What is open source all about?
Open source software is free and the licence terms permit distribution of the source code. This means that users (both individuals and organisations) are able to change the software and submit these changes and bug fixes for inclusion in the next release. For popular products this effectively means an unlimited development team and the biggest challenge is managing the change.
Of course the average user does not have the ability to make these changes and just runs the software. He does have access to community forums and the ability to submit new ideas, change requests as well as bug reports. If enough users request a feature it will be developed! For mature products this is great. So what are the downsides: Immature products often have poor documentation. For mature (and/or popular) products the documentation often becomes a project of its own which means that is can be very good. There is no formal support. Support is typically in the form of community forums. Many publishers offer support (and sometimes even documentation) at a premium. This is how they cover the administrative costs of maintaining the software – and of course how they make money. Some products also have open source versions as well as commercial versions. In these cases the commercial versions may have additional features and typically include support. Evaluating open source software is easy – just download a copy and try it. Here are a few things you should think about:
- How mature is the software? Googling it may help. Also look at the version number. Typically the first formal release is called 1.0. So if you are looking at version 0.97 it’s probably still a beta product. This may not be a bad thing but you do need to know it.
- How good is the community support? The best way to assess this is to log on to the site. Have a look at the number of users, how many posts per day, how long does it take questions to be resolved. I always go on and ask an intermediate question. By this I mean something that isn’t too hard but is not covered in the documentation. If I have a resolution within a day I’m happy. If nobody replies within two weeks I look for another product.
Formal definition of Open Source (opens in new window)
