Comments on: Convincing Your Clients to Use Open Platforms

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:01:26 +0000

It seems like I found a great place for my dilemma.
I used to work with Java in the last 7 years.
Before I start a new project, I thought of creating it using PHP or ASP.net, and I found out some great framework that should make it easier and faster. (faster then Java :))
I will appreciate your advise.
On my new website, a side of an ecommerce site, I should implement a web service that should support 2000-10000 hits a minute.
It’s kind of API service that use the configuration set by the users and return true/false.
The service should have a good ecommerce attributes with CMS, payout methods, SEO, etc, and on the other hand good performance and scalability web service.
By your experience and knowledge, which platform should I choose?

Thanks

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:50:07 +0000

Open platform is a great way to go, as the saying goes ‘Two heads are better than one’ and security is normally increased because of the nature of having so many users the bugs are found and shared, then corrected.

By: Hregrin

Hregrin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:51:39 +0000

I never doubted the potential of free and open source software in web design. In fact, I use almost only FOSS. And my clients never complained :D

But I think you should define your vision of the word “open”. Platforms like YouTube or Vimeo are free-to-use but they are proprietary platforms using closed video formats (such as FLV). So they should really not be “sold” as “open” platforms. They aren’t.

By: Alex Kessinger

Alex Kessinger — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:23:51 +0000

But thanks @Narretz, for keeping us inline.

By: Jacob Gube

Jacob Gube — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 13:07:34 +0000

@Narretz: Isaac Newton *popularized* it, not necessarily the person who said it first (history dates it back to Bernard of Chartres around 1159). You can read more about it here.

By: Narretz

Narretz — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:26:57 +0000

I have a non-content related correction: Isaac Newton lived in the 17th century, so the quote is not even 500 years old.

By: Benjamin @ EV

Benjamin @ EV — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 08:25:45 +0000

Great article, we use WordPress and swear by it.

By: km

km — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:57:29 +0000

Most of my clients like open website platform because the back end development is taking care by other expertise programmer and there is a lot of free plugin available on the internet to enhance the open website platform.
The most important is they no need spend much on website platform development.

All they need is concentrating posting article and make the website more interesting.

By: Gonzo the Great

Gonzo the Great — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:43:48 +0000

Hi Alex,

I think you have a couple of good points here, but .. (there is always a ‘but’ in these kind of sentences ;-P) I think it primarily depends on the demands of your client.

What if a client doesn’t want a CMS, or a RSS, or a comment-area, or streaming media ..? I know those clients exist, I’ve worked for some of these companies/firms.

What I want to say is that I’m not against open platforms (heck, I myself have completely pimped a couple WP-blogs for my own use or for clients – and I love WP!), but sometimes a good, solid, good hand-coded and validated static HTML doesn’t hurt anybody.

Thanks for sharing, Cheers & Ciao …

By: Jason Hibbets

Jason Hibbets — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:23:30 +0000

I see this issue all the time. I think open source is awesome and think everyone else should use it, but it’s hard to push that on folks who don’t care. Clients are looking for solutions. If you can provide those solutions and use open platforms to do it, that’s great. Sometimes the client won’t care. Outside of my day job, I do web design. I typically tell my clients that their solution is open source after the facts (Drupal or WordPress usually). “Oh, by the way, we did this all on open source.” I think this is more effective then trying to “sell” open source up front.

Great article.
Jason