Oh, no. Again, someone had something to say about open-source and again it seems that they only had a giant brush for the job.
OK, let’s go. Point by point. Note that I choose to also discuss frameworks despite Myle’s disclaimer, since their redeeming value seems to be that they comes as black boxes, therefore “you can still control your code.” Allow me to mention that you can do more than this. I would like, however, to apologize in advance for not coming up with more examples but I have to work on ClicDev…
“Unless your developers has[sic] spent A LOT of time working with the application, they aren’t going to know the code”
Well, true. There is always a learning curve involved. But this does not apply to open-source alone. Buy a commercial library and you will have to learn its ins and outs as well.
“Making core changes to a system is just asking for trouble”
Ok, so not about open-source either. Here is what I do not understand: if you pick a package for the task and end up modifying its core, are you sure that you picked wisely?
“Skinning pre-built applications sucks. Trying to modify some else’s CSS is worse than someone else PHP”
Obviously, I am not familiar with Myle’s past project experience, but this is where good practices usually save the day. Do not pick a package if their code is, indeed, “spaghetti”-style. Professionals - keep - their - stylesheets - clean.
Same goes for PHP, of course. Yes, the language is simple enough that it is very easy to make a mess of it. Just be picky when selecting a framework or an application. Price cannot be the only factor.
“Open source developers are very narrow minded […] you end up with a application that has everything that opens and shuts, but that doesn’t really open or shut very well.”
Well, thanks 
What’s that about not doing the job very well? Are you referring to Linux, Apache, Drupal, Darwin or any other clunky loser that “doesn’t really work?”
“As soon as you modify software, forget about updating it.”
Well, I see two possible scenario here:
1. You download some open-source piece of software. You modify it and submit your modifications back to the open-source community and your code is integrated. No problem, right?
2. Either your submission is rejected or you prefer to keep your code closed. In that case, surely you will have started by preserving all the original code using a source control tool such as SVN, Perforce, GIT, etc. Any modification you make to that code is now part of a changelist. When you upgrade to a new version of the original open-source program, you easily reconcile your code with it using branch integration, right?
“I am yet to see a decent module system for anything but the most basic feature.”
And I do not know where to begin with this one. Maybe with some complex Wordpress modules that require no code modification, since you mention it?
Or the somewhat similar drop-ins system used by nextBBS?
“The documentation will never be up to date.”
I guess you were not impressed by Code Igniter, Drupal or Struts? (I pick whatever code I think of arbitrarily here… )
“Open source apps are hacked not engineered.”
Well, I will not even bother adding new links here. Just revisit some of the links I already posted. Where on earth do you get that kind of idea?
“If the project doesn’t have a clear leader who has a vision and is ruthless in implementing it, you are going to end up with a mess.”
Hey! I kind of agree with you - as one can find out reading some of my older posts. I do not know about “ruthless” but clear direction is key. However, why, again, misrepresent OSS this way? Do you have any statistics on the number of projects that one would seriously consider using for in-house development? Can you tell me, of those, which ones are purely “designed by committee” and which ones have clear leadership? I would wager that the latter are predominant - again, read my old posts, I already commented on failed “design by committee” projects.
“Support. You don’t get any.”
Again: What?
No support, as in “no support when using ExtJS?” Or “no support when deploying Drupal?”
If anyone wants to add something in the comments, I will gladly incorporate it in this post.
Sphere: Related Content
Hi,
I think you’ve misunderstood the article Myles Eftos wrote, it’s not about Open Source VS Proprietary, it’s about people (mostly the sales dept.) who thinks it’s better to take an open source app and customize it (code modification) rather that building it from scracth / using a framework.
Been there, done that and for most things, using an open source app does not do the job right. Can’t use closed source here since it’s … well closed. This is what the original author pointed. He is not saying something like Drupal sucks, but customizing Drupal by modifying the code is far from the best alternative.
Hope this makes things a litte more clear.
Great, you can list off a bunch of well respected open source projects. But deciding on using Drupal (or another OS web app) for the wrong reasons is much worse than doing it from scratch. Thats the main point of the original post.
Guys, you are of course right.
I understand that the author was contrasting using an open solution versus building from scratch and I have no problem with this.
Unfortunately, in the process a few assertions were made, that were not exactly kind to open-source and, I feel, not accurate.
I understand Myle’s point of view and am not about to debate open source versus “in-house” but I wanted to show that this should not diminish the merits of open-source in general.
Thanks,
-C.
[…] Zend again You really have to admire the way the ZF community keeps up the flow of information about the Zend Framework. Other open source PHP projects should learn from this, create some buzz! Zend Framework announced the release of Zend Framework 1.5 Go see the reaction of a true fan too cute if you like cute. There are even some tutorials available already. Wiki vs. unWiki PHP has a new wiki and Drupal explains why they won’t have a wiki. GSoC A lot of buzz going on about the upcoming Google Summer of Code. I started to point to all the ideas and announcements but it seems they are all listed over on the PHP wiki, go look at it, it is an interesting list. Code Just like last week there wasn’t very much code out there to play with but here is a bit to think about. Ruby-style mixins in PHP, … its not Ruby so why waste time trying go program in Ruby or use interfaces and delegation at least thats my opinion. This cracked me up go read the description. — “doesn’t require any programming skills” okay now read the article, I guess in a way its true, no real programming skills were required. I cringed when I saw the title –Tips & Tricks of Learning Ternary Operators. This weeks sampling of code made me really appreciate this — Licence to release PHP code? Oh and this might come in handy if you have a blog and use feedburner,. Making Your Own FeedBurner Chicklet (PHP). Everybody has opinions I guess its just time to dig up old arguments, like Template Engines vs. PHP, some opinionated views on what makes good and bad code in Another 7 deadly sins for PHP. And lets see if we can figure out Why do open source web apps suck? Well all of them don’t suck but some do, I’m not quite sure that the title of the article really has anything to do with the content. It certainly was good link bait though and a few people bit with Open source web apps *do not* suck and To use Open Source or not. Top Ten stuff Do the people who write these top framework review type things ever do anything but the most trivial of research? All-Out Code Edit War: What’s the best Web-developer’s Code Editor out there?. What about tools? 10 tools for Modern PHP Development hit all the common ones but didn’t really dig too deep. All in all I just don’t get much out of the Top Ten type things. Career advice Coding horror article on Paul Graham’s Participatory Narcissism sheds some light on something a lot of programmers struggle with. The majority of us will not work in a startup and thats okay. repeat after me its okay. A Letter to an Aspiring PHP Programmer should have pointed out that you should do what you love, success and happiness will follow. Well in a perfect world it would anyway, but the language you learn today will probably not be the one you are using 10 years from now, being a solid well rounded programmer is the way to the big bucks. Oh oh oh! Does anybody enjoy being “openly mocked”? You might enjoy this article then The Wall of Fail. And last but not least here is some good advice The First Rule of Programming: It’s Always Your Fault never forget it! It saves so much time and even more conflict. Well thats all for this week. I wish I had more time, I left out a few things that deserved mention, maybe I will sneak them in next week. var dzone_url = ‘http://www.phpaddiction.com/tags/php/php-weekly-reader-march-23th-2008/’; var dzone_title = ‘PHP Weekly Reader - March 23th 2008′; var dzone_blurb = ‘’; var dzone_style = ‘1′; March 26, 2008 | Filed Under Weekly Review, php […]