The days are gone when Microsoft conquered all office computers in the world with products such as Windows and Office. For long has begun its victory march in the company open-source software. The employees use operating systems such as Linux and Android, working with development tools such as Eclipse, Junit and Hudson, write letters with OpenOffice and working on the network using the Apache web server and WordPress. Meanwhile, there are only a few gaps in the portfolio. Open source solutions are used in particular in the field of software development and IT infrastructure for Web applications nowadays predominantly. It is even common to publish new innovations directly under an open source license in order to reach the largest possible circle of developers.
The use of open-source products a few years ago was still quite controversially discussed. Critics complained about the lack of support. However, this has now improved significantly. For most open source packages used in business, there are now the same professional services such as training and consulting – just as in commercial products. In particular, small and medium-sized IT service providers have thus discovered a business model for themselves.
Many IT departments need to save. Therefore, a key factor is still the license costs suppressed for open source software. In addition to the pure license costs but also the cost of supporting the management and the installation must be considered. From this total cost, called “Total Cost of Ownership”, calculates the management whether the business use is worthwhile economically. But here can open source solutions increasingly points, as they often have lower support costs as commercial software vendors because of increased competition by third party.
Open source software provides independent of the big software companies
Another important issue in open source is the independence of the dominant technology providers. This aspect is indeed difficult to quantify, but it should be included in an investment decision with anyway. If you decide to license software, binds usually for several years to a provider and is on its support, updates and information-dependent, since usually offer no third-party these services. Subsequent changes to non-IBM product is usually associated with major costs and dependencies. In the open-source context, however, there is no dominant provider and can therefore theoretically all services are provided by a third party, unless it is part of the so-called development community, the polishes in the open-source software. Because only the involved developers have access to the relevant information.
While most home users must almost nobody thinks about the scope of the development community, it is important for companies to know the level of maturity of software. IT management decides on the basis of this indicator whether the software medium or long term can be used in the company and is compatible with our own products as needed. For this reason, it is important to assess the risk that the product may be stopped or the developer community even break apart. In major open source projects such as Linux or Eclipse, which have a wide user and developer base, this is virtually impossible. They offer a similar future and investment security as major software providers whose future is not always safe.
professional programmer participate voluntarily in open-source software
Overall, it can be determined that the developer communities increasingly more professional. This is partly due to the fact that many members work full-time as a programmer, and also companies will bring their expertise in software development with a. In parallel, there are now many tools that support virtual teams during development. Participants usually communicate via mailing lists, forums and newsgroups. The results are stored in a web portal, where they are the developers participating in the program.
“Open-source software has become part of IT mainstream. “
In addition, more and more open source ecosystems in which work together developers and IT service providers closely form. The developers increase their market value, and obtain job opportunities, while businesses have access to a pool of competent programmer in return. This will also strengthen the draw to another developer. Another plus point for open source enterprise is the option to customize the software individually and rely on open standards, interfaces and formats. This is true, although often for commercial offers, but due to the open source code, these properties are guaranteed for the future.
In addition to low cost, there are many other factors that favor the use of open source software in the enterprise. The free software has become part of mainstream IT, is used for a number of tasks and is an indispensable part of daily business. Certainly not from the web infrastructure and software development: where open source products now dominate the market
Authors:.
Dipl.-Inform. Michael Hitz studied computer science at the University of Stuttgart and for 13 years as a software architect at a large German insurer. For two years he has been project manager of the Competence Center Open Source (KOS) at the Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) Stuttgart, which performs studies on usability and maturity of open source software in the enterprise environment.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Kessel studied computer science at the University of Karlsruhe and received his PhD in Strasbourg. After his graduation, he worked for several years in various positions at Hewlett-Packard GmbH. He is Director of Studies at the study center business computer science and scientific director of the Competence Center Open Source (KOS) at the Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) in Stuttgart.
The article “Farewell to Clippit: About the triumph of open source software in IT companies” by Dipl.-Inform. Michael Hitz and Prof. Dr. Thomas Kessel is a secondary publication of the magazine “The power 2014-2015 – Year in Network Policy” iRights.Media. Authors such as Eva-Maria Kirschsieper and Michael Speer write about topics that have moved the digital Germany.
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