IBM developerWorks: To open source or not to open source

“Open source represents both opportunities and threats that
need to be taken into account when planning the future of any
software project. Adam L. Beberg examines the times when open
source is a good idea, and when it’s not, from a business
perspective.“

“The open source movement has grown to a level of religious
devotion, and this may have scared you away from using open source
in your projects. But the open source movement has gained momentum
for many reasons: it’s idealistic, coders work on fun things, and
it gets everyone low or no-cost software complete with source code.
Keep in mind that no matter what the zealots say, there is no one
way to define the terms and no right answers.”

“The fact is, open source isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. There
are times when open source is the only sensible choice; there are
other times when open source doesn’t make much sense at all; and
there are more ways to apply an open source license to your code
than you might have realized.”

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