Opening the door to open source

Abstract

OSS makes available software code that has traditionally been considered proprietary. With the source code at their fingertips, developers can more quickly improve on the software and create new applications. As OSS has matured, the economy has softened and organizations have begun scouting around for a better way to operate their businesses. The result has been a shift to a new business model. It does not hurt that mature companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems, HP and others have adopted open source as part of their business model. It also helps that companies like Red Hat and Covalent have figured out, where others could not, how to create a sustainable business to compete against the big Kahuna of software, Microsoft.