[LRUG] Open Source and the Enterprise

[Avik Sengupta]

My experience has been accross some large financil enterprises. So herewith
some random thoughts on this issue ....

A lot has changed in the last 10-15 years. These days, I find most places
have a presumption FOR open source. While NIH does exist, developers will
typically try to find an open source solution first to see if it fits their
needs.They usually wouldn't open source most of the code they write
themselves, but typically have no issues using open source. There is
sometimes a conversation to be had about the wisdom of using open source
for the "core business process" however defined, but I've found that to be
a very rare conversation.

Creating and maintaining forks is a painful experience. Hence using a open
source library is typically a all-or-nothing issue. Especially for a
company just starting out to use open source.

It is too expensive and time consuming to have a lawyer review each
project. So a whitelist of allowed licenses is used. This means any custom
or 'funky' licenses has to go thru a a full review. Most orgs have a
central IT support team that downloads and makes available the product, but
they dont have the wherewithal to do a full IP review.

One sticking point is that organisations usually dont want to annouce the
use of any particular product. Hence posting on mail groups from the org
email address is frowned upon. Also, any internal project details cannot be
leaked, so asking for help in open email lists is sometimes diffcult.  This
becomes all the more of an issue in the more immature or fast moving
projects, where being on the mailing list is important to get a feel of
where the project is going. I find this to the most difficult aspect of
using OSS products in large enterprises, since engaging well with a
community makes using their product much more enjoyable.

Hope that helps, FWIW.

Regards
-
Avik


On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Alan Buxton <alanbuxton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear LRUG
>
>
>
> I made the transition from Startup to Enterprise recently (my company was
> acquired). So far so good.
>
>
>
> The challenge I have now is that the Enterprise finds Open Source a bit
> tricksy. Hard for a company that is used to having suppliers or internal
> teams with SLAs and IP controls to handle the idea of using open source.
> However they do appreciate that Open Source is important and is going to
> grow.
>
>
>
> So I have a mini project right now to put together some policy guidelines
> for The Enterprise on using open source to cover things like
>
> ·         When is it appropriate to use it (e.g. in certain industries it
> might be less appropriate)
>
> ·         What should you consider when choosing a piece of open source
> technology
>
> ·         From an IP point of view how would you make the tradeoff
> between building something using open source components vs creating it
> yourself from scratch
>
>
>
> Rather nebulous, I know, which is why I’m interested in soliciting your
> views on this. Presumably the GDS or BBC or whoever people have already
> figured this all out, right?
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Alan
>
>
>
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