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Assessing Open Source for Corporate Usability

O'Reilly Radar > Open Source Business Readiness Ratings.  Tim O’Reilly’s Radar has homed-in on Business Readiness Rating, “A proposed Open Standard to Facilitate Assessment and Adoption of Open Source Software.”  I want to pay attention to this, and indeed, I have to, because the sponsors are proposing to provide “a trusted, unbiased source for determining whether the open source software they are considering is mature enough to adopt [my emphasis].”  There are white papers, some samples, and a way to get involved.

I am interested in assessments generally because they will touch on trustworthiness in products, especially in the overlap with usability, security, deployment and support/maintainability.  There is something different than producer’s risk required as part of open-source development and distribution models, and I am keen to see what can provide a comparable basis for the confidence in suppliers that commercial adopters require.  Also, this approach would seem to provide developers a way to develop their trustworthiness and confidence in their products. 

I am interested in this approach specifically for how the authority of assessments is developed and aggregated with regard to particular software products.   I want to test this with regard to transparency, provenance of assessments, and verification / confirmation of assessments.  Most of all, I want to understand the approach to aggregation.  I don’t have an answer to this: it is an area where I have questions, and I want to see what comes out of BRR.  I also don’t understand why we would deal any differently with closed-source offerings, and I will wonder about that as well.

I recommend downloading the white-paper (PDF file) and the sample form (Microsoft Excel file [;<), registering with the site, and then joining the forum for discussion.  (The forum membership rules are something.)  I’ll be there.

posted by orcmid at 8/02/2005 02:00:56 PM, rating data by NewsGator Online