Buy, or build? Build -> opportunity cost, ongoing cost, legacy Buy -> upfront cost, integrate, ongoing cost, and maybe eventually extortion leading you to Bui

Buy, or build? Build -> opportunity cost, ongoing cost, legacy Buy -> upfront cost, integrate, ongoing cost, and maybe eventually extortion leading you to Build a replacement. This leads to many different implementations of roughly the same concepts all over, which sucks. Or open source, if it already exists. Or both. Not that open source doesn't have integration costs. But think of this from an executive's perspective. Building really sucks. But buying sucks more in the future. You might just buy. I've seen all of these. My preference is to grudgingly build if suitable open source doesn't already exist.