Posted to WebDesign-L on 05/01/00

This brings into question the choice of using an open source technology or a
technology that you have to pay for, sometimes again and again and again.

If you choose to go with ASP or Cold Fusion, not only are you paying for the
technology, but you also are likely going to end up paying for the support,
custom development, and specialized hosting required for each. This is in
direct contrast to using an open source technology like PHP, JSP, XSLT, or
Perl. The open source technologies often are more stable, are updated more
often, and are far more extensible and flexible than any of the closed
source technologies.

The Apache web server is a great example of open source technology that
works well and has gained a large market share. The reason for this is
two-fold. First, it's completely free. Secondly, it's very stable, very
extensible, and runs on just about every OS/server platform on the market.
These are all things that are very important for a project manager to
consider when choosing or recommending a technology for use in a project.
These are also things that closed source technologies lack and can't compete
with very effectively.

Also, say you choose a closed source technology to build your dynamic web
site with. You spend the money on the technology, the custom development,
the training, and about a year into the project the company that created it
goes out of business, effectively forcing you to re-write and re-develop the
entire back-end of your site. Oops! This will never happen if you choose to
go with an open source technology, as the entire thing is freely available
on the web and likely has a nice user base.

It's clear in my mind that open source-developed technologies are far
superior to their closed source competitors. The benefits of going with open
source are far greater than going with closed source.

--
Cameron Barrett
Senior Information Architect
Alphanumerica, Inc.
http://www.alphanumerica.com (work)
http://www.camworld.com (play)


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
     more info about webdesign-l: http://www.hesketh.com/lists/