IT: With freedom comes responsibility

Beware IT suppliers bearing gifts. That's essentially the message coming out of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), which advocates 'open', unfettered and apparently also uncontrolled software – particularly by commercial software vendors, which it shuns. FSF makes one overarching point, as articulated by its president Richard Stallman, the charismatic IT rebel and advocate of the 'copyleft' concept, whereby modified proprietary code is made freely available, using copyright legislation against itself. "If users have sufficient freedom, they can control a program and [its development]. Otherwise, the software owner controls the program and the users, which is an injustice," he insists. Stallman cites IT majors, such as Microsoft, Apple and Adobe, as being on the wrong side of his argument by forbidding redistribution and making source code inaccessible. He even refers to embedded "malicious features" that spy on users' activities, impose "digital handcuffs" plus, in addtion, enable sinister 'back doors'. For him, free software is a crusade and, like most crusades, the issue is where to draw the line. Of course, many companies might once have relished the opportunity to change some aspect of their, say, ERP software, to match its functionality more precisely to their perceived requirements. Manufacturing is littered with instances of implementations that faltered because the software couldn't be coaxed to do exactly what finance, sales and subsequently operations thought they wanted. So the notion of being able to make 'improvements' is inherently appealing. However, equally, there are plenty of examples of expensive white elephants born out of the now discredited belief that freedom to create software flavours other than vanilla was a good thing. The fact is, with freedom comes responsibility – the responsibility to ensure that enhancements work, don't cause clashes and can be supported through the inevitable upgrade path. That costs money, as the software giants' R&D budgets bear witness. Further, Stallard may not recognise the outcome, but most big ERP vendors are finally embracing standards and service orientated architectures, which, beyond the hype, do allow flexibility enough for most mere mortals. But there is one other key point: today, the focus is necessarily on doing the business of manufacturing better – not worrying unduly about the niceties of an IT environment. Few doubt the critical contribution a good IT department makes, but the apparent absence of any appetite for big suite freeware, like OpenBravo ERP, says it all.