Advantages of Open Source Software
Free and open source software is licensed under terms that allow the user to view, modify, and redistribute the source code. Proprietary software usually has license restrictions that prevent this, as is the default copyright in nearly all countries. Because of this, free software licenses are often called “copyleft”, since they have fewer restrictions.
One of the major benefits of open source is that you know exactly what you are getting. There is no hidden code that could do unspecified things to your server. Another benefit is that you can change it to be whatever you want. Google, for example, has their own version of Linux running on their servers.
For a company that has invested money in dedicated servers, another danger of proprietary software is vendor lock-in. If you have purchased software for a server and the vendor goes out of business or decides to no longer support it, you are just out of luck. Using free and open source software, you will always have the code for your software. Even if a business goes under, you can take that code to another one or use in-house programmers to maintain it.
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Tag: .free, copyleft, dedicated servers, linux, open source, proprietary, software
Disadvantages of Proprietary Unix
In a previous post this week, we examined various free Unix-like operating systems that were direct competitors with Linux, but there is another type of Unix-like operating system that still largely occupies many of the enterprise servers on the Internet. Those unices are proprietary creations of commercial companies like IBM, which created AIX, and HP, which has HP-UX.
Unlike free and open source operating systems, true Unix has been locked up for years with licensing issuses, patent disputes, and the dreaded vendor lock-in. Even IBM and HP versions are not immune to the last problem. When a major company’s product reaches the end of its shelf life, what do you do? Most end up having to spend thousands to replace their systems and sometimes even their applications as well.
For web hosting, which rarely requires specific applications that the big companies might provide, there is really no sensible reason to opt with one of their proprietary systems. Even though Linux, for example, is free and open source, there are commercial companies that will support it. The difference is that you can leave that company and choose another or stop paying for support altogether at any time.
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Before you commit your data…
When you have a small to medium-sized business (SMB), it is tempted to take lowest service offer, especially when a vendor makes big promises. There are plenty of database vendors on the market, and some of them offer very attractive custom proprietary packages or cloud computing solutions. But before you commit your data to what will likely be its permanent resting place, consider a few things:
1. If a vendor makes you custom database software and then goes out of business, what happens to your data?
2. If a vendor’s cloud computing infrastructure breaks down, what happens to your data?
3. If later on down the road, you want to transfer your databases to something more standard, will you lose data in the conversion?
The answer to all three is that some or all of your data could go up in smoke. That is why more businesses, even large ones are opting for free and open source solutions like MySQL or PostgreSQL. You can still hire someone to set it up and manage it, but when that company fades away, your data is still safe. Even if you opt for a cloud solution, having access to your open source databases means that you can pull them at any time and move them to another server with minimal data loss.
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Tag: business, data, database, open source, proprietary, server