Overcoming objections

ie countering the FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - put out by big companies' propaganda:

Geoffrey Ready from avec solutions answers some FAQs about Open Source. Taken from his presentation at the Northern Ireland Open Source Community (NIOSC) Open Day, at NICVA on 17 April 2003.

How can anything free be any good?

• In other spheres, we are all aware that voluntary organisations and communities can often provide services better than the private sector; why not software?
• Actually, software always used to be free (non-proprietary); there are strong motivations among software developers to return to this model
• 'Free' doesn't mean no cost or profit incentive: developers and commercial companies can make money on 'free' software by providing packaging, support, training, etc as well as the hardware that the software runs on.

Lack of support

• Online support for open source software is nearly always faster and better than the 'helpdesk' support provided by proprietary software companies
• Users can communicate directly with developers and suggest changes, etc
• Lack of warranty / legal protection
• Try reading the license agreements for proprietary software - there is no real warranty or legal protection for any software product!

Not widely used / lack of compatibility

• It's much more widely used than people realise (eg nearly two-thirds of internet websites run on open source software)
• Products like OpenOffice can read and write MS Office files.

Too hard to use

• Not necessarily, but certainly a lot more reliable, secure and powerful (and therefore worth any extra effort).

Too difficult to switch

• Training might be required, but it can be just as difficult to migrate from one version of proprietary software to the next (eg Windows 98 to Windows XP).