Business Considers Open Source on Par with Commercial Software

quad4b writes "At the International Conference on COTS-based Software Systems in Spain last week, representatives from organizations such at the Software Engineering Institute (remember the CMM), National Research Council of Canada and the European Software Institute discussed the inclusion of Open Source Software for the first time on the conference agenda. COTS software includes stuff like commercial operating systems, desktop software, and ERP systems among others. The conference examined best practices for integrating these pre-built components in systems development efforts. They conceded that open source software is essentially no different from commercially built software and that both types have their risks in terms of supportability and security. (what opponents of OSS say is its weakness) Interestingly enough, a senior representative of IBM was present and discussed with some of us, over lunch, how IBM is determined to move to an open desktop based on Linux and OpenOffice within about a year."

Comments

IBM switching exclusivly to Linux and open office?

[Prophetic_Truth]

I thought IBM was having trouble doing that?

Not surprising at all

[scenestar]

Ill assume that with "os" they mean free.

It isnt very surprising that a lot of companies are switching from expensive propietary software to freely distributable OS software.

A good example why, are companies that use photoshop for some basic image editing. They are paying huge license fees for software that isn't even used for its full potental.

For them it doesnt matter that GIMP has "less" features, since most of them aren't needed.

Re:What is this?

[djmurdoch]

Try Googling:

COTS = Commercial Off-The-Shelf

I think CMM = Capability Maturity Model, but I still have no idea what it means.

ERP = (probably) Enterprise Resource Planning

OSS = Open Source Software (but you probably knew that...)

Re:What is this?

[sconeu]

CMM is in fact the Capability Maturity Model, from the SEI.
Here's more info.

There are 5 levels. It's damn near impossible to get a level 5. IBM Federal Systems (later Loral) was certified Level 5. They did shuttle avionics. When I worked for a major defense contractor, it was a huge success when we were certified Level 3.