Who’s On Phirst

In the last 10 years, Open Source software has provided an incredible benefit to the software development process. Most open source software projects present quality, well-tested APIs and libraries that can be quickly integrated into a product, providing much-needed functionality that does not have to be developed in-house. While there are too many projects to even begin to mention, the software produced by the Apache Project, and SpringSource provide frameworks and utilities that would take companies man man-years to develop on their own.

There are, however, a few issues that every organization should consider before choosing to include open source software in their commercial products. While these issues are usually not show-stoppers in the decision process, but should be viewed as risk factors. Failure to consider these issues can leave a company with problems that cause development and maintenance nightmares.

First, I would take the time to consider the involvement of the project's community of users and developers. Is work on the project ongoing, or does it seem to be stagnant? Are there discussion forums for the project, and do the developers post to the forum? An active Open Source project community enables you to resolve usage issues, obtain patches, and generally integrate the project more quickly into your product. A less active community can be an indicator that the project has not been well-received, perhaps because of stability, or even issues with its usefulness.

Licensing is a potential Pandora's Box of issues for anyone wishing to include Open Source software in their product. In general, software which fall under BSD or Apache licenses are the safest to use. For example, the Apache License allows free use, modification, and distribution of their software, provided that the appropriate notice is included. A great source of information concerning Open Source licensing issues is the Open Source Initiative. This group maintains the definition of open source software, and vets licenses in order to certify that the license adheres to it. In this litigative age that we live in, no one needs the hassle of a potential lawsuit involving their product.

In my opinion, while there are issues involved in the choice to include open source software in a commercial software product, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.