Public vs. Proprietary frameworks

Many people still works in a company that allows them to design applications freely over a certain programming language or to be deployed over a specific server. But many other people have to develop a busyness tool with a proprietary framework with too many limitations and bugs. This turns project management into a difficult task and the project manager became Ethan Hunt*.

But... why I say this?

Let me tell you an example. If we are managing a project without any framework in any programming language with any development studio, and we discover a no documented bug, we type the error in Google a in a couple of minutes we will find a developer that had the same bug months (or years) ago and anyone help him to solve the problem. So it's easy the risk control and maintain the project timeline.

In other hand, if we have a bug in a proprietary framework:

• Never is documented.
• No one knows how to solve it.
• Outside, in the real world, no one have ever heard about our error code. 
• No one in the whole world had the same bug previously or if had it, he didn't ask for a solution in any forum. 
• In summary: if we have a problem and there isn't a solution.

But... why we use proprietary frameworks?

There was a time where big companies have troubles to retain their best employees, because them leave the company looking for a better place to work or simply, a higher salary. Then, the companies had two options: increase their best employees or equate their best employees with their worst ones. And then, the first frameworks were launched.

In this new context, companies didn't need excellent developers neither analyst. Only need a couple of employees who worked their eight hours a day and didn't want to leave the company. In fact those were the worst and more faithful employees. People who had been working at the company for ten year or more and knew that were very difficult (or impossible) for them to reach another job in any other company. In summary, companies prefer loyal employees than high level workers, and this turns source code in rubbish.

Is now different?

I am not sure... I worked years ago with proprietary frameworks and was very difficult to keep deadlines and costs in the project. Usually, I used this rule that said me my Software Engineering teacher: when you have an accurate estimation all tasks, multiply it by two and use the upper time unit. And sometimes we haven't time enough...

Now is easier work with frameworks, almost all are based in a public one with a couple of variants or limitations, but not few times, employers want that you know their framework dialect to offer you the job. Nowadays, I am working with this kind of framework and we have a lot of problems, limitations and bugs. But framework returns a public error code that we can find in many forums and this bugs are solved in a couple of days or week. This make easier keep deadlines and costs.

In fact, we have a third kind of frameworks that are customized. With this intermediate level of frameworks we only have advantages: the power of a private framework and the knowledge and experience of the internet community.

*Ethan Hunt is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mission: Impossible film series.