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Roadblocks to Open Source Adoption

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PCQ Bureau
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Sometimes benefits and advantages are not enough to make a cause. Open Source faces a similar dilemma, much to the chagrin of its champions, who believe in democratic existence of Open Source tech. The key to understanding the problem that besets Open Source tech and its successful adoption lies in understanding Open Source and its multiple manifestations. The biggest enemy appears to be proprietary software, but that is just a mirage.



The significant distinguisher between Open Source software and proprietary software is not its cost or the lack of it but is the freedom that it gives to its adopters of making any changes to it and then redistributes it in its new form. Simply put, freedom to change, improve, and extend the software is what draws the line between the two enemies. When it comes to Open Source adoption, certain challenges are faced across sectors. Some major challenges include non-compatibility with proprietary software, lack of support, migration costs, lack of approved standards, and user resistance. Software licenses amount to crores of rupees annually and most of this expenditure goes to giants like Microsoft. Here we list a few:



Poor documentation

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Most enterprises are not aware of the features of Open Source or due to want of knowledge miss out on using it. The champions feel the lack of documentation as the real charm of Open Source software (OSS), as it allows one to make changes according to one's needs. However, IT admins think differently and see poor documentation as a major obstacle to the successful implementation of OSS. Even commercially distributed Open Source software has substandard documentation. Only a handful of Open Source software has any documentation at all. And out of the few that do, much of it is unfinished and erroneous. Though popular Open Source projects like Linux have enormous documents available, but at a larger level training docs are lacking. Documentation and the training it imparts is one major reason why Microsoft is so popular in enterprises. This also emphasises the fact that documentation is vital to the successful implementation of OSS. This is a major bottleneck, as documents lend assistance to easy software adoption.



Risky due to lack of effective migration



It is also true that many open source software are not attuned with proprietary software. This can leave many movers in lurch and act as a discouragement. Besides this, Open Source software is also deemed risky, because no vendor takes responsibility for it, if anything goes wrong. Detractors of Open Source software don't miss a chance to emphasize on the demerits of Open Source by putting the blame on free license part, but they forget that numerous proprietary software licences lack support. In fact, most proprietary software support is made to help inexperienced users.

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For instance, Linux has been distributed under the General Public License, and can be further distributed or published by its adopters. Now, the adopter can make the source code available and license the work as a whole at no charge to third parties under the terms of the GPL, thereby allowing further modification and redistribution. If a company is not aware of this it can lose valuable rights to its proprietary code. Lack of transparency surrounds the adoption of the GPL to proprietary code that is used with Open Source.



Security of data



It is generally believed that Open Source is less secure. Those with a stronger understanding realize that they can evaluate its security directly by having knowledgeable staff or outside experts. Open Source is not less secure simply because it is Open Source, nor is closed source more secure because the source isn't available to attackers. Both attitudes tend to give a false sense of security. Instead, good security practices demand that implementors keep their software up to date. When you pull down an Open Source package the general feeling is that you're on your own. Despite the existence of numerous forums and communities, they have not been much used and so defeat the purpose of being free.

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Integration of apps

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Software across enterprises is used to exchange data within departments in the same enterprise or with outside partners. When such programs are proprietary and fail to adhere to standards, they hinder the adoption of a new solution, whether proprietary or Open Source. But integration works in favour of Open Source in departments willing to take on the costs of large-scale migration, because the transparency of Open Source software allows it be integrated easily. Integration of multiple software require various steps and these are made simple through facilities like turn-key method or the proprietary company can send its staff to the customer's office to do the installation.



For instance, despite these similarities, Microsoft software are protected with certain unique barriers to migration, such as the ribbon user interface found in modern versions of Microsoft Office and Second and file format lock-in with docx. Open Office support reading and writing to docx file formats, but does not maintain formatting of most original docx created in Microsoft Word. This makes Open Office's support for docx useless in most enterprise situations.



Fear of failure and costs

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Fear of failure often reduces willingness to undergo risk. Concerns about the maturity of software that is newer than the proprietary products in current use, as open source tends to be. The reason SMEs want to adopt Open Source is to cut their business expenses. Delivering customer value at a lesser price is what attracts many customers in the first place. These SMEs are not going to spend lakhs of rupees on commercial software. If an open source package does the job and is easy to deploy, they'll go for it. Even to know about the impending risks they bring on board they need investments. Further, a typical SME won't have domain skill in security testing. Even if they hire a consulting firm to implement the software, they cannot be sure of the software being properly patched.



User resistance



Why are people resisting open source adoptions? Open Source is a decentralised and uncontrolled movement with too many ways and approaches to developing. After a project is devolved, it cannot be combined and result in years of strain of resources. Varying opinions also stall growth. It is this fragmentation that prevents people from adopting it. User resistance to switch remains one of the major obstacles in any successful open source migration.



What the Open Source movement gains in terms of head count, diversity, motivation and enthusiasm, it loses in terms of control and direction. To a manager, having a dozen different Linux distributions to choose from can be confusing. This problem exists because there is no dominant authority that people can trust. Also, users are not familiar with open source software and this lack of knowledge makes them uncomfortable while using it.



Bearing this in mind one can't expect IT managers to all of a sudden take risks based on blind assurances that the change of applications will not compromise their existing arrangement. Because of this fear, proprietary vendors have customers in their palm even if their product is not better than open source software.



Conclusion



What is evident from the current state of affairs is that across various sectors, like government or enterprises, the environment is conducive for adoption yet the technical level of practice is insignificant. It can't be denied that Open Source has immense benefits but to implement it on a larger scale one will need time and so a gradual switch to Open Source should be encouraged without getting distracted by its limitations.

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