Interview question - product evaluations open source vs commercial

KenC

Hi,

was asked at interview recently about a software product I chose and why I chose it over similar products.

The product I chose was open source and did not cost anything but my time and effort reading the documentation, installation and configuration. The interviewer asked was the decision based solely on cost (which it was, I essentially responded by saying if I can find an open source alternative that is functionally equivalent to a commercial product why not go with it), and he seemed to ask it in a kind of a disapproving manner, so my question is:

What would be considered a good, professional answer for this question (trying to move into a larger organisation with a dedicated IT department, as opposed to individual operator).

I don't want to mention the products involved as I would like to keep it a general question and not start a thread where people start talking about specific products (also the question was put to me in this general way).

TIA,
Kenneth

Version4

Here is my experience,

I used to work in an IT department with 150 people. Open source products were shot down each and every time. The primary reason being RISK. Risk to them meant that they were not comfortable with the product support options, lack of contracts, the licensing model, legal issues, and a general disinterest and aversion to anything not made by brick and mortar vendor X. Expressing the following points made no difference to them, but it may for you.

Here are some points I discussed, maybe you could use them in your next answer:
* security - many eyes looking at the source code
* standards - most stick to strict programming or industry standards
* stability - a larger audience for testing, global
* portability and platform independence - lots of products work on a variety of OS and hardware
* licensing - GPL, or other open source license
* support - back to global audience, also some open source products have paid support options
* code updates and customization - if the license permits, your company could customize the app exactly the way you want it
* cost and ROI - biggest draw, but ROI may be cut due to the experts that you have to pay to support your product

KenC

Thanks version4, all great arguments for open source vs. vendor X product.

So when you were working in the IT department with 150 people and you had to come up with a solution to a particular issue and/or improvement, were you questioned on how you came up with this proposed solution? This is the other part of the question that I feel he was getting at was what did you use as your sources of research when finding out about suitable products - (online searches, forums such as this, work associates or peers, societies or groups) and which of these methods or others are seen as professional / acceptable / best practice or whatever way you choose to phrase it?

e.g. I use MS technet and kb articles as my main resource for MS products, some people only ever do a google search of a problem first time every time.

pham0329

I don't have anything against open source products, but the lack of "real" support is usually what breaks the deal among management. Also, it's just my opinion, but the open source software that I've dealt with in the past are never quite as intuitive/user friendly as a commercial product.

MiikeB

Also, it is much harder to find people who are experts in open source software. Lets say they go with something open source, you spend 120 hours learning how to use it etc, then 6 months from now you leave. They are probably going to have trouble finding someone who knows the open source application you chose so the new hire will have to spend time learning it too.

The only time I have seen open source products widely used was when I worked at a University. I believe this is due to the tight budgets they face as well as the fact that the turnover rate is usually much lower than at most businesses.