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by ubercode5 3553 days ago
I agree. However one additional thing to keep in mind in the COTS vs FOSS is if there is some bug that affects the company and requires attention. The company doesn't generally have the engineers on staff to actually change that software, and there's no guarantee that the associated FOSS community will prioritize the bug. With a COTS solution, you can pick up the phone and call the support team. Generally my company chooses COTS over FOSS because they want guaranteed support even if it costs more.

Note, some FOSS products also provide a strong support team to handle this exact thing, and in those cases they were usually the winner.

Edit: Looks like abakker posted the same idea simultaneously.
2 comments
TeMPOraL 3553 days ago
Indeed. It seems that the most sustainable business model for Open Source so far is a combination of FOSS product + paid support / consulting company. It has some potential conflict of interest (e.g. deliberately not improving some aspects of the product that brings in support calls), but being a successful open-source product often depends on outside contributions which themselves depend on reputation, and that may keep companies honest.
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geoka9 3553 days ago
> It has some potential conflict of interest (e.g. deliberately not improving some aspects of the product that brings in support calls)

You could say the same about proprietary software, no?

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TeMPOraL 3553 days ago
Yes. I was stating they exist, not comparing to propertiary software.
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intended 3552 days ago
That still doesn't work because the core issue is partially addressed.

Reliable on call support. Oracle is not going to vanish overnight or de prioritize you due to lack of resources.

The possibility of that risk in other firms is sufficient to make them non options

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nickpsecurity 3552 days ago
Many of the companies making proprietary products with high lockin have terrible support just because they know you cant leave. Whereas it's the opposite for some startups and FOSS companies knowing how easy it is for them to loose business. So, I dont buy that as an advantage of companies like Oracle.

You want support for sure but big companies are hit and miss on support quality.

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IndianAstronaut 3552 days ago
I work for a major bank that is making the transition to OSS. The long term costs of a supported solution are often huge.
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