Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Committed to open source
One of the key things that we have seen happening in Enterprise information
technology, is the true and massive adoption of open source technologies for many
of its business-critical applications. This has been an evolution that has lasted a decade
at least, starting with peripheral systems such as web servers (in the days when web
servers were still considered to be serving static web pages), but gradually evolving
to mission critical operating systems, content management applications,
CRM systems and databases such as Neo4j.
There are many interesting aspects to open source software, but some of the most
often quoted are listed as follows:
•
Lower chance of vendor lock-in
: Since the code is readily available, the
user of the software could also read the code themselves and potentially
understandhowtoworkwithit(andextendit,orixit,orauditit,and
so on) independently of the vendor.
•
Better security
: As the code is undergoing public scrutiny and because
there is no way for a developer to implement "security through obscurity"
(for example by using a proprietary algorithm that no one knows and
would have to reverse engineer), open source software systems should be
intrinsically more secure.
•
Easier support and troubleshooting
: As both the vendor and the customer
have access to the source code, it should be easier to exchange detailed,
debug-level information about the running system and make it easier to
pinpoint problems.
•
More innovation through extensibility
: By exposing source code, many
people left and right will start playing with the software—even without the
original author knowing that this is going on. This typically causes these
"community contributors" to solve problems that they encounter with the
product,intheirspeciicusecase,anditleadstofasterinnovationand
extensibility of the solution.
•
Supporting (fundamental and applied) research
: Open source solutions
—even the ones equipped with enterprise commercial features such
as Neo4j—usually allow researchers to use the software for free. Most
researchers also published their work as open source code. So, it's a
two-way street.
•
Cheaper
: open source software tends to use "fair" licensing models. You
only need to pay if you derive value from the software and are not able
to contribute your code. This not only allows cheaper evaluation of the
software in the start of the process—hopefully avoiding unused shelfware
—but also allows enterprises to start with limited investments and grow
gradually as the use expands.
