Why You Can't use Open Source Software for Enterprise Systems

You can't use open source for enterprise applications. There it is, I said it. Open source has no database. The keystone, the sine qua non, the linchpin of enterprise development is the database. Don't yell NoSQL, that is a joke perpetrated by people who don't understand how databases are supposed to work, don't shout MySQL that is a nightmare comparable to Access just without the slick user interface and without the reporting tools. I get this bug from the latest post  "A Consulting Firm Attempts a Transition to Open Source Health Software" by my buddy Andy Oram over at EMR and HIPAA.  

There is really only one reason to use open source software in the first place and that is its price: free.  Yup, its free and worth every penny.  You don't have a database, you don't have support, you don't have any reasonable expectation of having developers who even know what they are doing. We make that bold and inflammatory statement because they don't know about databases.  In a related post a couple of weeks ago, we detailed why there is no such thing as big data.  The conclusion was that the open source guys had gotten behind Hadoop and noSQL becuase they were something that Oracle and SQL Server don't have.  Then we told you why running procedural code (Java, Row by agonizing row or RBAR processing, the way NoSQL and Hadoop jobs work) was an amazingly inferior way to do things.  You are already here, go look at the article, I'll wait.

So yes, the open source guys have proven that they don't have the first clue what they are doing with these big, new, buzzword 'technologies' that do things the way they were done in the bad old days (the 60s) on mainframes requiring astounding amounts of processing power to even work.  They are building solutions that are looking for problems.  Flash forward to 1979 when Larry Ellis introduced Oracle and we enter the modern age of computer programming.  I might even say that everything since then has just been window dressing or transportation to and from the database.

So, dear reader, do you want to go back to the bad old days of bell bottoms and horrible music, or do you want to come with me into the modern world of software design?  We noted above that the the one attractive thing about open source was its price.  Actually, it isn't free.  The people who produce this open source software don't do it from the kindness of their hearts, they want money, just like everyone else.  They market their products like drug dealers.  Sure, the first snort is free, but then they have you.  

So let's examine free.  If I want to build open source stuff using Linux and Apache and all that, I can go to Arvixe and get Cloud based hosting for exactly the same price they charge for Windows.  And Windows comes with SQL Server.  Where they get you is in the support.  They already know that you don't know what you are doing so you call your open source vendor and ask a question.  There goes a couple of hundred dollars, and they don't have the ability to document and eradicate problems with the software.  

Conclusion: Once again, you are barking up the wrong tree.  There is no advantage to going Open Source and several huge drawbacks.  We here at Sentia Health have done the homework, have done the due diligence, and understand the things that need to be understood.  What we as a population need is a standard for healthcare.  We have that standard.  It's done.  Come see for yourself.

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