Recently we were surprised to see that popular Windows control panel software, DotNetPanel had decided to change its licensing model and move to open source under the name WebSitePanel. We use DotNetPanel here at Rackwire for our shared Windows hosting accounts and, in the past, our Windows VPS plans as well. All in all, we have been happy with the product and our customer’s seem pleased with it as well. There have been times however, where we’ve thought it would be nice if we could change some functionality or even add our own features to the application. Enter open source.
For the uninitiated, when software is released, the source code that was used to create that application is generally either considered open source or closed source (proprietary). Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software. Closed source software generally describes software whose source code is not published. The most popular example would be the open source operating system Linux and its counterpart Microsoft Windows whose code is proprietary.
While there are certainly advantages and disadvantages to each software model, we typically try to use open source software as often as possible for a number of reasons. Our App Market for example, features a number of open source applications:
- WordPress
- Joomla
- Drupal
- SugarCRM
- osCommerce
- MediaWiki
- ZenCart
One reason try to use open source software when possible is because of the flexibility it provides us. As web hosting experts, we also do a fair amount of software programming. Using open source software allows us to easily modify or add features to our product offerings. For example, to get Drupal added to our series of “1-Click Installer” applications, some modifications needed to be made to the code. Had this been a closed source application, these updates would not have been possible.
Another benefit of open source is the community aspect. Popular open source software is generally worked on by a community of developers from all over the world. Proprietary software on the other hand, is generally worked on by one, or a team of developers employed by the software manufacturer. Often times, open source projects have many times more developers working on the software than a similar closed source application would have. Because of this, things like patches, bug fixes and upgrades are usually released at a much faster pace.
Last but not least, open source is that it is generally provided free of charge (free and open source / FOSS). Saving on licensing costs never hurts and helps us pass on savings to our clients.
With all that being said, we are extremely happy that DotNetPanel has decided to go open source and hope the community really gets behind the project. With the open source community behind it, we think it could really take off and ultimately benefit our customers and the hosting industry as a whole. DotNotPanel is available with all of our shared Windows hosting plans.
We get the constant request from Customers to add BlackBerry Enterprise Server to their Windows Exchange VPS or Dedicated Servers for their Enterprise e-mail accounts. When we go to price the BES Server Software for their dedicated Server Environments the price tag would give them shell shock.
