Open source software

There has been a growing trend in the IT world towards what is known as OSS or open source computer software. Major purchasers of IT products and service such as government agencies are now looking seriously at using OSS to reduce costs. The Australian Government even recommends an open source product (MySource Matrix) as a content management system for government and not-for-profit websites.

OSS now provides a real alternative to otherwise expensive software for those nonprofits who have the capability to come to grips with new software packages. OSS gives its users the right to:

• use the software for any purpose
• make copies for any purpose
• freely distribute copies
• change the source code for any purpose.

A major difference between proprietary software and OSS is that OSS developers make the source code available to anyone who wants access to it. While OSS users do not pay software licence fees, fees are charged by vendors for development and installation services.

OSS is increasingly widespread in the following areas relevant to the internet:

• internet and intranet publishing including web servers, content management system platforms and workflow management tools
• email and communications including numerous solutions for email, group calendering, shared address books, reminders, public folders and instant messaging servers
• security systems including firewalls, virtual private networks, antivirus software and anti-spam filtering.

Why is it open and licence-free?

The reasons why developers choose to build and maintain complex software and not charge licence fees include:

• deriving non-financial rewards from writing highly functional and well-crafted software and being able to work freely with their peers
• making money from helping customers implement the software
• sacrificing potential licence fees for the opportunity of gaining revenue through support contracts, consulting services or training
• making products that were previously proprietary available as open source – many in the open source community see this as good corporate responsibility to ensure customers are not left with orphaned technology
• reducing the market space available for a competitor’s product.

Free v open source

The term open source software was introduced to distinguish it from software that can just be downloaded for free from the internet. While both freeware and OSS are free to download, free to redistribute and sometimes free to use, freeware users are not supplied with the source code or the freedom to modify or improve such source code.

Some issues to consider with open source software

You will need to carefully assess the benefits and risks of open source versus proprietary options.

Software reliability

OSS provides a huge variety of products. Some are good and popular, others wither on the vine. You will need to do some research to assess if the package you are looking at has been around a few years, is widely used and what users think of it and whether it has matured to desirable levels of quality and stability.

The collaborative model used for most open source projects involves feedback-based development where maturity and reliability improve as usage increases.

The strongest, most viable projects accumulate the early adopters, developers and testers that allow development to further accelerate towards maturity. This in turn attracts additional users, which accelerates the maturation process further. The more successful projects provide a growing community of developers and users. In turn, the software codebase, documentation, website, mailing list support and discussion forums develop.

Cost of development v savings in licence fees

While OSS is generally free to acquire and use, you may have to customise the product which will acquire you to pay a web developer. Then if something goes wrong with the software you can’t go back to the supplier for redress. In practice the user and developer community that grows up around a well-patronised product tends to produce its own solutions and fixes to problems that arise with the original software which are readily shared with other users.

In general, all open source software is maintained and supported by a user community. This support is ad hoc and there are no service-level guarantees. However, what generally happens is that one or more vendors quickly moves to support a major OSS product if a market is shown to exist.

Support for OSS products is generally offered in a manner similar to proprietary software. Most vendors and resellers offer service-level agreements, on-call helpdesk services and the purchase of support packages. Australia has several hundred small and mid-sized vendors offering support to industry and government under such commercial terms.

Open source software offers considerable flexibility in its support options by virtue of its development, release, distribution and licensing regimes. Many popular OSS products are well supported by a range of competing vendors. This multi-point distribution is a key difference between open source software and traditional software.