I love the idea of open source software where the development community all work together to develop software that is distributed free for anyone to use. Clients can have a sense of security that they can have a number of different companies to work on the software and they are not locked down to just one.
As I said earlier, I love the idea of Open Source Software and I believe that it does have its place for some clients but I also see three major issues.
Firstly it is not necessarily cheaper to implement for clients with very specific requirements. As a privately owned business we are still required to cover the costs associated with contributing to, maintaining and customising any Open Source Software.
Secondly each client is different and having a one size fits all solution does not work for everyone. There is countless hours and dollars that go into the development of marketing strategies, business plans and IT infrastructure and to align these with your Open Source Software comes with its own set of challenges. Your website solution should fit in with these strategies, rather than determine them.
Lastly security. Over the past year, two of our clients have been victims of hackers that have infiltrated Open Source Software. If ever there was a better target for hackers than the users of Open Source Software then please let me know. The hackers have access to the code as it is distributed freely, they then scrutinise it, they find holes in it and then they prey on the very people that use it.
If you are currently using Open Source Software I urge you to contact your web developer to ensure you are using the latest version, the latest security patches have been applied and more importantly ask them how they currently monitor and report on potential hackers.
I would love to hear your comments.
There are no comments yet. Be the first one!
Back to our Thoughts
I love the idea of open source software where the development community all work together to develop software that is distributed free for anyone to use. Clients can have a sense of security that they can have a number of different companies to work on the software and they are not locked down to just one.
As I said earlier, I love the idea of Open Source Software and I believe that it does have its place for some clients but I also see three major issues.
Firstly it is not necessarily cheaper to implement for clients with very specific requirements. As a privately owned business we are still required to cover the costs associated with contributing to, maintaining and customising any Open Source Software.
Secondly each client is different and having a one size fits all solution does not work for everyone. There is countless hours and dollars that go into the development of marketing strategies, business plans and IT infrastructure and to align these with your Open Source Software comes with its own set of challenges. Your website solution should fit in with these strategies, rather than determine them.
Lastly security. Over the past year, two of our clients have been victims of hackers that have infiltrated Open Source Software. If ever there was a better target for hackers than the users of Open Source Software then please let me know. The hackers have access to the code as it is distributed freely, they then scrutinise it, they find holes in it and then they prey on the very people that use it.
If you are currently using Open Source Software I urge you to contact your web developer to ensure you are using the latest version, the latest security patches have been applied and more importantly ask them how they currently monitor and report on potential hackers.
I would love to hear your comments.
Copyright 2003-2013 QMG.
All Rights Reserved. Terms | Privacy | Mobile view
p (07) 3257 0677
f (07) 3257 0688
e info@qmg.com.au
PO Box 1269
Fortitude Valley 4006
Sunny Brisbane
Jim O'Connor said...
As you say open source is hackable, but just like everything else on the web. The question really is why is it not hacked more. I came to this site via and job page at Moodle, having spent most of the day tracking down a php bug on Moddle forums. As long as open source is supported by big education institutions the code will just get better and better, and that release people like 4 blokes in a shed, to do the creative stuff.
Dec 1st, 2010 at 06:16:33 AM