How Open are we to Open Source?

(Michael Coates, Object Consulting - Java J2EE on Windows and Unix. Focus on solution architecture - Consulting, Development, Training and Support.)

Java development - relies on open source software on every project he works on including development environment and frameworks - in commercial and government. Java - lots of open source; Microsoft.Net - filling gaps especially Java developers desiring specific features.

Examples:

• Eclipse, Netbeans, xplanner.
• Ruby - mainly DSL for build processes.
• Some Linux and database deployment.
• Java language itself is becoming open source.
• JBoss, Tomcat - rare in givernment and enterprise.
• Few business, enterprise applications to match Office, Notes, SAP.

Australian National Archives has three open source projects on Source Forge. Infomedix - five major hospitals has systems based on Linux plus MySQL commercial licences. University departments - eg. 350 students onsite - open source everything, high reliability (uptime). Lesser GPL or Apache licence for reuse of libraries.

Licencing considerations:

• As a platform? ef. JBoss, Tomcat, Linux.
• As a library? eg. log4j, Spring, nHibernate.
• Modifying, borrowing from, eatending lib or product? eg. customer CMS.
• Internal solution.
• Developed on behalf of third party.
• Plan to distribute for free or for a cost.
• How to get new licence approved?

Barriers to adoption - Support:

• Forums, wiki pages.
• Community versus Enterprise licences.
• How does it compare to support for current solutions? Vary between the development team and the business users.
• Where do we get training? Available for mature projects.

Barriers to adoptions - Incumbent vendors:

• No one every got fired for buying...
• Cost of change for retraining, deployment. Need to have a significant reason to change.
• Bargaining.

Yet er're still using Open Source:

• Cost effective - existing skills, low cost to try.
• Open standards - avoid vendor lock-in; interop, duture proofing.
• Reduced time to market - particularly for development teams.
• Best of breed.

Trend towards greater focus on business domain components over technical domain, eg. model-driven architecture (MDA) for business patterns. You cannot sell infrastructure to business - OS projects focus on techies (devel tools, libs, OS). For wide adoption provide visible business value (CMS, CRM, ERP). Government agencies making open source available to wider community.