Open source vs. proprietary software

[andreas-prouza]

There are many discussions already in the internet about this topic.
I will just want to share my experience here.
Those came up with the following topics ...

Security

I will start this with a comparison:
In the time when I used Windows and MS Office I had much more security problems.
Today I'm using Linux, LibreOffice and Thunderbird.

Support

If you are a fan of SLAs and contracts I have bad experience for your.
It often seems that the bigger the provider, the more worthless it is.

If you focus more on getting help than on staying legally safe, a community is often better source of support.

Further more, companies have a limited amount of staff that can handle problems.
The internet community is full of people who want to help.

Costs

For both you need to spend effort (time=money).
The questions are:

• Are the features in the paid version worth the money?
• What are the expected costs for:
  • Product
  • Integration
  • Education
  • Maintenance

Future proof

• If a company disappears from the market, it's products also do
• Open source projects are usually maintained by lots of developers
• I want to keep up with new technology
• Maybe I want or need to replace only a single part with another
  As I did with GNU make, what I have replace by OBI (Object Builder for i)

Integration

In a DevOps circle, you want to connect as many parts as possible.
E.g.: JIRA --> git --> build --> UnitTests --> deployment --> monitoring

Proprietary products can connect to other systems, but they are limited.
You depend on the company's strategy for new technologies.