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During the current economic downturn, enterprises are increasingly adopting open source systems due to their significant cost advantages and their liberal licence policies.
All open source projects, by definition, provide the end user with certain perpetual rights and freedoms in using, studying, modifying and redistributing the product. However, there is a lot of inconsistency in terms of the product quality, the governance model and the availability of support. Thus, when selecting open source components for your enterprise, it is important to do some background checks to ensure the open source product you have selected is compatible with your enterprise business model and IT standards. Below are 10 questions you can ask to evaluate open source maturity.
1: Are the open source licence terms compatible with my business requirements?
Open source is mainly protected by copyright law, and the licence provides the basis for the rights you have on the software. To be classified as open source, any product needs to adhere to the four freedoms: to use, to study, to redistribute and to improve. However, licences often include other terms that might be incompatible with certain business models. For example, the popular GPL licence asks that any improvements and derivative works you create also be released under the same quid pro quo terms.
While this seems like a reasonable condition and will be not an issue for generic enterprise use, it can be a deal breaker for a proprietary product company that wants to include a GPL component in its product. Thus, it is important to make sure you understand the terms of the open source licence before you adopt a component into your enterprise. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Open Source Initiative (OSI) serve as guides to open source licences, and both have pages that validate and catalogue open source licences.
2: What is the strength of the community?
An open source project is not just about the code, but also about the open community surrounding and sustaining the project. These communities can range from the lone teen developer to a single organisation to complex diverse multi-entity communities, such as found in Linux and Firefox.
A well known open source law demonstrated first in Linux is that “with enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow”. What this means is given a large enough critical mass of people in the community testing, maintaining, reviewing and fixing the code, bugs and security vulnerabilities become less of a problem. A large active, diverse and responsive community is always a key indicator of the health and sustainability of an open source project.
3: How well is the product adopted by users?
The test of any open source project is how well it has been adopted by various user groups and organisations. Many of the mature open source projects showcase various clients who have adopted and are using their product. This gives you some assurances that the product will deliver on its promises, especially if you find an existing client similar to your enterprise.
Probably the best insight you can get into a product is from another user who has been using it for a while. The best projects have a rich community of users with a dedicated mailing list, where you can seek input on the product from a third-party user organisation.
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