I don't know about startups. I work for a mid-sized company.
I consider open source to be a better choice in my discussions for these reasons:
* Vendor lock-in avoidance. This can induce some pretty harsh long-term effects, especially with maintenance fees, inflexible users, and data isolation.
* Code escrow. If your customers are relying on a particular component being available for you, it's not a really good thing if that component is 'disappeared' by an API rev. Open source provides trivial code escrow facilities.
* Speed of development. Open source projects seem to move faster than enterprise-level software.
* Company risk: there's no risk of the source code simply going away because the company folded or was bought out. If needed, we can maintain an open-source component if it's that critical.
* Standards-compliance: most open source seems to think about standards more.
* 'Wave of The Future': many novel developments are in open source. If we make sure to ride that wave, we won't obsolete ourselves by locking to a single company.
These reasons all relate to software maintenance and agility in some fashion. Being able to maintain software and to shift platforms (when appropriate) is important. Open source allows those qualities to be there more than non-open source, in my opinion.
I have seen enough Java/MS revs pass through that I don't think it would be professional to recommend solutions based on those platforms, in general.
Best wishes to those those do venture out onto the churny waters, though.
I consider open source to be a better choice in my discussions for these reasons:
* Vendor lock-in avoidance. This can induce some pretty harsh long-term effects, especially with maintenance fees, inflexible users, and data isolation.
* Code escrow. If your customers are relying on a particular component being available for you, it's not a really good thing if that component is 'disappeared' by an API rev. Open source provides trivial code escrow facilities.
* Speed of development. Open source projects seem to move faster than enterprise-level software.
* Company risk: there's no risk of the source code simply going away because the company folded or was bought out. If needed, we can maintain an open-source component if it's that critical.
* Standards-compliance: most open source seems to think about standards more.
* 'Wave of The Future': many novel developments are in open source. If we make sure to ride that wave, we won't obsolete ourselves by locking to a single company.
These reasons all relate to software maintenance and agility in some fashion. Being able to maintain software and to shift platforms (when appropriate) is important. Open source allows those qualities to be there more than non-open source, in my opinion.
I have seen enough Java/MS revs pass through that I don't think it would be professional to recommend solutions based on those platforms, in general.
Best wishes to those those do venture out onto the churny waters, though.