this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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I get why enterprise likes VMWare but KVM isn’t harder to deal with. I’ve always worked at smaller companies so this isn’t an expert opinion. But I’ve always felt like at the infrastructure level, it ends up being cheaper to hire experts and run the open source solution (assuming it’s mature and at feature parity) than pay licensing and support fees.
An expert in one thing will usually add to your company in other ways too. Talent > “solutions” in the long run.
Say what? Going back to only KVM in modern DCs is some crazy talk. If your org is small enough that KVM is even remotely an option, then I'd recommend running a cost/benefit analysis on whether hosting a small server farm on prem is even worthwhile.
But when you're managing hundreds of servers with dozens of various purposes, FOSS solutions aren't always tenable. And not using a mature, feature complete virtualization platform is just straight up masochistic, not to mention potentially dangerous from a security standpoint.
I agree that talent > solutions, but if you want to retain that talent, you have to make their lives not miserable at work, which means sometimes having to purchase solutions to make their lives easier.
Small and medium (and even large) companies investing in talent instead of commercial solutions is the solution to improving FOSS. I know it has downsides, as you stated, but there are significant upsides. FOSS is cheaper than a custom solution, and the company only has to pay for the modifications it wants to see. The whole community then benefits from their hard work adding features and maintaining the software.
I'm not saying that it's the BEST idea for every company. All I'm saying is not to discount FOSS out of hand for these companies. There are significant advantages for companies that should be weighed against the cons. This kind of advocacy is also important in furthering the FOSS model.