LATEST INTELLIGENCE
THE BUSINESS VALUE OF
RED HAT SOLUTIONS AND
COST RELATIONSHIP TO
UNPAID ALTERNATIVES
PRESENTED BY
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O
pen source software (OSS) has long held
the allure of being available for free use in
the form of community-supported projects,
in addition to being available in commercially
packaged and supported versions that are targeted
at business users.
That allure of free software has carried with it the
belief that by avoiding subscription fees, customers
can save money in the long term. Numerous IDC
Business Value research studies have found that
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INTELLIGENTCIO
higher operational costs associated with self-
supporting community-based infrastructure software
far outstrips the cost of commercial subscription
support, when that software is used in a mission-
important or mission-critical capacity.
The opex associated with maintenance of
unsupported infrastructure software begins with the
need to maintain expertise on staff to stay close to
the project’s community; then to vet, qualify and
apply upstream fixes and patches to live systems,
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