Open Source for the Enterprise Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards

Name: Open Source for the Enterprise Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards
Price: 8.14 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780596101190

ISBN-10: 0596101198

ISBN-13: 9780596101190

Edition: 2005

Authors: Dan Woods, Gautam Guliani

List price: $24.99

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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.comand 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 book: Why is there a "productization gap" in most open source projects? How can the maturity of open source be evaluated? How can the ROI of open source be calculated? What skills are needed to use open source? What sorts of open source projects are appropriate for IT departments at the beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert levels? What questions need to be answered by an open source strategy? What policies for governance can be instituted to control the adoption of open source? What new commercial services can help manage the risks of open source? Do differences in open source licenses matter? How will using open source transform an IT department? 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 thereaders 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 depl

Book details

List price: $24.99
Copyright year: 2005
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date: 8/16/2005
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 234
Size: 6.97" wide x 9.17" long x 0.71" tall
Weight: 0.858
Language: English

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.



Preface



The Nature of Open Source


The Open Source Debate


Understanding Your Open Source Readiness


The Nature of Open Source


What Is Open Source?


Where Does Open Source Come From?


How Does Open Source Grow?


How Does Open Source Die?


Leadership in the Open Source Life Cycle


Second-Generation Trends in Open Source


The Different Roots of Commercial Software


Productization: The Key to Understanding the Challenge of Using Open Source


Comparing the Risks of Commercial and Open Source Software



Measuring the Maturity of Open Source


Open Source Traps


The Elements of Open Source Maturity


The Open Source Maturity Model



The Open Source Skill Set


Preventing an Open Source Nightmare


Open Source Skill Levels


Open Source Skills Inventory


How Maturity Affects Required Skills and Resources


Skills and Risks


Open Source Skill Building



Making the ROI Case


ROI Fashions


How Open Source Costs Differ from Commercial Software Costs


Making Your Own ROI Model


Skills Versus Money



Designing an Open Source Strategy


Crafting a Strategy for Open Source Adoption


Crafting a Strategy for Applying Open Source


Crafting a Strategy for Managing Open Source



Support Models for Open Source


Open Source Support Offers


When Is Commercial Open Source Support the Right Choice?


Buy Carefully



Making Open Source Projects Easy to Adopt


One Program for Productization


Basic Information and Community Support


Reducing the Skills Gap for Getting Started


Accelerating Learning


Integration


Benefits of Increased Adoption


Opportunities for Skill Building



A Comparison of Open Source Licenses


Many Flavors of Licenses


The Classic Licenses


The BSD Licenses: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD


The MIT License


Second-Generation/Single-Project Licenses


Corporate Licenses


Why Pick Just One? The Dual Licensing Option



Open Source Under Attack


SCO Versus IBM and the Legal Quandary of Open Source


What You Need to Know About SCO


What It All Means: The Implications of the SCO Crisis



Open Source Empowerment


Two Poles of IT: Buy Versus Build


Where to Buy, Where to Build


Closing the Requirements Gap


Open Source Empowerment


The Vision and Challenge of IT



The Open Source Platform



End-User Computing on the Desktop



Open Source and Email



Groupware, Portals, and Collaboration



Web Publishing and Content Management



Application Development


Index