What answers can I provide to common arguments against FOSS?

The training material  Block11-Barriers to Open Source adoption.pdf (316Ko) describes considerations and the potential of FOSS.

Additionally, arguments might be as follows:

Argument 1: No developer support
Direct support may be hard to get in some cases

Answer 1:
Many distributors and FOSS service providers provide this support; see http://www.foss-bridge.org/companies_list.html. Coordinate with the FOSS community and make SLA (service level agreements) if needed.
Users can develop themselves, if knowledge available in company.


Argument 2: High Training Requirements

Answer 2:
Of course, some training will have to be done. But many FOSS Desktop environments (e.g. Gnome, KDE) are intuitive and easy to use, so that transition from Windows for Desktop use is no challenge.
Many tutorials and training materials are available for free on the Internet; many localized to different languages.
Many commercial training providers available; see http://www.foss-bridge.org/companies_list.html. Official certifications for FOSS exist; for example see LPI (Linux Professional Institute).


Argument 3: Uncertain Future Development of FOSS Products

Answer 3:
Closed software, too, does not provide protection against discontinued products and services. Open standard mitigate this problem somewhat: companies can always hire someone to continue development and provide support.

Argument 4: Specialized applications not available

Answer 4:
In some areas, this might be true. In these cases using FOSS is obviously not an option.
FOSS adoption is growing and so is the number and quality of available software. Especially in the server market, FOSS products are often at least as good as their commercial counterparts. Many new applications are web-based. Here FOSS offers all the necessary infrastructure and many commercial products rely on FOSS.


Argument 5: Interoperability with commercial software not available

Answer 5:
In some areas this might be true. However, forcing commercial providers to use open standards will improve the situation.
Standards, such as SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), force commercial providers to follow those standards, resulting in increased interoperability.


Argument 6: FOSS Business Models do not work

Answer 6:
FOSS Business Models rely on service, not on software sales. The value for the customer must be in the software maintenance, support, customizing and similar products. This will work, if the company providing FOSS has sufficient skills and knowledge and the adoption of the FOSS product in question has achieved a certain “critical mass”, which means a certain number of users that generate sufficient demand to ensure the further adoption of the software in question.
Open standards lower the market entry barrier for small and new companies, which do not have to pay royalties to big companies to license their data formats.

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