How do organizations use open source tools to enable business while enforcing privacy and security standards?
From my recent interview with E-Commerce Times:
"There will always be piracy in some shape or form," said Vaclav Vincalek, president of PCIS.
"I would agree that SaaS and/or open source can prevent illegal copying More about illegal copying of software. To get support, help, or updates, you have to be a paying customer. Examples include Red Hat or SuSe Linux Distro," he told the E-Commerce times.
"Software pirates will, in the case of SaaS, try to break into a system to bypass regular registration and create a free account. Pirates will thus morph into hackers," said Vincalek.
It could very well be that the only way to stop piracy is to simply have nothing to steal. In essence, to follow a version of SugarCRM's More about SugarCRM model and base most of the customer's cost on the knowledge rather than the product.
"By giving software away for free, pirates have nothing to gain," explained Vincalek. "Value is now in the knowledge of how to use the product -- using proper processes, implementation and support. These can remain as the domain of a for-profit company, and they are much harder to steal."
If your organization uses open source tools, how do you protect privacy? Will my solution outlined above reduce piracy? Please, let me know.
Vaclav Vincalek August 17th, 2009 10:00:00 AM