Hey Sean! :) Yeah, it was surreal. However, I think you're overstating it a bit - at no point did that guy shout, storm, or heckle...he actually raised his hand, brought up his concern, and decided to leave.

He did have a good point, though. We weren't exactly a panel of FOSS-haters who were going to spend an hour trying to scare people away, and the session description very well may have set that expectation. Indeed, to truly decide whether to take a risk with a technology, you need to also understand the benefits involved. We tried to discuss both. I, personally, tried to describe both the things we're worried about and the things we're not worried about over here at SourceForge.

That is what happens when you mix Interop, Software 2008 and open source at Mandalay Bay setting. Indeed, a Microsoft representative could balance the panel, however I do believe that a vendor-independent member could play its role, too.

Well, considering it was a panel on Open Source, why would Microsoft be there at all?

It's not like they are going to provide anything about "benefits" of Open Source. To their business model, there are no benefits what so ever.

Well, he stood up and walked out right after I finished speaking about benefits, so I have a bit of a different take on the incident. :-)

Nonetheless the panel's focus was Governance, and governance is more than just managing risks - It's managing risks as well as making sure you realize the benefits. Many aspects of OSS are double-edged swords and can't be neatly put into risks vs benefits columns. Instead, OSS is full of tradeoffs. But this is what's great about OSS: The customer is in control and can make their own choices. Good governance practices are then needed to help manage those tradeoffs and ensure the desired result.

For example: OSS tends to release-early-release-often, which means you can get the features you want faster, but that interim build may be less rigorously tested. Is this a risk or a benefit? Both. Actually, it's a tradeoff, and OSS puts that choice in the hands of the customer. Governance policies regarding minimal testing criteria can help.

Another example: Support. OSS doesn't have an Oracle-sized consolidated one-phone-number helpdesk for everything a company may own. OSS is grassroots, meaning innovation will come from many sources, and so will support. Risk or benefit? Both, and again, the choices are in the hands of the customer. Governance that sets policies on minimal SLAs and guidelines for choosing support vendors can help.

If that guy had been a little more patient and stayed on a little longer, I think he would have enjoyed the discussion that followed.

I would agree the session description was a little misleading.

I *knew* I should have gone to InterOp!

Steven

I miss EVERYTHING good! Actually, I'm surprised that the benefits of open source still need discussing in at all. It's evident that it's permeated all enterprise technology. Risk is an important factor, but no more important than risk in proprietary software, just something that needs to be addressed and have best biz practices assigned to it. Too bad there was no shoe throwing. That would have spiced things up.

Best!

It didn't have to be MS that was on the panel. How about someone that properly licenses certain open source technologies and then build on top to sell a commercial product? Or anyone that might have a good opposing view point about the costs/benefit of open source vs pure commercial vs commercial open source?

Maybe they should have had Qlusters on the panel - commercial, then open source, then blended model company that just gave up on the open source side of it. They would have had an interesting perspective on "risks and benefits".