Open Source for the Enterprise

Open Source for the Enterprise

by Dan Woods, Gautam Guliani
Released July 2005
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9781491926406

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Book description

This book provides something far more valuable than either the cheerleading or the fear-mongering one hears about open source. The authors are Dan Woods, former CTO of TheStreet.com and a consultant and author of several books about IT, and Gautam Guliani, Director of Software Architecture at Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions. Each has used open source software for some 15 years at IT departments large and small. They have collected the wisdom of a host of experts from IT departments, open source communities, and software companies. Open Source for the Enterprise provides a top to bottom view not only of the technology, but of the skills required to manage it and the organizational issues that must be addressed.

Table of contents

  1. Special Upgrade Offer
  2. Preface
    1. Comments and Questions
    2. Safari Enabled
    3. Acknowledgments
    4. Dedications
  3. 1. The Nature of Open Source
    1. The Open Source Debate
    2. Understanding Your Open Source Readiness
      1. Getting It Right
      2. Finding and Evaluating Open Source
    3. The Nature of Open Source
    4. What Is Open Source?
    5. Where Does Open Source Come From?
    6. How Does Open Source Grow?
    7. How Does Open Source Die?
    8. Leadership in the Open Source Life Cycle
    9. Second-Generation Trends in Open Source
    10. The Different Roots of Commercial Software
      1. The Commercial Software Life Cycle
        1. Requirements gathering and the product roadmap
        2. Productization
        3. Maintenance and support
        4. End-of-life
    11. Productization: The Key to Understanding the Challenge of Using Open Source
    12. Comparing the Risks of Commercial and Open Source Software
      1. The Sales Process
      2. Transparency
      3. Flexibility
      4. Risk of Quality
      5. Risk of Productization
      6. Risk of Failure
      7. Risk of Takeover
      8. Support
  4. 2. Measuring the Maturity of Open Source
    1. Open Source Traps
    2. The Elements of Open Source Maturity
      1. Leadership and Culture
      2. Vitality of Community
      3. Quality of End-User Support
      4. Extent and Scope of Documentation
      5. Quality of Installation Packaging
      6. Momentum (or Frequency of Releases)
      7. Quality of Code and Design
      8. Quality of Architecture
      9. Testing Practices
      10. Integration with Other Products
      11. Support for Standards
      12. Quality of Project Site
      13. License Type
      14. Potential for Commercial Conflicts
      15. Corporate Commitment
      16. Putting It All Together
    3. The Open Source Maturity Model
  5. 3. The Open Source Skill Set
    1. Preventing an Open Source Nightmare
    2. Open Source Skill Levels
      1. Skill Levels Defined
      2. Beginner
      3. Intermediate
      4. Advanced
      5. Expert
    3. Open Source Skills Inventory
      1. Open Source Development Tools
      2. Hosting
      3. System Administration and Operations
      4. Open Source Infrastructure
      5. Programming Languages
      6. Open Source Community Skills
        1. Evaluating the maturity of open source
        2. Networking with open source developers
    4. How Maturity Affects Required Skills and Resources
    5. Skills and Risks
    6. Open Source Skill Building
  6. 4. Making the ROI Case
    1. ROI Fashions
      1. What Is ROI for Open Source?
    2. How Open Source Costs Differ from Commercial Software Costs
      1. Evaluation Costs
      2. License and Maintenance Costs
      3. Installation and Configuration Costs
      4. Integration and Customization Costs
      5. Operations and Support Costs
      6. The Cost of Narrowness
    3. Making Your Own ROI Model
      1. Creating the ROI Analysis Spreadsheet
      2. Creating the Estimates
      3. Elements of Evaluation Costs
      4. Elements of Installation and Configuration Costs
      5. Elements of Integration and Customization Costs
      6. Elements of Operations and Support Costs
    4. Skills Versus Money
  7. 5. Designing an Open Source Strategy
    1. Crafting a Strategy for Open Source Adoption
      1. Steps to Low-Risk Open Source Adoption
      2. Starting from Scratch
      3. Becoming a Beginner
      4. Moving to the Intermediate Level
      5. When the Advanced and Expert Levels Make Sense
      6. Institutional Skill Building
    2. Crafting a Strategy for Applying Open Source
    3. Crafting a Strategy for Managing Open Source
      1. Unique Challenges of Controlling Open Source Adoption
      2. Different Companies, Different Responses
  8. 6. Support Models for Open Source
    1. Open Source Support Offers
      1. The Generic Commercial Software Support Offer
      2. Evaluating Open Source Support Providers
      3. What Kind of Open Source Will Be Supported?
        1. Subscriptions
        2. Certified bundles
        3. Custom enhancements
      4. Open Source-Based Products
      5. Consulting Services
    2. When Is Commercial Open Source Support the Right Choice?
      1. When Use of Open Source Is Mission Critical
      2. When a Certified Bundle Solves an Important Problem
      3. When a Consultant Creates a Custom Feature
      4. Accelerating Implementation and Building Skills
    3. Buy Carefully
  9. 7. Making Open Source Projects Easy to Adopt
    1. One Program for Productization
    2. Basic Information and Community Support
      1. Mission Statement
      2. Examples and Working Sites
      3. Question-and-Answer Archive
      4. Documentation
    3. Reducing the Skills Gap for Getting Started
      1. Installation Scripts
      2. Configuration Tools
      3. Administrative Interfaces
      4. Operational and Diagnostic Consoles
    4. Accelerating Learning
      1. Sample Code
      2. API Documentation
      3. Architecture Documentation
      4. Guide to Embedded Components
    5. Integration
      1. TWiki: An Integration Case Study
      2. Choosing an Intranet Identity
    6. Benefits of Increased Adoption
    7. Opportunities for Skill Building
  10. 8. A Comparison of Open Source Licenses
    1. Many Flavors of Licenses
    2. The Classic Licenses
      1. In the Beginning: The GPL
        1. Free, open, and Copylefted
      2. The “Lesser” GPL
      3. Using the GPL in Your Own Work
    3. The BSD Licenses: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD
    4. The MIT License
    5. Second-Generation/Single-Project Licenses
      1. The Apache License 2.0
      2. The Artistic License (Perl)
    6. Corporate Licenses
      1. The Netscape Public License (NPL) and Mozilla Public License (MPL)
      2. The Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL)
      3. The Apple Public Source License (APSL)
      4. The IBM/Eclipse Public License (EPL)
      5. The Lucent Public License (Plan 9)
      6. Other Corporate Licenses
    7. Why Pick Just One? The Dual Licensing Option
  11. 9. Open Source Under Attack
    1. SCO Versus IBM and the Legal Quandary of Open Source
    2. What You Need to Know About SCO
      1. A Brief History of SCO
      2. 2003: SCO Versus IBM
      3. The Microsoft Connection
    3. What It All Means: The Implications of the SCO Crisis
      1. More FUD, Dead Ahead?
      2. Indemnification: Could Sun Be a Safe Harbor with Open Source Solaris?
      3. Patents: A Growing Concern
      4. Worst-Case Scenarios
  12. 10. Open Source Empowerment
    1. Two Poles of IT: Buy Versus Build
    2. Where to Buy, Where to Build
    3. Closing the Requirements Gap
    4. Open Source Empowerment
      1. Creating a Learning Culture
      2. Engineering Practices
      3. Building a Better Staff
      4. Increasing Choice, Reducing Vendor Lock-In
    5. The Vision and Challenge of IT
  13. A. The Open Source Platform
    1. What Is a Platform?
    2. Three Open Source Platforms
      1. Platforms for Application Development
      2. Platforms for Infrastructure
      3. Platforms for Applications
    3. Assembling Your Open Source Platform
  14. B. End-User Computing on the Desktop
    1. Solutions
      1. Linux Distribution
      2. Desktop Environment
      3. Productivity Software
      4. Desktop Database Management
      5. Web Browsers
      6. Messaging Client
    2. Capabilities
    3. Open Source Desktop Environments: KDE
    4. Desktop Productivity Suites
    5. Desktop Database Management: MySQL
    6. Web Browsing: Firefox
  15. C. Open Source and Email
    1. A Brief History of Email for Enterprise Use
    2. Opportunities for IT Use of Open Source Email Products
    3. Open Source Email Server Solutions
      1. Open Source Email Server Capabilities
      2. Open Source Email Server Projects
    4. Recommended Email Server Projects
      1. Postfix
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
      2. Qmail
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weaknesses
      3. Exim
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
      4. OpenLDAP
    5. Open Source Email Client Solutions
      1. Open Source Email Client Capabilities
      2. Open Source Email Client Projects
      3. Novell Evolution
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weaknesses
      4. Mozilla Thunderbird
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
    6. Content Scanners
      1. Antivirus Software
      2. Content Scanner Capabilities
      3. Clam AntiVirus
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
      4. ClamWin
        1. Product strength
        2. Product weakness
      5. SpamAssassin
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
      6. SpamBayes
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
    7. Mailing List Managers
      1. Mailing List Manager Solutions
      2. Mailing List Manager Capabilities
      3. Mailing List Manager Projects
      4. Mailman
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weaknesses
      5. Dada Mail
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
  16. D. Groupware, Portals, and Collaboration
    1. Groupware
      1. Intranet Solutions
        1. Project management
        2. Software development process management
        3. Document management and distribution
        4. Forums
      2. Business Application Support
        1. Forums
        2. Application/team weblog
      3. Open Source Groupware Capabilities
        1. Forums
        2. Basic features
        3. Content management and collaboration features
        4. User management features
        5. Advanced usability features
      4. Recommended Open Source Groupware Projects
        1. phpBB
        2. Product strengths
        3. mvnForum
        4. Product strengths
        5. Product weakness
    2. Portals
      1. Portal Capabilities
        1. Basic feature
        2. User management features
        3. Content management features
      2. Recommended Open Source Portal Projects
        1. Tikiwiki
        2. Product strengths
        3. Product weakness
        4. Metadot
        5. Product strengths
    3. Wikis
      1. Wiki Capabilities
        1. Basic features
        2. Content management and collaboration features
        3. User management features
        4. Advanced usability feature
      2. Recommended Open Source Wiki Projects
        1. TWiki
        2. Product strengths
        3. Product weakness
    4. Messaging Systems
      1. Messaging Capabilities
        1. Basic features
        2. Collaboration features
        3. User management features
        4. Usability features
        5. Security and privacy features
      2. Recommended Open Source Messaging Projects
        1. Gaim
        2. Product strengths
        3. Product weakness
        4. Trillian
        5. Product strengths
        6. Product weaknesses
        7. AdiumX
        8. Product strengths
        9. Product weaknesses
        10. Fire
        11. Product strengths
        12. Product weakness
        13. Jabber
        14. Product strengths
        15. Product weakness
  17. E. Web Publishing and Content Management
    1. Complete Content Management Systems
      1. Basic Online Publishing Solutions
        1. Brochureware
        2. Marketing collateral
        3. Product information
        4. Online publications
        5. Weblogs
        6. How web publishing and content management systems help create basic online publishing solutions
      2. Extranet Solutions
        1. Technical support
        2. Customer self-service
        3. Training and e-learning
        4. Business-to-business relationship support
        5. How web publishing and content management systems help create extranet solutions
      3. Intranet Solutions
        1. Knowledge management
        2. Document management
        3. Digital asset management
        4. How web publishing and content management systems help create intranet solutions
    2. Web Publishing and Content Management System Capabilities
      1. Content Creation and Persistence
      2. Workflow Management
      3. Search
      4. Site Administration
      5. Page and User Interface Design
      6. Content Delivery and Distribution
    3. Recommended Open Source Content Management System Projects
      1. Plone
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weaknesses
      2. Drupal
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weaknesses
      3. OpenCms
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
    4. Weblog Publishing Systems
      1. Geeklog
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
      2. Blosxom
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
    5. Content Management System Toolkits and Components
      1. Apache AxKit
        1. Product strengths
        2. Product weakness
  18. F. Application Development
    1. Capabilities
      1. Presentation Management Facilities
      2. Session Management Facilities
      3. Administration, Configuration, and Diagnostic Facilities
      4. External Systems Integration Support
    2. Open Source Application Servers
      1. Java Application Servers
        1. Apache Tomcat
        2. JBoss
      2. Perl Application Servers
        1. HTML::Mason
        2. Apache::AxKit
      3. PHP Application Servers
        1. PEAR
        2. Mojavi
        3. Smarty
      4. Other Application Servers
        1. OpenACS
        2. Zope
  19. Index
  20. About the Authors
  21. Colophon
  22. Special Upgrade Offer
  23. Copyright

Product information

  • Title: Open Source for the Enterprise
  • Author(s): Dan Woods, Gautam Guliani
  • Release date: July 2005
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781491926406