Create an Open-Source Software (OSS) Policy

Each enterprise should have an open-source policy written out for its users to follow. If your business and IT department already have one, it’s time to review and revise to take advantage of the latest developments in open-source technology.

If your management or CIO deems it is too early to put open source on the same footing with proprietary software, smart IT managers should at least figure out what it takes to move in that direction. One day, this will happen and it’s best to be ready.

IT departments and in-house developers should consider providing standard guidelines. In addition, it’s important to remember to review your options.

When it’s time to think about budgets, open-source advocates should use a return on investment (ROI) strategy as part of the procurement process to recommend open-source software and technologies as alternatives to proprietary software.

Memory-based inventories of open-source software are guaranteed to be incomplete. Now is the time to check all your software and licenses and see what open-source technology your company might already be using. This can help make the case for more investment if the company is already using open source and getting good results from it.

Many cloud infrastructures are built on open-source technologies. In addition, cloud is moving more and more into the mainstream, which means this is the one area where open source can have a big impact. Some of the most innovative technologies deployed in the cloud are open source—Apache, mongoDB and Hadoop—to name a few. At least 80 percent of operating systems in the cloud are based on Linux.