Support issues around open source

by Sebastian Rahtz on 1 June 2004

Introduction

Support issues around open source Sebastian Rahtz, Manager, JISC Open Source Software Advisory Service June 2004

The common perception about Open Source and support

Ray Lane, former Oracle executive, cites 6 problems with open source:

Does ZD Net worry us?

…in more detail

“The free license for an open source package is just a fraction of the cost to deploy and maintain an application. The support infrastructure and assurance is less defined, and enterprises must proceed at their own risk. In many cases, an enterprise can rely on the open source community for more informal support, which won’t be sufficient for mission-critical applications.”

How can we get that support?

We can

  • make a virtue of Velocity of change
  • celebrate No roadmap
  • plug Functional gaps
  • make light of Licensing caveats
  • stand aloof from ISV endorsements but can we ignore the issue of support?

…or are they all about support

We can

  • Velocity of change: who supports change?
  • No roadmap: how do we plan support needs?
  • Functional gaps: will we need support to plug them?
  • Licensing caveats: does this impact on who can provide support?
  • ISV endorsements: will anyone admit to being able to help us?

What did the OSS Watch scoping study find?

  • Only 3% of respondents chose open source because of the support
  • 37% (41% in FE colleges) cite 3rd party support as a major concern (though interoperability was a higher concern)
  • In one department, there was no explicit strategy, but IT support was offered only for a limited number of systems, effectively creating a de facto strategy very little awareness of the range of support models

aargh

Breaking down support

Who will support our software?

  • Who helps us install it?
  • Who do we call when it dies?
  • How do we fix misfeatures?
  • Where do we get documentation?
  • Who trains our staff?
  • Who trains our users? Not many of these come from the software supplier

Support suppliers

Ask yourself where you obtained support in each of these areas the last time you deployed a:

  • Web server
  • Student records system
  • Desktop office suite
  • VLE
  • Email client
  • Image editing program

Installation

Web server
You followed online instructions
Student records system
The consultant or project team did it
Desktop office suite
It was already there with the OS
VLE
The supplier, consultant or project team did it
Email client
Your desktop support people did it
Image editing
You followed the instructions

Death

Web server
You call the sysadmin
Student records system
You call the consultant
Desktop office suite
You shrug your shoulders, reboot, and pray
VLE
You call the consultant
Email client
You swear, reboot, and install an upgrade from the web
Image editing
You ring up and complain. You are told to wait for version 8.6

Fixes

Web server
You are too scared to consider it
Student records system
You pay the consultant another £1 million
Desktop office suite
You can’t fix it
VLE
You call a meeting of the project team
Email client
You upgrade
Image editing
You wait for the next version

Documentation

Web server
Buy an O’Reilly book
Student records system
There is no documentation
Desktop office suite
Buy a book in Borders
VLE
It’s online in the system
Email client
Who needs documentation?
Image editing
You buy a book. You lent the manual to someone else

Training

Web server
If the sysadmin doesn’t understand it, send him on a course
Student records system
You paid through the nose for this already
Desktop office suite
Enroll people on the ECDL
VLE
Poke it and see
Email client
If they need training, they can’t use email
Image editing
You have internal courses on this

User Help

Web server
They don’t know it exists
Student records system
The project team have a phone
Desktop office suite
Your help desk people do it every day
VLE
Ask on a forum
Email client
Your help desk does this 99% of the day
Image editing
They ask their geek friends

Which of those was open source?

  • Web server: Apache, open source
  • Student records: Oracle, commercial
  • Office suite: Microsoft, commercial
  • VLE: Moodle, open source
  • Email client: Outlook Express, commercial
  • Image editing: Photoshop, commercial If we replaced Microsoft Office with Open Office, Outlook with Mozilla Thunderbird, Photoshop with the GIMP, and Moodle with Blackboard, how much would change?

So what does the commercial licence buy you?

  • revenue to pay for development of new versions
  • writing documentation
  • direct support of user in niche markets
  • advertising to make sure this product is widely used
  • upholding the capitalist system by paying dividends on stock

Key sources of support for all your software

  • The person at the next desk
  • Your staff. You pay them to understand this stuff
  • The web. Self-help is the name of the game
  • The bookshop. Any software worth using has a shelf-full of books about it
  • Training courses. Lots of companies offer training
  • Consultants. Pay a man in a suit to come in and fix things
  • The people who wrote the software

The goal

(photo copyright Brian Wilson)

Do it yourself?

(picture copyright Matilde Rahtz)

How do you justify that?

  • You control exactly what happens, and see just how money is spent
  • Your staff become experts, and you can re-use their skills
  • You can offer consultancy to others
  • You control the help, documentation and training

Join a consortium

(photo copyright Brian Wilson)

How does that work?

You partner with institutions doing the same sort of work, and share resources to solve common problems. Some contribute code, others documentation, others training.

Examples: Bodington (VLE): http://www.bodington.org/; SAKAI: http://www.sakaiproject.org/ (producing open source Collaboration and Learning Environment software); uPortal (portal framework): http://www.uportal.org/

Employ a specialist consultant

(photo copyright Sebastian Rahtz)

How do they make a living?

  • The usual way: training, system support, specialist addons
  • As part of their work for you, they contribute to open source efforts and open standards; this makes them saleable
  • Writing bespoke code is always a well-paid occupation
  • It does not matter whether they support open or closed source

Stick with your existing vendors

(photo copyright Sebastian Rahtz)

Such as?

Some of the biggest players will develop systems based on open source for you:

  • IBM support Linux on their hardware, and a lot of open source web-services software (which they contribute to)
  • Apple have an open source operating system under Mac OSX, which they support
  • Novell have based their future on Linux server and desktop support
  • Sun will deploy open source-based desktops and office suites, and work on open source educational software: http://community.java.net/edu-jelc/ and https://edu-jelc.dev.java.net

The truth

There is no silver bullet.

  • support for open source is as variable as it is for proprietary software
  • you’ll pay for training whatever happens
  • much depends on the existing knowledge of your staff and students
  • all large software deployments need support
  • the availability of source code sometimes makes it easier to shop around
  • open source has support ranging from geek teenagers to IBM, with a lot in between