An open book

InTech, Sep 2003 by Braun, David, Glenn, Nancy

You also want to consider if there have been no updates in a long time, is the software dead? Does it still do what you want? Is the rest of the world going to leave this software behind?

Ethics

There are a couple of responsibilities you assume when using open source tools. These are not legal or contractual obligations, but ethical responsibilities. Remember the cost and time savings the tool is helping you to achieve, and pay it back for good IT karma.

First, make sure that you have the internal support structure to handle the open source software. This means that you are going to spend time and money allowing staff to train themselves on the tool. It is not fair to your end users or your staff to plan to use a tool that has no purchasable support or training, and expect them to become experts on the system over their lunch hours. If you take this "free time training" approach, your end users will be let down the first time there is a crisis, and your developers will be left feeling like they were failures. Give them the resources they need to make your site a success.

Second, become involved with the community. Too many times, companies use a tool and never feed anything back to the community. This is much like the television and radio viewers who watch PBS or listen to NPR, but never send in a check during the fundraising drives. It does not have to cost you dollars to become an active supporter. Here are several ideas that you can employ:

* When you find a bug, tell the community about it.

* When you find a bug and fix it, tell them.

* Advertise that you use their tool.

* Donate resources to the community (such as hardware, money, bandwidth).

Open source tools are a good fit in the manufacturing setting, even in mission-critical systems, as long as you follow the following rules of thumb:

1. Do a careful risk analysis.

2. Have a good support plan and staff in place.

3. Support the tools and all of their communities.

4. Understand the capabilities or limitations of your developers.

5. Have a good system design to allow for growth and flexibility.

If you have completed all of these steps and choose to incorporate open source software into your enterprise, your company will reap savings.

Behind the byline

David Broun is director of new technology at R&R Visual Systems in Rochester, Ind. Nancy Glenn is system architect/technology lead at Delphi Automotive Systems in Kokomo, Ind.