's lifecycle.
No comments:
Post a Comment