Having been part of the team exhibiting on the Plone stand for two previous technology shows, IMS and TFM&A, it was a nice change to be on the other side when I visited Internet World this week. Seemed a busy show, particularly the talks which resembled a popular Boxing Day sale.
However, for me, the single biggest surprise from the show was the sales methods I encountered from some CMS (Content Management System) vendors. Particularly when they realised I was from a digital agency. Even as someone who's involved in business development, the number of times that kickbacks and mark-ups (linked directly to the licence fee) were promised to me seemed to be, dare I say it, a little bit underhand and desperate. Next time someone recommends a particular piece of licensed software to meet your needs, certainly worth double-checking why.
I was also amazed at the details of some so-called 'transparent pricing' schemes - where some vendors will charge you additional licence costs for any of their (sometimes as many as forty) plug-ins, covering requirements as common as a contact form. And then want to charge you the whole licence figure again for using the same CMS on a second website.
Admittedly, I'm probably dwelling on the worst examples, rather than the many people who were going about their business professionally in the very crowded proprietary CMS market.
But the whole experience made me realise the extent of the positive message behind Open Source software. Not being a developer, I take it for granted that there's a huge library of plug-ins that can be offered to our clients at no licence cost. And that when someone likes an Open Source CMS so much they recommend it to their colleagues for something similar on another site, it's nice that there's not a large licence cost to bear.
At the end of the day, obviously all companies need to make a living - and Open Source providers are no different. But even if you never need access to a program's Open Source code, there's also something to be said about the value for money and culture of common sense and fairness that also comes with choosing Open Source.