Open-source Software is a fickle mistress. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve founded my career as a technologist on OSS web platforms. But Open-source can be a bit like that stranger hottie you hook-up with at a Saturday night party.

To start, you’ve got to put in a lot of work just to get something going at all. No one is really going to help you seal the deal, except maybe some random guy who sees you eyeing her from across the room, and who knows if his advice is worth taking or not?

By the end of the night, you wonder if it was worth all that effort. Yeah, the price was right, but maybe you’d have gotten a better experience if you just hired a professional. Sure you wouldn’t fall in love, per se, but all your needs might have been met, and you might have saved a bunch of time and hassle.

Finally, you decide that since you put in all that work, you might as well make a relationship out of it. Sadly, there are a few compromises. Turns out, she’s pretty high-maintenance. She’s friends with everyone, but rarely has any clear life path. You enjoy your time together, but are never comfortably satisfied, always scanning the horizon for another girl to hook-up with. The grass is always green on the other side of the Open-source world.

A bit tongue-in-cheek, I’m not bailing on OSS anytime soon, but the older I get, the less appeal Saturday-night hookups and Free software and services seem to hold.