The Enterprise Open Source Blog

Proprietary Software Support vs. Open Source Support – Common Misconceptions

Posted by Nicholas DiPiazza on January 27th, 2012 in Support

Many people in the business world prefer to use proprietary software instead of open source software due to the misconception that proprietary software is better supported than open source software. After several years of supporting both open source software and proprietary software, it becomes clearly evident that just because you pay for proprietary software does not mean that supporting that software is any easier; in fact, there are plenty of reasons why supporting open source software is actually easier.

Let’s identify the set of steps you would take to handle a support issue for proprietary software.
First, you would have a system administrator consult the software documentation to learn more about the issue at hand to find a solution to the problem. If the administrator cannot resolve the issue with the use of documentation, then do one of the following:

SOPA and PIPA: What Bills Like These Mean to Open Source Software

Posted by Amanda DePaul on January 25th, 2012 in Open Source Trends

SOPA and PIPA were very recently put on hold after much protesting and petitioning from the likes of Wikipedia, Google, the Free Software Foundation, and angry Internet surfers everywhere – but you can bet this isn’t the last we’ve heard of bills such as these. So what would similar bills mean to open source software if they were realized? Here’s what the potential impact could look like.

Open Source Scanning: A Technical Perspective on Which Files to Scan

Posted by Dave McLoughlin on January 23rd, 2012 in Scanning & Provisioning

When preparing to scan your application development projects for open source software, one simple approach is to point your scanner at the root directory of your development system. But that is probably not the most efficient approach, and results may include many open source components that are not actually part of your application. Or worse, the scanner may miss components that are not present in the build environment. There are many reasons to be careful and selective about what you scan and why. Here’s a short list of considerations when preparing to scan and determine the open source used in your application.

Open Source Benefits: A Developer’s Perspective

Posted by Peter Williams on January 20th, 2012 in Open Source Trends

Open source benefits to businesses are pretty obvious, even if only recently recognized. It costs less, and often works better, than its commercial competitors. Developers have long preferred open source products to their commercial counterparts. In fact, this developer preference is why we are seeing the surge in enterprise open source usage. Why do developers prefer open source so strongly?

I want it yesterday!
Developers want to get stuff done. The thought of engaging in a procurement process is enough to sap the energy from almost any idea. We will just go back to reading hacker news instead of slogging our way through all that red tape.

Open source tools, on the other hand, are always close at hand. It takes almost no time from conception to actually writing code if you are using open source tools. Even better you can wait until you have something interesting to demo before you ask for forgiveness. With commercial offerings you almost always have to ask for permission, and we all know that is a sure fire way to get your pet project shut down.

Open Source Trends for 2011: HBase, Node.js and nginx are Top Gainers

Posted by Kim Weins on January 18th, 2012 in Open Source Trends

Although it may be easy to identify the open source projects that widely used, uncovering the hot new projects that enterprises should be evaluating can be more challenging. OpenLogic’s Open Source Trending report analyzes which open source projects are growing the most quickly in enterprise interest and adoption during the past year. With this information, you can keep an eye on the trends that may be coming to your enterprise in the year ahead.

OpenLogic analyzed 8 growth metrics for 16 projects in three categories — web and application servers; application frameworks; and databases and big data. The projects were stack ranked on each metric and across all metrics to create an overall growth ranking.

5 Steps to Open Source Compliance

Posted by Aaron Mandelbaum on January 16th, 2012 in Legal & Compliance

Google estimates that the exact phrase, “open source compliance,” is searched only 73 times globally per month. In contrast, “free software” is searched 90,500 times globally per month, and “source code” is searched 450,000 times globally per month.

The way I interpret this isolated piece of data is that either:

The vast majority of the people using open source software are so confidant that their open source compliance is spot on, that they don’t need to search for compliance solutions;
People haven’t looked at addressing the issue as fast as the interest and adoption of open source and free software has grown; or
People just don’t know what they don’t know and could very well be sitting on top of a ticking time bomb with issues of compliance waiting to surface.

So if you have stumbled upon this article or you are one of the 73 people in the world this month that searched for “open source compliance,” the following five steps or questions will help get you going in the right direction.

5 Ways an Open Source Governance Process Can Improve Your Organization

Posted by Greg Bell on January 13th, 2012 in Governance

Is one of your resolutions for the new year to create an enterprise open source governance process for your organization, or review and update your existing governance process? If your organization doesn’t already have an open source governance process, this should definitely be on your list of goals for 2012. Likewise if you have a governance process that’s outdated, incomplete, or inconsistently implemented throughout the organization.

As with any business process change, it can be difficult to find the time, inspiration, and support from others necessary to get started with creating or updating your company’s open source governance process. If you find yourself in this predicament, now is the perfect time to review the many ways an effective governance process can positively impact your organization. Here’s a list of five benefits to help motivate you and your team to get started.

Why Enterprises Need and Value Pre-Paid Technical Open Source Software Support

Posted by Jesse Hood on January 11th, 2012 in Open Source Trends, Support

Pre-paying for open source software technical support and consultative expertise might sound crazy to some of our readers, but it should sound like a very smart and safe business decision. As an industry indicator of the growing need for commercial support on open source software OpenLogic’s support team saw a 39% increase from 2010 t0 2011 in the total number of support incidents submitted during the last calendar year.

I have the pleasure of working with many different client organizations to help them determine if, when and what service level of commercial open source support is right for them. Every time we discuss the options our conversation is a little different from the last, and rightfully so. Evaluating the organizational need for open source technical support depends significantly on where, how, why and when the open source is going to be used. These considerations all most likely revolve around some amount of a formalized open source strategy or open source software policy.

Just about anyone these days will echo the comment, “Nothing is ever really, truly free anymore.” If you agree with this statement to some extent, the rest of this article will summarize a few key reasons why OpenLogic’s enterprise customers purchase (and continue to renew) a subscription for pre-paid support and/or consulting.

The 5 Key Features of an Enterprise Cloud

Posted by Rod Cope on January 9th, 2012 in The Cloud

Everybody wants an “Enterprise Cloud” these days, even if they work for a smaller business, but what exactly does that mean? What is an enterprise cloud solution?

Here’s a list of 5 key features to look for in a cloud solution that will help you decide if it’s enterprise ready:

Choice

Description: In the enterprise, there is never a one-size-fits-all solution. For any problem. Ever. This is why nearly every large enterprise has one of everything. They have applications running on multiple databases, operating systems, and programming languages. Their developers run many different IDE’s. There’s no reason to think the cloud space will be any different.

Tip: The enterprise cloud solution you choose must support multiple deployment clouds, both public and private, as well as multiple programming languages, components, and stacks. The one true deployment stack, programming language, or cloud today will only be one of several in a few years. Embrace this diversity and use the right tool for each job.

Linear vs. Targeted: The Location and Amount of Source Code Scanning is Important

Posted by Jesse Hood on January 6th, 2012 in Scanning & Provisioning

The location and amount of source code scanning and analysis an organization should expect to do when beginning a new initiative will likely have a direct correlation to establishing or revisiting a meaningful open source policy. Retroactively auditing for open source and analyzing licenses can quickly become a much more time and resource intensive task than expected for companies that are starting these projects in 2012, mainly due the potential for large legacy code bases that have never been vetted for open source before.

This article includes a short description of how the individuals who are or will become members of an open source review board could start thinking strategically about a scanning project to maximize efficiency of limited resources.