So you are thinking about making the switch to an open source content management system because they are more robust and will be more powerful and cheaper to run in the future… how will you explain to your boss or board that the proprietary CMS you already paid $5,000 to $20,000 or more totally sucks?

This question came up three times in the last several months in conversations with prospective clients. Organizations bought licenses for proprietary CMSs and then realized they could have just downloaded an open source application for FREE that is better and more customizable, and in the end better meet their needs.

This option has actually become kind of a nightmare for some IT professionals because they see the cost savings of getting their site live faster and the long run benefits of using an OSS system that has a deep and active developers community.

Here are just two problems that surface again and again…

1) Staying on time: IT managers will no longer be stuck waiting for that promised upgrade/bug fix that was promised 3 months ago by the proprietary vendor. This means that they will stop looking like an idiot to their boss as they constantly have to keep pushing back the date they promised to have the system performing to expectations. With OSS the IT manager has the power to take care of matters themselves, squash bugs, get immediate support or offer it to others, and are able to work in a transparent community. Staying plugged in to thelistserv/online forum in the developers community gives the IT manager accurate information to be aware of the status of bug fixes/security holes and new updates. Look how great CivicSpace’s listserv works and the Drupal forums. These are two great examples of the transparency in OSS and its benefits.

2) Staying ahead of the curve: As new features are needed or become available you will not be expected to pay an extra $1,500 for a "create your own forums WISYWIG" or $500 to include spellchecker into your content editor like you do with CommonSpot, for example. Just down load the new plugins or features and install them for free. For example look at the fixes to HTMLarea by Boris Mann, and the new mods by Sheldon such as headlines.module to give front pages more custom control… or Tim Jones’, Aldon’s and Drumm’s podcasting module… podcasting didn’t even really exist like it does now until last summer. Commonspot just implemented RSS capabilities a couple month ago.

So none of this really answered your question about what to do with you old CMS that you paid thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for or how to bring this up with your boss. While not the ideal situation I recommend selling your old CMS to a Microsoft lover/sucker on eBay, get the $50 and take your boss out for whisky and break the news to them. I personally recommend starting with Old Grand Dad to break the ice. To quote Boris, it’s 2005, “you need to be able to edit your own website.” Make it an OSS site and head over to eBay to sell your proprietary system.