This is a topic I think I'm going to be writing a lot more about in the near
future. With every small side project I do, I'm more and more convinced that
open source is a good thing, no an essential thing, and I find myself turning
into one of those open source hippies. Now, I'd never recommend open source for
my big clients who can pay for software, and I'm not talking about OSes and
databases here (I'd never use anything but SQL Server)... But when I need to get
something done in my non-corporate consulting work, I turn to open source for
the solution. Why?
For one, it ensures that I don't leave too
much alien code behind for someone else to have to maintain.
I don't
want to be tied to a client forever, and if I solve their problem using DotNetNuke, or Community Server, I
can bet that others will know how to maintain it when I've moved on to other
things.
B. I can quickly get source code that I can
customize to get the job done.
Whether it's getting the latest DNN
source, or an FTP client like FileZilla, I can get what
I need with an Internet connection, on any computer, wherever I happen to be.
#3 It's going to protect my career as a
consultant.
If you read A church switches
to open source and teaches us a lesson, it looks like we MSfties are going
to be loosing work to PHP/Linux jobs. Now I'm not worried about this happening
inside large corporations anytime soon, but certainly for smaller shops, it's
happening. I like doing these smaller jobs, and the idea of all this PHP code
proliferating out there is, well, horrifying!
So, look for more open source sympathizing from me. I'm going to go turn on
the Grateful Dead and spin around in circles now.
-Brendan