Open source software (OSS) is recognized for the cost savings it delivers when compared with proprietary alternatives. As enterprises continue to adopt OSS, the open source communities, mostly made up of volunteers, have been calling on enterprises to make contributions and donations with the aim of fostering open source software innovation and growth.
With more that 1,000 open source communities in existence today, enterprises have many options when choosing where to contribute. With each community potentially delivering enterprise-grade technology, large companies have many reasons to keep open source alive and well. How can enterprises evaluate which communities to work with and how to get involved? Here are some suggestions.
Why Companies Should Care and Contribute
Open source has had a direct impact on a major aspect of how we live today in an Internet-driven economy. Everyone from Amazon to Google to Twitter to IBM to Microsoft has been impacted in some way through open source software.
As an example, who would have thought any smartphone could overtake the iPhone in handset sales? The leading smartphone operating system is now Android, an open source project by Google.
Taking a look at history, in the 1990s, the great innovations of the web were open source software — Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl — that radically reduced the software costs of developing web applications. Lower costs enabled massive innovation. Ruby on Rails is the latest example of free software that also reduces the human cost of developing web applications through its advanced MVC framework.
It's clear that most major b usinesses are using some...
