Blog: Pete Loshin

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Mainstream Business Press on Open Source

For a mainstream take on Oracle's recent open source shopping spree and the general trend of big corporations as well as venture capitalists looking for open source investments, check out Open Season On Open Source?. This article is worth a look if only because it summarizes some of the key issues related to using open source software in the enterprise.

However, for a much more detailed and considered look at the realties of open source, commercial open source, and the potential of open source in the enterprise, there's this article, Open, but not as usual in the Economist. As usual, the Economist digs deeply into the topic and clears away many of the misconceptions about open source. For example, consider that of the many thousands of open source projects that have been announced and released, only a few hundred are actually usable. And an even smaller number are actually suitable for use in production systems. The few truly successful open source projects, the Economist reports, are far from the "anarchic" free-for-alls that you might imagine them to be: leadership, oversight, and good management practices are as important to open source software projects as they are to any software project.

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