Open Source? Is it Worth it? Before you commit to the adoption of open source, Critical Thinking 101 mandates that you ask the question, "Why?" This section attempts to answer that question from a variety of perspectives. Open source has impact not just for developers and in-house IT managers, but also potentially for every person throughout the value chain of an organisation from management to knowledge workers to suppliers, customers, and partners. By and large, the effects of open source are advantageous with benefits ranging from lower costs to simplified management to superior software. These advantages include the following:

Lower software costs—Open source solutions generally require no licensing fees. The logical extension is no maintenance fees. The only expenditures are for media, documentation, and support, if required.

Simplified license management—Obtain the software once and install it as many times and in as many locations as you need. There’s no need to count, track, or monitor for license compliance.

Lower hardware costs—In general, Linux and open source solutions are elegantly compact and portable, and as a result require less hardware power to accomplish the same tasks as on conventional servers (Windows, Solaris) or workstations. The result is you can get by with less expensive or older hardware.

Scaling/consolidation potential—Again, Linux and open source applications and services can often scale considerably. Multiple options for load balancing, clustering, and open source applications, such as database and email, give organisations the ability to scale up for new growth or consolidate to do more with less.

Ample support—Support is available for open source—often superior to proprietary solutions. First, open source support is freely available and accessible through the online community via the Internet. And second, many tech companies (not the least of which is Novell) are now supporting open source with free online and multiple levels of paid support. All open source solutions distributed by Novell are included in support and maintenance contracts.

Escape vendor lock-in—Frustration with vendor lock-in is a reality for all IT managers. In addition to ongoing license fees, there is lack of portability and the inability to customise software to meet specific needs. Open source exists as a declaration of freedom of choice.

Unified management—Specific open source technologies such as CIM (Common Information Model) and WBEM (Web Based Enterprise Management) provide the capability to integrate or consolidate server, service, application, and workstation management for powerful administration.

Quality software—Evidence and research indicate that open source software is good stuff. The peer review process and community standards, plus the fact that source code is out there for the world to see, tend to drive excellence in design and efficiency in coding.