Views from Abroad: Some Thoughts on Open-Source Projects

Only a couple of years ago, customers were reluctant to use open source components. The publicity around Linux and the support of trusted corporations such as IBM or Sun has subdued these fears. Today, our customers take exactly the opposite attitude and expect us to use open source components.

Benoît Marchal

Java developers benefit from many open source projects, the most famous being the Kaffe Virtual Machine, the Tomcat Web server and the Xalan XSLT processor.

Since I started this column, I have been fortunate enough to meet with the developers of the Jetty, Simkin and Cactus open source projects. They and others made many interesting comments on what makes an open source project tick. Here are their views.

The Myth

"Release your project as open source and developers will flock to support it" sounds like a good idea, particularly in times of financial hardship but it's a myth. Most users do not contribute development time.

Which might or might not be a problem.

Greg Wilkins chose open source for the broad user community that helps with testing and suggests improvements, but he expects to do most of the development. "Jetty is essentially one guy writing code, but I benefit from the input from many reviewers." In fact, he carefully chose his license (the artistic license) to retain central control over the application while benefiting from peer review.

What's in There for Me?

Failing an army of free developers, what attracts companies and users to open source? Developers appreciate the opportunity to give back to a community that helps them.

"In the beginning we have fantasies," explains Simon Whiteside, "I'll have thousands of supporters like Larry Wall, I'll be a star. But there are thousands of open source projects and it does not make you a star."

Furthermore, they appreciate the support provided by the open source community. They enjoy the good press associated with open source projects, as well as promotion tools, such as Freshmeat. Open-sourcing a project is an effective solution to grow its user base.

Whiteside originally released his Simkin scripting language under a commercial license, but when sales did not take off he decided to give open source a chance. "For another project, Fill My Space, I have had to grow a more commercial side of me. As a commercial company, you need both sides, but the values of the open source community are more aligned with the values of developers."

Vincent Massol stresses another benefit: releasing Cactus as open source forced him to formalize what started as a disparate collection of testing tools. Eventually, it benefit its users. He also enjoys the discussions with Apache developers. "On SourceForge, many projects are not developed to their full potential. Through the Apache Foundation, I benefit from the experience of other open source developers... although I had to relinquish some control on Cactus."

Lessons Learned

Should you or your company be involved in the open source movement? Maybe, but don't fool yourself, you need a commercial side to support the development. Says Whiteside, "It's difficult for users to feel ownership and contribute when a company releases its code and ask them to fix the bugs."

However, open source software is an idea whose time has come: increasingly, software companies give their software and derive revenue from service. With that business model, you can benefit from the instant recognition that open source software brings.

About the Author

Benoît Marchal is a Belgian developer and writer. He is the author of XML by Example (two editions), Applied XML Solutions, and a columnist for IBM developerWorks. Details on his latest projects are at marchal.com.