FusionCharts mocks open source but uses it extensively
blog.overseas-exile.com
blog.overseas-exile.com
When we say hobby projects, we don't mean open source projects at large. We mean those charting libraries that an enthusiastic developer decides to build over a weekend, as a learning project, and release to the world. Developers in other organizations looking for a charting library come across it, pick it up and start implementing it in their applications. The initial results feel good, but as soon as the developer moves onto implementing advanced capabilities, they start running into product limitations, cross-browser compatibility issues etc. And when they go back to the creator trying to get a fix for it, the developer has abandoned the project because it was a hobby project for him and his day job is keeping him busy. At this point, if you want to stick with the same product, you've 2 options; either extend the project yourself, or find someone who can do it for you - both of which could be distraction for your main development, and delay execution for you.
We have been in business for over 11 years now and have seen a lot of players like this that come up, and hence our stance. As an enterprise, when you are building an application, charting might not be your core strength. And hence, when you are looking for someone to take care of that, you need to find yourselves an enterprise-grade charting component. Not only does that cover you on the product part of things and meaningful implementations that can inspire you, it also gives you extensive documentation, assurance that it will continue development and that when you have a tech query, you can go to a support team that will be there when you are running on a tight deadline and need a fix.
That being said, we are not against open source at all. A good chunk of our own development tools and infrastructure are open-source. There are some good open source charting libraries as well, which we have listed in a competitor comparison table on our website at www.fusioncharts.com/javascript-charting-comparison/.
Here's a good read on when choosing a commercial library, instead of open source library, for a niche purpose makes sense - http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/581146/8-reasons-to-choo...
But, at the end of the day, the decision is in your hand - for, developers are the king-makers!
Regardless, I agree that the author has misconstrued the intent. Flagging.
Edit: removed unnecessary political reference.
Fusion Charts is attacking libraries like this:
http://raphaeljs.com/ https://www.reverserisk.com/ico/ http://www.flotcharts.org/ http://www.jqplot.com/
I've not tried these libraries in a while, but certainly a few years ago they were buggy and hard to use. In other words that marketing line makes a whole lot of sense if you were an actual javascript developer trying to make charts.
Maybe things are different now, but I'd still use highcharts for a commercial website.
These libraries are great to start with, and works well for many use-cases. Just that when your needs expand (think of additional chart types for specific use-cases, cross-browser compatibility including IE6/7/8, direct support from developers, assurance of continued development and fixes, meaningful implementations for different business scenarios etc.), our customers believe in us!
I agree that you’re probably reading into this too much. But that’s okay—by posting it up to HN, you were able to get a larger sampling of devs to run it past! :)
That's certainly true :)