You Be The Judge.

To follow up on a discussion Leigh Blackall and I have been having, I thought I should add a few links so people can better equip themselves to make choices. (see blog 15/02/07 - comments)

These links will take you to some interesting and informative articles. After you read them you should be able to make informed choices about open-source software.

http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/scm.html

http://searchsystemschannel.techtarget.com/qna/0,289202,sid99_gci1226999,00.html

http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/06/27/206209&from=rss

http://www.macintouch.com/index.shtml

There’s a lot more if you search for it, so keep looking.

I am certain of one thing though, and it’s this: how many users actually have the base knowledge to apply any of this information in a professional way? My guess – not many. And that's a large part of the problem as well. You've got people with low-level skills downloading stuff they really don't understand. And when things go wrong they haven't a clue how to fix them.

Often they will stuff around, fiddling with this and that, and before you know it, they created a heap of other problems. Of course they can never remember what they did while they were stuffing around, and that's enough to drive anyone crazy.

Sorry if I sound like a grump here. But I know how much downtime stuff ups can cause. And they're costly. Someone has to invest time in the rebuilds etc. God, don't let me even go there. I think I've said more than enough. Now you be the judge.

Don't forget to leave your comments. They might help others with their decision making.

Thanks Suzanne.

PS: This is not meant to be a 'I'm right; You're wrong' competition. It's meant to generate valid debate to help everyone expand their IT knowledge so they can make better decisions.