{"id":115,"date":"2014-03-31T06:30:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T06:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/?p=115"},"modified":"2016-09-26T19:35:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T19:35:39","slug":"sourcing-open-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/sourcing-open-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Sourcing &#8211; Open-Source"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is clear that, where there is sufficient common interest, an <strong>Open Source<\/strong> philosophy is capable of providing <strong>high quality solutions<\/strong>. There are many examples where the high number, and depth of expertise, of reviewers has clearly demonstrated development of high reliability solutions.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is however that these solutions are then entwined with <strong>licencing conditions<\/strong> which aim to maintain that \u2018freedom\u2019 of information (and sources) such that <strong>opportunities for developing commercial product<\/strong> that contains components that are open source are essentially<strong> denied<\/strong> because the additional developments have then to be disclosed, rendering no commercial advantage in such endeavours.<\/p>\n<p>It is however possible to make a <strong>commercial business<\/strong> out of <strong>value-added activities<\/strong> around Open Source (e.g. Linux packagers like RedHat).<\/p>\n<p>From a sourcing point-of-view then, what are the conditions under which you should consider the use of Open Source? If you can collect no revenue from your bespoke developments once including, or a development of, Open Source components, then what other rationale might suggest you join in such endeavours?<\/p>\n<p>In Eric S Raymond\u2019s book \u201cThe Cathedral and the Bazaar\u201d he alludes to a number of business opportunities, some of these are paraphrased here:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You could build an open-source tool (a \u2018loss-leader\u2019 approach) that enables people to easily access your paid-for service.<\/li>\n<li>You can bundle in software that provides the user access to the functionality of your platform, when you are in the business of selling platforms (e.g. microcontrollers, or even Silicon IP) but not developing software. This becomes significant for commodity platforms who wish to separate their customers from the concerns of component obsolescence.<\/li>\n<li>You can contribute to solutions that may be imposed as standards and are therefore not product differentiators, such as communication protocol stacks, and in doing so reduce your risk.<\/li>\n<li>You can offer a transition from closed-source to open source as an ESCROW policy where the customer requires long-term accessibility, including potentially through the derogation of functionality on which he depends, derogation of the product, or supplier business collapse.<\/li>\n<li>You can influence open-source tooling to provide features that would only otherwise be available in expensive commercial solutions e.g. Configuration Management, Version Management and Change Control, thus obviating the need for large capital investments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Raymond identifies the major criteria for going (and by implication using \u2013 as this forces you to \u201cgo\u201d) Open Source as where:<\/p>\n<p>a)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reliability, Stability and Scalability are critical<\/p>\n<p>b)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Correctness of Design or Implementation are not readily verified other than by independent peer review<\/p>\n<p>c)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When the software becomes a business-critical capital good (i.e. control of the business for customer)<\/p>\n<p>d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Establishes or enables a common computing or communication infrastructure<\/p>\n<p>e)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Key methods (or their functional equivalents) are part of common engineering knowledge<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOpen-source makes least sense for companies who have unique possession of a value-generating software technology, which is insensitive to failure, can readily be verified by means other than independent review, is not business-critical and which would not have its value substantially increased by network effects or ubiquity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although with open source <strong>an individual<\/strong>, other than the product champion (\u2018owner\u2019 in as much as he caretakes the development), has <strong>little direct authority on the product and its evolution,<\/strong> he may significantly influence development by offering suggestions for change. Depending on the capability and acceptability of the individual (or group) contributor, this could range from suggestions on potential features, to \u2018patch\u2019 proposals that offer an easy route to adding functionality to the implementation and its documentation.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>tooling<\/strong>, rather than delivered product, <strong>model<\/strong> offers many <strong>more freedoms to use open sources<\/strong> as seed material for bespoke non-commercial tool or method developments, but has <strong>as many pitfalls<\/strong>, as once \u2018branched\u2019 from the root-stock and its development community, so forfeits the maintenance, support and evolution.<\/p>\n<p>___________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<h5>Let us help you maximise the business potential\u00a0of your product and its software<\/h5>\n<p>Email me on\u00a0<a href=\"mailto: stuart.jobbins@sofintsys.com\">stuart.jobbins@sofintsys.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Visit our\u00a0<a title=\"Sofintsys Website Home page\" href=\"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a>,\u00a0or follow us on your preferred Social Media for our latest views. \u00a0 \u00a0<a title=\"Stuart Jobbins' LinkedIn profile\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/stuart-jobbins\/5\/823\/692\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/linkedin.png\" alt=\"linkedin\" width=\"57\" height=\"57\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a title=\"Sofintsys' Twitter account\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sofintsys\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/twitter-2.png\" alt=\"twitter (2)\" width=\"57\" height=\"57\" \/><\/a>___________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is clear that, where there is sufficient common interest, an Open Source philosophy is capable of providing high quality solutions. There are many examples where the high number, and depth of expertise, of reviewers has clearly demonstrated development of high reliability solutions. The problem is however that these solutions are then entwined with licencing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/sourcing-open-source\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sourcing &#8211; Open-Source<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sourcing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139,"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sofintsys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}