Open Source for the Enterprise: Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards

by Dan Woods, Gautam Guliani

Open source software is changing the world of Information Technology. But making it work for your company is far more complicated than simply installing a copy of Linux. If you are serious about using open source to cut costs, accelerate development, and reduce vendor lock-in, you must institutionalize skills and create new ways of working. You must understand how open source is different from commercial software and what responsibilities and risks it brings. Open Source for the Enterprise is a sober guide to putting open source to work in the modern IT department. Open source software is software whose code is freely available to anyone who wants to change and redistribute it. New commercial support services, smaller licensing fees, increased collaboration, and a friendlier platform to sell products and services are just a few of the reasons open source is so attractive to IT departments. Some of the open source projects that are in current, widespread use in businesses large and small include Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, JBOSS, and Perl. These have been used to such great effect by Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, and major commercial and financial firms, that a wave of publicity has resulted in recent years, bordering on hype. Large vendors such as IBM, Novell, and Hewlett Packard have made open source a lynchpin of their offerings. Open source has entered a new area where it is being used as a marketing device, a collaborative software development methodology, and a business model. 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. Here are the sorts of questions answered in the Praise for Open Source for the Enterprise : "Open Source has become a strategic business issue; decisions on how and where to choose to use Open Source now have a major impact on the overall direction of IT abilities to support the business both with capabilities and by controlling costs. This is a new game and one generally not covered in existing books on Open Source which continue to assume that the readers are 'deep dive' technologists, Open Source for the Enterprise provides everyone from business managers to technologists with the balanced view that has been missing. Well worth the time to read, and also worth encouraging others in your enterprise to read as well." ----Andy Mulholland - Global CTO Capgemini " Open Source for the Enterprise is required reading for anyone working with or looking to adopt open source technologies in a corporate environment. Its practical, no-BS approach will make sure you're armed with the information you need to deploy applications successfully (as well as helping you know when to say "no"). If you're trying to sell open source to management, this book will give you the ammunition you need. If you're a manager trying to drive down cost using open source, this book will tell you what questions to ask your staff. In short, it's a clear, concise explanation of how to successfully leverage open source without making the big mistakes that can get you fired." ----Kevin Bedell - founding editor of LinuxWorld Magazine

Genres: Reference

234 pages, Paperback

First published July 27, 2005

Reviews

[Courtney Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great, but dated references

This was a great read to understand historical insights such as licenses. However, it lacks many shifts in the nearly 10 years since it was published. I would love to read a version 2 of this book.

[Martti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Open source software (OSS) and open standards are becoming increasingly important as organizations seek to improve the interoperability of information technology (IT) systems and decrease the overall IT expenditures. The importance and the impact of OSS can especially be noticed in the market of tablet computers and smart phones: in the 2013-2014 situation, over 60% of all tablets used the Android OSS platform, and in the smartphone market the share of Android was almost 80%.

"Open Source for the Enterprise" is a practical guide to assist organizations in the utilization of OSS. In the book Woods and Guliani present several OSS-specific concepts and frameworks which can be used by organizations considering the usage of OSS solutions. I especially liked the authors' discussion on open source maturity and open source skills. The authors present an open source maturity model to quantify the maturity of an open source project. The goal of the model is to assist an organization in the adoption decision. The authors also introduce four skill levels to define expertise required in the deployment of open source products: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert.

The appendices A to F of the book present and evaluate numerous OSS products. This part of the book, around 50 pages, becomes out of date very quickly due to rapid developments in the technology.

[Cody Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides a fairly systematic approach to evaluating both your IT team and individual open source projects to see if there's a good fit.