[Asterisk-Users] Linux and Windows

[Michael Giagnocavo]

As far as I understand, corporation, and Govt's like commercial products
because of the issue of liability.  That is why the Commercial market and
Govt market don't accept open source solutions.

 

Both governments (Germany anyone?) and commercial entities (quite a few
people have made money with Asterisk) accept open source. Open source != non
commercial. In fact, sometimes they'll want to have source for even closed
source products. It might not be feasible (I've had access and looked at the
Windows source, and it's huge. I doubt anyone outside of MS would be able to
do a thorough inspection.)


What is perplexing about the whole situation is that the licensing
agreements with commercial software 99.9% of the time indemnify the vendor
of any and all liability.

So, what we have is the "feeling" of security...  Perhaps Linus should
convince the various entities that distribute Linux to include a nice fluffy
security blanket with the licensing agreement embroidered on it?  That way
the attorneys can get that "warm fuzzy feeling" they so desire.

 

Isn't that what Red Hat is doing? 

 

As far as security, it's not always just a feeling. A company with a lot of
money invested in a product (say, MS), is going to make sure the product
suits most of their customers as best as possible. A non-commercial open
source product might not always have that goal, instead trying to build
"better technology". Go read Raymond Chen's blog:
http://weblogs.asp.net/oldnewthing/. Read the history category. See the
evil, horrible compatibility hacks that are in Windows just to make sure
apps keep working as people upgrade, even when vendors do Bad Things? This
is the kind of commitment that makes companies feel secure that things will
continue to work. 

Open source doesn't have anything to do with this argument. The real
argument is non-commercial versus commercial. So it's basically coming down
to "companies like to deal with other companies rather than a couple of
coders doing something for fun" . well, duh.

 

I speak from much experience regarding this matter...
The U.S. Govt won't accept an open-source solution even if it is the only
option to cover their ass.  They'd rather leave their cheese out in the wind
than cover it with an open source solution.

 

So the U.S. Govt has never used linux anywhere? Wow.


Question: Why isn't there a commercial solution available in some cases?
Answer: What company in their right mind would engineer a competing product
to a solution that costs $0.00 ???

 

Again making the mistake that open source equates non-commercial.



-Michael

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