VM (Vicky) Brasseur provides an excerpt from her forthcoming book on corporate open source strategy in a recent blog post on her website.
In the excerpt, Brasseur examines the importance of standards within open source, saying “one of the most important elements to FOSS business value is that it’s standardised. This enables confidence, trust, and interoperability.”
Brasseur goes on to explain the standard specifications that govern open source software, For example, she writes, “by having a single, standard specification for what’s required for software to be open source, what the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has created and maintains with the Open Source Definition (OSD) is a standard, making the OSI a standards body.”
Like other standards, this one is vital for the operations of any business that uses or creates software (which is to say, nearly all of them). When your company receives software that bears the label “open source,” you know that while there may be some responsibilities to be aware of in the license, you now have a firm grounding in generally what to expect from that software. You know that it won’t prevent your company from using the software in certain situations, that if needed your company can modify the software to support its business needs, and that it can even sell the software if that’s what makes sense for its business model.
Additionally, “standards enable business to operate and smooth communication by creating a shared and trusted language and understanding,” she writes.
Read the complete article at {anonymous => ‘hash’};.
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