The penguin sharpens its teeth

Open Source needs support to survive.

I must admit to being a little biased towards the Open Source community. I like the idea of cheap, easily available software, with no licensing issues. I like the idea of collective expertise going into its coding and problem solving.

But this is in stark contrast to a colleague of mine who thinks Open Source is for "blokes with big beards and sandals who have nothing better to do than sit in a darkened room fiddling about with bits and bytes".

He argues that management, in particular, is a lost art as far as Open Source is concerned. It's hard to use, unproven in mission-critical computing, and generally not as good as Slashdot would have you believe.

So the OpenForum Europe will have its work cut out. It is certainly a valid idea, but adding a few suits with commercial expertise to try and drive its adoption will leave the initiative way short of its goals.

The founding members do not offer much in the way of a surprise. IBM and Compaq are the two that have most to gain from UK businesses turning away from evil old Microsoft.

Big Blue, in particular, is not shying away from a renewed fight with the Redmond giant. In Linux it sees a saviour. Not just as a way to help its ailing mainframe business, but also as a way to stick the boot into Microsoft.

Open Source certainly has its place in the corporate network. Some would argue that it also has its place on both the corporate and consumer desktop.

But not just yet. There is still an awful long way to go.

Until Open Source software guarantees the level of support commercial alternatives do, it will always struggle. And here is the point. The money needed to provide this level of support will not appear out of thin air.

Who will stump up the cash? You can bet your bottom dollar that, just as in the case of Microsoft software, it will be the hard-done-by end-user.

A case of the pot calling the kettle black?