Going Open Source with RedMonk

by Mike Gunderloy - Apr. 25, 2008Comments (2)

Ever tried to explain to your boss why bringing open source software into the company won't mean the end of the world? Or even better, has your boss ever asked for a plan to take something open source? If you find yourself in either of these situations, check out a trifecta of white papers recently published by open-source analyst firm RedMonk.

The first of the three, "Exploring Open Source Options," is a basic introduction to open source targeted at executives who may be thinking of corporate participation in an open source project. It walks through the basics of open source licensing and some of the trends in the licensing world, with an eye toward choosing the right license from a business point of view.

"Open Source Strategies" drills in further to consider the various ways in which a company can open source part of its portfolio, and the plusses and minuses of each approach. It uses BEA, IBM, Sun, Actuate, and Alfresco as case studies, which covers quite a bit of ground. They go into some detail about picking an engagement model based on your need for control over the code, the revenue requirements, and the culture of the project.

The final paper, "Working with Open Source Companies," is aimed more at companies thinking of using - or buying - open source software. It talks about how to identify a vibrant open source community, and the role of the open source company in the ecosystem. This one should go a long way to dispel the worries of corporate executives who might only have a cartoon villian idea of what open source is, based on commercial vendor FUD.

All three papers are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. It's nice to have advocates like RedMonk around: people who both understand the open source community and speak the language of business.