Section 1.9. Second-Generation Trends in Open Source


1.9. Second-Generation Trends in Open Source

Some of the characteristics that governed the early days of open source have changed now that open source has become popular. Today, open source software is often being created not just for programmers, but also for end users. The OpenOffice project has created versions of nearly all popular desktop applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and email. Today's open source projects are starting to compete with successful commercial projects, by developers who want to create a better solution or by commercial companies seeking to create open source alternatives for their own purposes.

It is also becoming more common for large and small companies to use open source code as the basis of applications they have built, either as products or for internal use. Sun Microsystems has been a strong sponsor of the development of open source solutions including OpenOffice, which has become an increasingly credible alternative to Microsoft Office. SAP released a version of a database it bought from another company as open source to provide a database alternative to power its enterprise applications.

The early days of open source focused on creating infrastructure that could be used to create programs. The GNU C compiler enabled the creation of languages such as Perl and development tools such as Emacs so that they could run on a wide variety of platforms. The Linux kernel itself, Apache, databases including MySQL and Postgres, graphical user interface toolkits such as GTK (which led to the GNOME desktop) and Qt (which is the basis of the KDE desktop), and hundreds of other programs have resulted in a top-to-bottom application stack that helps developers create the tools they need, from the bare metal operating system right up to the user interface layer.

The existence of this complete stack has resulted in a proliferation of applications aimed at specific groups of users. Open source has become a new way to start a software business. A developer creates an open source product, gets help from a community of developers who are interested in the area, and runs a consulting business selling services to put the open source software to work. Open source content management systems such as Bricolage and Plone (both of which are covered in detail in Appendix E) have consulting firms operating on this model. Open source products exist for ERP software, portals, data warehouses, and enterprise application integration. The maturity of the stack has created a huge opportunity for IT. Learning how to take advantage of it is the point of this book.



Open Source for the Enterprise
Open Source for the Enterprise
ISBN: 596101198
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 134

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