- Executive Summary
- What Is Open Source?
- Who Creates Open Source?
- Who Uses Open Source?
- Where Do I Get Open Source Software?
- When and How Do I Use Open Source?
When and How Do I Use Open Source?
These are intertwined questions. The right time to use open source is when both you and the product are ready. How to use open source is the subject of this book. The practices you (and the IT industry) have used over the past 40 years won't work with open source products. A whole new method of selecting and evaluating products is required to succeed with open source. The thesis of this book is that successful organizations will recognize that new methods are required and will implement them when they begin to work with open source.
Note
Using open source requires new working practices.
The next two chapters of the book address open source business models and open source risks. Chapter 4 starts off the discussion about how to succeed with open source. It outlines the types of technology users and why the key question users must ask about any open source product is, "How mature is it?"
Note
The key question for open source software is, "How mature is it?"