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The mantra of the open source community is that OSS increases the
reliability of software because it is peer-reviewed by many
developers, all performing their own tests, making bug corrections,
and tweaking the software until it is complete. Proponents claim this
process creates mature, stable code more quickly than conventional
software development, lowers overhead, and, through operating system
porting, broadens the market for the software. The nature of open
source development also increases the interaction between the
developers of software and the customers who will ultimately use it.
As an ideal, OSS sounds wonderful—a utopia for software development.
Unfortunately, it's not as perfect as it seems. All of the claims made
by the Open Source Initiative are true, but only if the community of
engineers and developers is actually interested in the success of a
piece of software. If the open source community is not motivated to
work on a certain software project, it will languish in obscurity.
This seems to be the scenario that has plagued Netscape and its
Mozilla project. Netscape had hoped its willingness to reveal design
secrets would attract outside programmers and yield new features,
better code, and faster development. However, very few programmers
jumped on the bandwagon. The Mozilla project was to be the loss leader
that would open the market for Netscape's enterprise software;
instead, the effort has been a commercial flop.
The major problem with OSS is the lack of objective information on how
open source works in an enterprise and on how much it actually costs.
Open source software is not a new concept, but its application in an
enterprise environment is a recent phenomenon. Until open source
software development moves out of the "philosophical" into the
"practical," management decisions on its viability will be suspect and
ill-advised.
There is no doubt that open source standards have benefits for
enterprise computing needs, but the technology is not quite ready for
prime time. Infrastructure and standards of practice are being
developed and true cost analysis will be implemented. Only then will
it be possible to say with any certainty that open source is the
future.