OPEN SOURCE and OPEN PLATFORM

							OPEN SOURCE
and
OPEN PLATFORM

 PROs and CONs - A Case Study
                   by
           Cindy Zerkowski
     MIS Director, Macomb County
      www.MacombCountyMI.gov


           October 13, 2004
  Michigan Digital Government Summit
THE TIME:     2004


THE PLACE: Macomb County


THE CASE:      Should our new Web
 platform be Open Source?


THE MOTIVE: $$$
                  GOAL
INTERNET: Web platform capable of
  handling a fully transactional
  environment - secure, stable, and
  enterprise - class

INTRANET: DITTO - but,
      also fully integratable with network
  administration and security product sets
  already in use.
    PRODUCT REVIEW PROCESS

                PLATFORMS
       APPLICATION/DATABASE ENGINE
          DEVELOPMENT TOOLSET

   Reviewed and Compared
        Open Source and commercial/proprietary vendors
   Proven technology use - a determinative criteria
     MYTH vs. REALITY

 What seems simple at the outset, gets
 more complex and ambiguous as you
 peel back the layers.

 Whilethere are thousands of choices,
 only a handful can be considered
 serious contenders
CONSIDER THE ANCILLARIES
 Training
 Support
 Enhancements/Upgrades
 Documentation
 Security
 Legal   Recourse

   DON’T TAKE THESE FOR GRANTED
 THE FINANCIAL MODEL


 Open   Source      FREE Open Source


 ZERO Down, PAY LATER
             WHAT TO DO

 Test   Drive
  • Stability
  • Performance
  • Scalability
 Look   Under the Covers
  • Defect rates
  • Architecture/Design
  • Adaptability
Need to Answer the Question

     Do you want to be in the
      development business?
                 or
Is acquisition the better strategy?
   Delivery Architecture Component
                  Tools/Roles

 Integrated   Development Environment
  (IDE)
 Business Component/Service Modeling
 Business Process Modeling
 Source/Version Control
 Issue Tracking
 Build Environment
 Methodology
    Delivery Architecture Component
          Tools/Roles   (continued)



 (D)HTML/XML Authoring
 Image Manipulation
 Unit Testing
 Automated System Testing
 Report Writer
 e-Commerce Development
 Aspect-oriented Programming (AOP)
 Development Database
 Miscellaneous Tools
           Risk Assessment

         - availability for specialty
 Training
 products; expenses
 Travel Time - vendors have staff to
 work on bugs/fixes and improvements
 vs. in-house staffing
 Threat   of hack attack - sooner or later
           Risk Assessment
                (continued)


 What   are the vendors doing?
 Mix   - and - Match
 What’s   stable? Linux? J2EE?
 Warning:  Intellectual Property legal
 battles - “derivative works”
         The Pendulum




CLOSED                  OPEN
Q. Is Open Source nothing more than
 shareware - repackaged?

A. Kind-of, if it’s free open source -
    and, you get source code, too.