I guess you could always buy your way out of risk when using Open Source if you’re that concerned about a particular piece of software. MySQL AB, Canonical, IBM and others make a good living out of minimising that risk. That way you get the benefits of commercial software with the benefits of Open Source. Sites like FindOpenSourceSupport.com come in useful in those instances.

1. Opensource makes you responsible – It gives you more work, and you will have to spend more time in your opperation instead of your vore business.

2. Opensource makes it easier for you to get married – WRONG – Open source doesn’t mean open standard.

3. Opensource makes you more attractive – Your client doesn’t care if you use open sourse or commercial sw. you should be attractive in your business.

4. Opensource keeps your tail in shape – again, you have to understand what fits best in your business, and it ca be open or commercial software.

5. Opensource makes you look younger – What makes you look younger is your speed and finally results. Market is about results not about youngest or old..

6. Opensource makes you cleverer. – If you have to focus in solving your gaps, you probably will lose the focus of your business. You will be clever if your choices allows you to delivery more value to your client.

7. Opensource makes you a man/woman of the world. – hahaha no comments..

8. Opensource makes you fitter. opensource or commercial software can makes you fitter. There a lot of commercial softwares that fits best to many industries (and faster) with support and guarantee…

9. Opensource makes you more famous. again… you should be famous in your business.. it is about yourself and neither opensource or commercial sw can guarantee it to you.

10. Opensource makes you safer. – Thats a big lie. Open source and commercial sw have vulnerabilities. For my business I prefer something that have a structure besides.

So let me try and explain my rationale and see what you (and other readers) think.

Each firm has its own business model and its own consequent reliance on (or independence from) IT. Where IT is a commoditised non-differentiating back office function, I would find it hard to defend paying closed-source premiums. Such firms do exist, and they might as well get commodity software from the opensource community, a community which specialises in commodity.

Where IT is a critical business enabler, innovation and speed to market become more important. My contention (and all you need to do is to compare OpenOffice with Office as an example) is that opensource is more aligned to these objectives of innovation and time to market.

The TCO argument is simpler. The closed source contention can be theoretically true in cases, cases where the entire stack is acquired from one vendor. In any hybrid world, EAI costs tend to be far greater in a closed source model rather than an opensource one, as we seek to move data from one walled garden to another. There is a price to pay for proprietary formats and standards.

This is without even going into the issue of the costs of acquiring the skills involved, and for that matter the costs of training. Here too there is a significant difference in the price point for open and closed source skills.

I will keep an eye out on generic research on this subject; my thoughts are based on my experience rather than articles or other people’s research.