Free But Costly - The Open Source Trap

The title is inspired by Dr. Richard Stallman’s article - Free But Shackled - The Java Trap.

Free as in open source software often doesn’t translate to free for corporations or even individuals. Yakov Fein discusses the Open Source Gotcha - “If you think that selecting an open source software will allow you to use it for free forever? Think again. “.

Yakov discusses about the possibility of future versions of open source software like JBoss being non-free after acquisition. He touches upon “free” open source Jive which suddenly became $8500 per server. The key point is what is free and in open source may cease to become so with future versions, which may be released with commercial licenses. I know scores of such products which were free in dotcom era but are now sold for hefty sum.

BTW: Sometimes however the open source community may step-in and fork out the last open source version and develop new releases from it as has happened with Mambo. As a corporation you cannot rely on that happening. If you truly want to continue with the product you may either have to pay-up or devote resources for at least bug-fixing and some improvements.

Microsoft manager talked about the true cost of Eclipse, the popular “free” java IDE. His estimation was 100K per seat which I think is somewhat overblown. It still underscores an important truth.

There is a high cost factor associated with most open source software which includes (but not limited to) adapting and improving often poor quality product, understanding and documenting often poorly documented products, cost of support, maintenance, cost of security audit etc.

In the end, with few notable exceptions (both in open source and paid software), you get what you pay for.