Critique: Guide to the Total Cost of Ownership of Open-Source Software

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2022-05-18 04:30:04

The post Guide to the Total Cost of Ownership of Open-Source Software by Peter Schneider (The Qt Company) provides a smorgasbord of alternative facts why we should not use Qt LGPL but instead buy Qt Commercial. I can’t miss the irony that Schneider like many of his sales colleagues are bad-mouthing Qt LGPL to promote Qt Commercial. Qt LGPL and Commercial share the same code.

In the section “The Myth of Open Source is Free”, Schneider outlines the four “guidelines” of his post and makes his main claim (emphasis mine).

While the use of commercial software includes little hidden costs over the product’s lifetime, several additional costs must be considered when using open-source libraries. These include: 1. Fixing bugs yourself […] 2. Implementing the open-source obligations […] 3. Implementing legal checks […] 4. Performing regular license compliance checks […]

Bollocks! The costs are pretty much the same – no matter whether we use Qt LGPL or Qt Commercial for building embedded systems. I’ll focus on embedded Linux systems in my critique, because they are prevalent in most industries. My arguments are transferable to embedded systems running on real-time operating systems or bare metal, to desktop applications and to mobile applications.