Linux Online - Why proprietary software is dangerous for business-critical applications

Why proprietary software is dangerous for business-critical applications


Publication:	Newsforge	Date:	Aug 29 2006
Reporter:	Robin 'Roblimo' Miller

A friend of mine is the IT manager for a medium-sized wholesale distribution business. One afternoon in early August, a hard disk drive in one of his employer's servers started to show signs that it was dying. That hard drive contained the company's (proprietary) credit card processing software, which was chosen specifically to integrate with the company's (proprietary) inventory control and accounting software package. My friend -- we'll call him Stan -- didn't think the problem was a big deal. He'd just reinstall the card-processing software on another hard drive, move the customer data he'd wisely backed up onto the new drive, and go home for the day. That was before he called the software company that had sold his employer the card-processing program -- a call that left Stan and his boss angry and confused.