The Real Cost of Open Source


“Not performing routine maintenance on your open source software can quickly become problematic. The efficiency of your software will deteriorate, lack of security patches will evolve into vulnerabilities and bugs won't get fixed. These maintenance costs should be taken into consideration when selecting a platform.”  Federal Computer Week - Feb 2010

There's been a lot of talk lately extolling the benefits of open source technology. While we agree that it is a wonderful way for programmers to collaborate world-wide to create a new piece of technology, we do not believe that a business should rely on an open source application to run something as critical as their website. Why?

The benefit of open source is that anyone can view the code. The downfall of open source? You guessed it. Anyone can view the code. This creates an opportunity for hackers to reverse engineer the code and look for vulnerabilities. If they find vulnerabilities they can use them to access your website, your servers, your message, and wreak havoc.  Not only that, but if many people wrote the software, no one is accountable for its features or support so there's no one to call if you need help. If you don't believe us, check out how Al Gore's Wordpress site was hacked because he failed to maintain the upgrades.

Another hidden expense of open source software is who you installs it? Who updates it or adds modules? Who installs security patches, fixes bugs, or installs updates? With no one to call, and no one really responsible for the code base, you might find yourself reevaluating an open source decision. Almost instantly your time and IT expense has exceeded that of using a commercial software solution with developers that stand behind the code.

The Mediasation CMS is proprietary software, not open source. That means that you have the security of knowing who has access to the software that is running your website. It also means that we're here to stand behind the CMS and you.  Our team of developers is 100% accountable for every feature that rolls out and to listen to our clients on new features they would like to see. Because we work from a single code-base, as we add features and enhancements to our software, you automatically have these available to your site - no software to install, no patches to run. It just works, so you can focus on your business and your message and not have to worry about the technology.