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When I joined OpenLogic 3 years ago, I wondered if enterprises would eventually standardize on a limited set of open source packages, thereby reducing the diversity of open source projects they use.
Well the verdict is in, and to-date we've seen that enterprises are using more and more open source software. They are expanding both the number of open source packages they use, as well as the number of places open source is deployed.
Because of this growth in open source usage, in 2008 we doubled the size of our certified library on OLEX to include 500 open source projects. These packages have passed our 42-point certification process to ensure that they are appropriate for enterprise use. The list of certified open source packages continues to grow based on market adoption and requests from our customers.
As our enterprise customers continue to expand their use of open source, they also wanted to give their developers the ability to research and evaluate a wide variety of open source packages. And they wanted to be able to govern and manage all of the open source in use within an organization -- whether OpenLogic-certified or not.
So we've responded by expanding OLEX to include 130,000 open source projects, in addition to the 500 certified projects. This allows developers to research and evaluate from a wide range of open source projects, while ensuring that corporate policies and governance controls remain in place. In addition, if enterprises identify a package that they want to use which has not yet been certified, they can make a request for OpenLogic to put it through the certification process.
At OpenLogic, we've found that once enterprises have put in place some basic controls for managing and governing open source, their use of open source tends to expand even more. After working with enterprises over the last three years, I've now seen the evidence that the explosion of open source in the enterprise will continue.
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