Reusing Open-Source Software and Practices: The Impact of Open-Source on Commercial Vendors

One of the most intriguing ways that commercial developers of software can become more efficient is to reuse not only software but also best practices from the open-source movement. The open-source movement encompasses a wide collection of ideas, knowledge, techniques, and solutions. Commercial software vendors have an opportunity to both learn from the open-source community, as well as leverage that knowledge for the benefit of its commercial clients. This paper looks at a number of the characteristics of the open-source movement, offers a categorization of open-source dimensions, and provides an analysis of the opportunities available to commercial software vendors when applying the lessons from the open-source movement.