This discussion could go on infinitum, but the bottom line is that there are plenty of "real" and significant companies that pre-maturely release "un-baked" products, do not release patches in the timely manner, and abandon products that large portions of their user base were perfectly happy with in order to force upgrades and generate revenue streams. It is not always "you get what you pay for". The EULA is typically all about the company and very little about the customer. Companies merge and meld product lines all the time leaving customers stranded.
IMHO OS gets the short stick because it is not funded and cannot counter attack the large marketing engines spewing propaganda about the evils of unleashing open source on your corporate networks. But that is changing. How does the saying go? Deeds speak louder than words. There are OS products that work - and work as well or better than their commercial counterparts. And no amount of propaganda can silence that fact forever. Quite frankly, our open source mail systems work better than our lotus cc:mail systems ever did. There are lots of open source solutions that are tried and true, and have proven track records, just like the commercial counterparts. There are lots of open source solutions I would not install if you paid me... just like the commercial counterparts. Just like anything in this world "caveat emptor". ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 2:42 PM Subject: [SAtalk] success stories with SA ? I think most companies are afraid of implementing opensource software as a component for an important service such as email. I think that generally even though people know email has not been designed to be a 100% reliable protocol they still make business with it. First of all, please let me highlight that the following thoughts are not my personal views but difficult barriers to face when you try to get opensource into a large manufacturing company (not an ISP, not a software company) like ours. The major fears are: - opensource software is often made by hobbyists and these people do not have the structure to provide software support/bugfixes, or quick response to a big problem incurring financial losses (no emails go through for example!) - are upgrades straightfoward and not causing problems to the existing running system, are they well tested. - what if the SA project is abandoned, what if the source is bought by a commercial vendor, in other words, what if SA as it exists today disappears ? With opensource you cannot have a contractual engagement to provide support or updates, nor can you really know the roadmap for a product and what is planned for future development ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: A Thawte Code Signing Certificate is essential in establishing user confidence by providing assurance of authenticity and code integrity. Download our Free Code Signing guide: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0028en _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
