Best Practice Report

Best Practices: Adopt Open Source Software To Improve Development Effectiveness

March 23rd, 2015
Jeffrey Hammond, null
Jeffrey Hammond
With contributors:
Christopher Mines , Dominique Whittaker

Summary

Open source software (OSS) is increasingly ubiquitous as application development professionals look to trim enterprise software costs while simultaneously creating new, modern applications. OSS seeps into development shops through a variety of channels, whether managers know it or not. Unchecked tactical adoption of OSS creates unmanaged risk and unrealized returns, and application development professionals should not tolerate it when a proactive OSS adoption strategy can increase its benefits. The first step in moving from a tactical mess to a strategic plan is to specify the conditions under which OSS is permissible in your development shop. By creating concise OSS consumption and contribution policies, adopting tactics from open source communities, and adding control points to application life-cycle management (ALM) processes and tools, application development professionals can shift from tactical responses to conscious integration based on realistic expectations and articulated economic benefits. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.

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