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Open Source: Risk, Rewards, and Realities

Presenter: James Farmer, Georgetown University

In the first two decades of computers, applications were freely traded among users. Forty years later open source operating systems and middleware are available and widely used. There are numerous open source development efforts in higher education for mission critical instructional and research applications. An effort is underway to again make administrative applications available as open source.

Yet few colleges and universities have adopted open source applications and there are few defections from proprietary products. This presentation focuses on the reasons for caution, criteria for selecting open source, the procurement processes that are necessary, and the management of risk. The presentation lists and comments on major open source projects — uPortal, Sakai, .LRN, LAMS, Moodle, Bodington, OSP, Kuali, DSpace, and Fedora — and the business models they are adopting to ensure long-term viability. These products and projects are compared to similar efforts in industry such as the Apache Foundation, Open Source Development Labs, Sugar and the many projects on SourceForge, and the emerging businesses — such as Spike Source, Source Labs, and Optaros. It analyzes the response software suppliers are making to the challenge of open source.

The presentation concludes with a strategy for selecting and implementing open source.