Open source advocacy

Open Source is the optimal third party.

• Our customers have a limited budget. We take a share of it. The more expensive the remainder (hardware, system software, third party), the smaller our share.
• Third parties have commercial and political (e.g. licensing) interests. These have to be compatible with our customers'. This is close to impossible to assert in advance, given fusions and alliances. Being neutral, Open Source is equally acceptable for all.
• Maintenance is hard to organize in the context of multiple third parties: any combination of tools reduces the quality of the support we get (e.g. Iona Orbix is not built on HP-UX with RogueWave distributed libraries). Using Open Source software, we can buy the maintenance of any configuration we choose from an external software company.