Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
Is it risky to have dependency on a open source service?
Unlike a open source dll or componenent the service obviously needs to be constantly running, therefore is it a business risk to rely on it? What happens if the open source service disappears for whatever reason?
The service under question would not be used for a business critical application but if successfull it will obviously gain in importance?
Many Thanks
If it’s really ‘Open Source’ (as opposed to merely free), you can download the source and run it yourself it the original provider goes away. Of course, you’d want to download the source ahead of time, because if the service provider goes away, there’s not guarantee that there will be a site to download it from. Also, you’d probably want to keep backups of the data for yourself if you can.
But if you’re misusing the term ‘open source’ to mean a free service like the Google Maps API, then yeah, if it goes away, you’re boned. But if Google Maps goes away, so is half the net.