[ Thanks to David A.
Wheeler for this link. ]
“Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS) has risen to
great prominence. Briefly, OSS/FS programs are programs whose
licenses give users the freedom to run the program for any purpose,
to study and modify the program, and to redistribute copies of
either the original or modified program (without having to pay
royalties to previous developers). Many quantitative studies have
shown that, in many cases, using OSS/FS programs is a reasonable or
even superior approach compared to their proprietary
competition.“This paper describes how to evaluate programs, including OSS/FS
programs, to determine which one (if any) best meets your needs.
This paper is intended for those who already know how to evaluate
proprietary programs, but are not sure how to evaluate OSS/FS
programs. Significant technical mastery of software development
isn’t required for most of the process described here, but
technical knowledge about software development is certainly helpful
and there are a few (marked) steps which are best performed by
someone knowledgeable about software development. For those who
want more details, this paper includes many links to supporting
material.“The basic steps for evaluating all programs, both OSS/FS and
proprietary, are essentially the same. I suggest the following
steps: identify candidates, read existing reviews, briefly compare
the leading programs’ attributes to your needs, and then perform an
in-depth analysis of the top candidates. You can think of this as
“IRCA”: identify, review, compare, and analyze. The rest of this
article is, in fact, organized by these four steps, followed by a
wrap-up…”