Perspectives on Open Source Software

Open source software (OSS) is emerging as the software community's next "silver bullet" and appears to be playing a significant role in the acquisition and development plans of the Department of Defense (DoD) and industry. Yet, as with all previous silver bullets, there are problems with blindly embracing the OSS paradigm. To become familiar with the benefits and pitfalls of using OSS, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) undertook an internally funded study looking at it from various perspectives: 1) the user of OSS, 2) the developer of OSS, 3) the organizations looking to deploy software systems comprised (partially or completely) of OSS components During the period of this study, members of the SEI technical staff hosted meetings, conducted interviews, participated in open source development activities, workshops, and conferences, and studied available literature on the subject. Through these activities, the authors have been able to support and sometimes refute common perceptions about OSS. This report is the result of their study.