Top tips for selecting open source software

This means that anyone can access and modify the source code — the engine room of the software. One of the big advantages that draws people to open source software is that it is free. This will help you to choose or eliminate options. Does it already have, or can you add the features that you need? Once you have a short list of open source software options, here are a few things we would look for:.

What do reviews say about the software? Who founded it and what is their background? Do they have a good track record for keeping open source projects going? Sometimes people offload their open source projects or simply cease to work on them.

That might be fine with you if you have the expertise to keep it going, but you will probably find all upkeep is now on you. One clue that the software will probably be available and maintained into the future is if a company has developed a tool for in-house use, then opened it up. Visit any relevant online support forums to find out about any issues you may come across. Most of these tips apply to evaluating any software - be it open source or a proprietary solution.

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If not, what training plan will you put in place to match your skills to the task? Remember, this is not simply true for open source software, but also for proprietary software. These training costs should be included when comparing TCOs for different products. Arguably, open source software is as much about the license as it is about the development methodology.

Read the licence. Well-known licenses such as the General Public License GPL and the Lesser General Public License LGPL have well defined conditions for your contribution of code to the ongoing development of the software or the incorporation of the code into other packages. If you are not familiar with these licenses or with the one used by the software you are considering, take the time to clarify conditions of use. Many open source products are generalist and must be specialised before use.

Generally speaking the more effort required to specialise a product, the greater is its generality. A more narrowly focused product will reduce the effort require to deploy it, but may lack flexibility.

An example of the former is GNU Compiler Collection GCC , and an example of the latter might be Evolution email client, which works well "out of the box" but is only suitable for the narrow range of tasks for which it was intended.

It provides neutral and authoritative guidance on free and open source software, and about related open standards. Last Modified October Email comments to webmaster ukoln. About this document Performance and reliability are the principal criteria for selecting software. Good software does not unnecessarily reinvent the wheel, or force you to learn new languages or complex data formats.

Support Community Does the project have an active support community ready to answer your questions concerning deployment? If you post a message to the list and receive a reasonably prompt and helpful reply, this may be a sign that there is an active community of users out there ready to help. Good practice suggests that if you wish to avail yourself of such support, you should also be willing to provide support for other members of the community when you are able.

Support Commercial Third party commercial support is available from a diversity of companies, ranging from large corporations such as IBM and Red Hat , to specialist open source organizations such as Canonical and Sirius , to local firms and independent contractors. Version When was the last stable version of the software released? Virtually no software, proprietary or open source, is completely bug free. If there is an active development community, newly discovered bugs will be fixed and patches to the software or a new version will be released; for enterprise use, you need the most recent stable release of the software.

There is, of course, always the option of fixing bugs yourself, since the source code of the software will be available to you. Version 1. In open source, there is no convention as to the significance of a 1. A program with a version number below 1. Conversely, a product with version number of 1. Criteria other than version number must be the guide here.