6 Myths About Open Source

With all the discussion of Twitter clones, the idea that Open Source software is some sort of magic bullet that will achieve scalability and free users from some concept of tyranny that results in application outages. There's obviously a huge misunderstanding about what Open Source really means, so here are six myths about Open Source:

1. Open Source means free.

Just because there's no charge for the code itself, that doesn't mean that an Open Source application comes without hidden charges. You obviously incur server charges, but you also probably need to pay someone to maintain the software and the system that it's running on. That may require paying someone to learn about the software or paying for a service contract from the application's developers. Everyone has to be paid eventually.

2. Open Source succeeds because it has a dedicated community.

One of the surest things about any Open Source project is that the developers on a project won't remain consistent. Any time you have anything resembling a democracy, you are going to have differences of opinion. Sometimes those differences drive developers away from a project. Sometimes people take the project and fork the code so they can add the features that they want and create their own version. And sometimes people just get busy and lose interest in maintaining code they aren't getting paid to write. There may be new developers who take over, but the project may also go stagnant with no one left to develop it.

3. Open Source can break a market wide-open.

This might be partially true, but only if people are looking for something in a mature market that is dominated by established companies with an expensive product. When Open Source goes up against a venture-funded company that's running an ad-supported or low cost service? There isn't a huge motivator to go to the application that's slower to update and add features.

4. Open Source means I can do whatever I want with the code.

Open Source licensing is one of the messiest and hardest-to-understand parts of Open Source. Developers choose licensing by the project. Some Open Source developers have been working on code for years and still don't understand any of the legal ramifications of the licensing agreements. And then there are the numerous types of licensing. You have GPL, LGPL, AGPL, various forms of the MPL (Mozilla) license, various forms of the Apache license, the BSD license… anyone following this? Each license has anywhere from minor to major deviations from one to the next. Lawyer up!

5. Open Source means anyone can add features.

Sure, go right on ahead and add features. But how do you keep those features consistent across multiple platforms if you are building a distributed Open Source system, everything needs to be compatible, which means it has to be distributed from a central source. If those responsible for maintaining that central source don't care about your desired features, good luck getting them added. Fork it? Go right ahead, and return to Myth #2.

The other thing is that adding features isn't a simple "let's jump in and fix it." You have to come into someone else's code and become familiar with it. That's a significant investment of time and energy to code a feature that may not get accepted in the end.

6. Open Source builds better software and fixes bugs faster.

I'd estimate 90% of all Open Source projects are run and built by volunteers. That means that builds and bug fixes are done in people's spare time. Speedy doesn't come into play. Have a production outage, or need an emergency fix when the app goes down? Good luck getting it fixed if your developers are away on vacation or at the day job blocked behind a Net Nanny.