Chapter 5. Designing an Open Source Strategy

Figuring out how to make IT work for a company is no easy task. Any comprehensive strategy must take into account not only the company's technology concerns, but also its short- and long-term business plan, financial condition, competitive situation, existing applications and infrastructure, and consulting partners, as well as the skills and talents of its IT department. Creating such a strategy is hard work. The right strategy is rarely clear and usually involves making difficult and, at times, unpleasant tradeoffs.

Advice about strategy is rarely effective. Commonly rendered advice includes reducing the number of platforms, vendors, and skills; outsourcing noncritical tasks; and waiting six months before installing any new release. All these recommendations have merit. So does telling a stock market investor to "buy low, sell high." The question is how to execute such advice.

To become useful, general advice must be adapted to specific situations. The goal of this chapter is to synthesize the analysis we provided in the preceding chapters into a plan for adopting open source that will avoid major difficulties. Then the real teacher, experience, can direct users toward getting the most out of open source. IT departments can then follow a path of gradually building skills and expanding the adoption of open source to the point where benefits are discovered.

The first strategic question analyzed concerns how to get started with open source. This chapter will take you through the different stages of using open source that we described in Chapter 3, starting from scratch at a beginner level and moving all the way to the advanced and expert levels. We also will analyze the responsibilities and risk facing an IT department at each level.

The second strategic question concerns where to apply open source. You need to consider the IT needs of your business and your IT organization's skill level when answering this question.

The third category of strategic questions analyzed in this chapter concerns managing and living with the problems and challenges of using open source in a corporate environment. How can you control the use of open source? Are there differences between using open source as a platform for integration as opposed to an application? Is it possible to become a top-to-bottom open source enterprise?

This chapter will help IT departments proceed with open source development in an informed manner so that they avoid common mistakes.