But there are free versions. Why should I pay to use these products?
So you want to build a new website. There are lots of free to use Open Source Software (OSS) options to choose from on the market. I use the Joomla CMS but there are others. Why don't I just use free templates and extensions? That's a great big loaded question right there. Let me go into a few of the reasons.
People
Who makes and supports OSS? People who spend countless years of their lives working on projects like Joomla or others. Typically these same people are also developers that create and support templates, extensions, plugins etc for the OSS they also support. We are so lucky to have super talented developers working on the Joomla project. They also have to keep a roof over their head.
As a long time user of Joomla CMS, I've also been giving back. Not as a coder but in the social media team. While I recently stepped away from that area (read the details here), I still admin the Joomla group on Facebook as well as a few others and share important info.
Why use additional extensions at all?
Functionality vs Cost. As the article below points out the cost to develop from scratch vs being able to plug in that functionality spreading the development cost over many people is the big reason. There is also is the design factor. There are lots of fab developers who don't do design work. There are lots of designers (myself included), who are absolutely not developers or programmers. Extensions etc allow me to add the functionality my clients request without me having to hire a programmer to build the extra things.
Support
For a small personal website if something goes wrong with your form or gallery etc you probably are ok (not happy but the world won't end) with not getting a response right away on if it's getting fixed soon. IF it is your business site you want it fixed yesterday and anything but fast and professional service for your issue is not OK!
Sustainability
So you made the investment and have your site working just how you like it. But software and technology is constantly evolving. Those important components used to make your website are important. It's important that the developer that made those components is able to stay in business so it is updated to continue to support your website. I've seen way too many great developers have to make the hard decision to abandon their creations because free doesn't keep the lights on. What does that mean to you? If their widget controls an important part of your website functionality is there a replacement? What about the cost to replace it with something else and learn the new workflow?
Choices
So with all that info comes choices. I choose my extensions carefully based on the developer, quality of their extensions, support and longevity.
My clients depend on their websites. It's their business and if something goes wrong they want to know when it is getting fixed. This is when that free extension by unknown dev that you now can't reach falls flat.
Every day web developers around the world make these choices. These choices affect the reliability of your website. Are they in your best interest? Ask the question because your website is an important investment decision!
The article that inspired my article on the topic today:
The Value of Open Source Software
Researchers at Harvard Business School and University of Toronto used unique data to quantify the value of open source.
Takeways:
* Supply-side (cost to recreate) is ~$4.15B, but demand-side (value to firms) is $8.8T. Shows massive cost savings & productivity boost from OSS.
* If OSS didn't exist, firms would need to spend an estimated 3.5 times more on software than they currently do. OSS provides a massive, often invisible, productivity boost.
* A tiny fraction of OSS developers create the vast majority of value. Only 5% of developers are responsible for over 96% of the demand-side value
* Firms should not just "free ride" on OSS but actively contribute to the ecosystem, as this is far cheaper than recreating the software themselves.
Article by; Manuel Hoffmann, Harvard Business School, Frank Nagle, Harvard Business School, Yanuo Zhou, University of Toronto
