The White House Site Chooses a Cool Open Source Solution... That Happens to Be Expensive and Ineffective

This week a new WhiteHouse.gov website arrived that had been built with Drupal free open-source code in the background.

The White House shift to Drupal from a proprietary software package represents a serious approval for the open-source software. You know, President Obama being once again the coolest politician on Earth...

However, in terms of costs, Drupal is not the best solution. Base code is free, but a high-end customization and maintenance can be really costly.

In terms of security, since everybody on the planet can read the code (and there are half a million Drupal sites), many holes and bugs are daily reported. So you need to spend money on monitoring holes, fixing them and issuing patches.

For sure, there is a security mailing list that anyone can sign up to. You will receive mail on the latest security fixes. Your Drupal installation will tell you when components are out of date, and when there are security updates.

Real problem comes with undiscovered exploits. Not all the bugs are found and fixed on time. Not all of them are reported -especially the ones who would permit the bad guys to hack the WhiteHouse.gov site.

Running a Drupal -or Joomla, it doesn't matter- driven website without enough financial resources can be a nightmare.

Because the so-called free software is not free at all. On the contrary, it can be very expensive. Only if you want to be super-cool, it is worth the price.

Do I want you discourage you from using Drupal / Joomla or other extended open-source CMS (Content Management System)? Not fully... Or, may be yes.

You need to follow the money behind the Drupal business. The guy who wrote the underlying code for Drupal, in 2001, Dries Buytaert, is now the chief technology officer of Acquia, a start-up looking to commercialize the software. Yes, commercialize. Meaning: design, customization, daily security maintenance, and all the services around. For example, you need to know that Drupal provides a nightmarish content list, and doesn't have a convenient way prevent two people from accidentally editing the same page at the same time. In other words, you always need support.

Like many open-source companies, Acquia sells service and support to back up the free Drupal. It claims about 300 customers, and "that number is doubling every quarter."

So what is our advice? Write your own open-source code. You will be able to build from the beginning your dreamt web platform. You won't need to hire engineers investing long hours struggling with Drupal or Joomla code. You will spend the money on something that only belongs to you. Any talented PHP programmer will be able to enhance that code. And in terms of security, it would be thousand times better. Since the code is not posted and is not available to be downloaded, it would be hard to find any hole and bug. The maintenance work will be more pleasant and cheaper.

We can help you in this process. We are technology agnostic.

Comments :

Not important

  This is one of the silliest arguments I have read on the subject. So you guys will custom build something better, more secure and more scalable than Drupal. you must be awesome. I cant imagine why you havent been hired yet by the white house?

Ed

  How can one write its own "open-source code" and then say "the code is not posted and is not available to be downloaded". Then you are not talking about open-source, but about developing a proprietary CMS. I do not think that is a good idea at all.... Do not reinvent the wheel!

Mario

  "In terms of security, since everybody on the planet can read the code" : this also means that many people can work together on fixing bugs. Proprietary software comes also from coders and developers (human beings) that do mistakes, as the ones that do open-source. But with securities and bugs in proprietary sofwate: you have to wait untill the company/guy that create the software realises the patch.