Open Source for the Enterprise: Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards

by Dan Woods, Gautam Guliani

Overview

This book provides something far more valuable than either the cheerleading or the fear-mongering one hears about open source. The authors are Dan Woods, former CTO of TheStreet.com and a consultant and author of several books about IT, and Gautam Guliani, Director of Software Architecture at Kaplan Test Prep&Admissions. Each has used open source software for some 15 years at IT departments large and small. They have collected the wisdom of a host of experts from IT departments, open source communities, and software companies. Open Source for the Enterprise provides a top to bottom view not only of the technology, but of the skills required to manage it and the organizational issues that must be addressed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491926406
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/27/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	236
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Dan Woods, a seasoned CTO, has built technology for companies ranging from Time Inc. New Media to TheStreet.com. He has managed the product development cycle from initial requirements through sales for web sites and software products designed for the publishing and financial services industries. Dan has also navigated all phases of the business cycle: crafting strategy and budgets, building and managing large development teams, writing patent applications, negotiating large vendor agreements, operating data centers, communicating with board members, raising money, and selling and marketing a product. Dan is the author of two books and a frequent contributor to InfoWorld and other publications.

Gautam Guliani is a software architect and developer with over 10 years of experience in designing and developing enterprise grade to business problems in publishing, finance and education areas. He currently works as Director of Software Architecture at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, a Washington Post company.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
1	The Nature of Open Source	1
	The Open Source Debate	3
	Understanding Your Open Source Readiness	4
	The Nature of Open Source	6
	What Is Open Source?	7
	Where Does Open Source Come From?	12
	How Does Open Source Grow?	14
	How Does Open Source Die?	15
	Leadership in the Open Source Life Cycle	16
	Second-Generation Trends in Open Source	18
	The Different Roots of Commercial Software	19
	Productization: The Key to Understanding the Challenge of Using Open Source	23
	Comparing the Risks of Commercial and Open Source Software	24
2	Measuring the Maturity of Open Source	29
	Open Source Traps	30
	The Elements of Open Source Maturity	31
	The Open Source Maturity Model	41
3	The Open Source Skill Set	45
	Preventing an Open Source Nightmare	46
	Open Source Skill Levels	48
	Open Source Skills Inventory	57
	How Maturity Affects Required Skills and Resources	64
	Skills and Risks	64
	Open Source Skill Building	65
4	Making the ROI Case	67
	ROI Fashions	68
	How Open Source Costs Differ from Commercial Software Costs	69
	Making Your Own ROI Model	75
	Skills Versus Money	78
5	Designing an Open Source Strategy	79
	Crafting a Strategy for Open Source Adoption	80
	Crafting a Strategy for Applying Open Source	89
	Crafting a Strategy for Managing Open Source	91
6	Support Models for Open Source	95
	Open Source Support Offers	96
	When Is Commercial Open Source Support the Right Choice?	101
	Buy Carefully	103
7	Making Open Source Projects Easy to Adopt	105
	One Program for Productization	106
	Basic Information and Community Support	107
	Reducing the Skills Gap for Getting Started	109
	Accelerating Learning	110
	Integration	111
	Benefits of Increased Adoption	114
	Opportunities for Skill Building	115
8	A Comparison of Open Source Licenses	117
	Many Flavors of Licenses	118
	The Classic Licenses	119
	The BSD Licenses: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD	121
	The MIT License	122
	Second-Generation/Single-Project Licenses	122
	Corporate Licenses	123
	Why Pick Just One? The Dual Licensing Option	126
9	Open Source Under Attack	127
	SCO Versus IBM and the Legal Quandary of Open Source	127
	What You Need to Know About SCO	129
	What It All Means: The Implications of the SCO Crisis	131
10	Open Source Empowerment	137
	Two Poles of IT: Buy Versus Build	138
	Where to Buy, Where to Build	139
	Closing the Requirements Gap	140
	Open Source Empowerment	141
	The Vision and Challenge of IT	146
A	The Open Source Platform	147
B	End-User Computing on the Desktop	151
C	Open Source and Email	159
D	Groupware, Portals, and Collaboration	175
E	Web Publishing and Content Management	189
F	Application Development	203
	Index	209