It might seem counterintuitive for a company to give away its products, but more and more software vendors are doing just that. The open-source software (OSS) movement is gaining momentum, and there are many free applications that provide the same functionality as commercial business software.

However, open sourcing isn’t just about getting a software license at no cost. In fact, many vendors and developers charge some sort of fee for their open-source products. When open-source proponents use the term “free,” they generally refer to the freedoms inherent in the licensing scheme. OSS is licensed in such a way that enables users to copy it, redistribute it and even make improvements to it. Open sourcing creates a free market paradigm that drives down costs while encouraging innovation.

Adoption of OSS is becoming pervasive according to Gartner, with 85 percent of companies surveyed currently using it in their enterprises and the remaining 15 percent expecting to by the middle of 2009. When asked to select the top three most important reasons for using OSS, respondents cited lower total cost of ownership, reduction in software development costs and the flexibility to embark on new IT projects or software initiatives.

Some respondents indicated that they use OSS as investment protection against a single vendor "owning" the entire IT department. Others said using OSS enabled faster time to market, which better positions them to meet the demands of internal and external customers and, in many cases, provides them with the ability to avoid complex procurement procedures.

Gaining Momentum

The Gartner survey results indicate that OSS in new projects is being deployed nearly equally in mission-critical and non-mission-critical situations. Although the adoption rate is higher for the more mature infrastructure software projects and components, more projects related to application software are in progress or are planned to start within the next 12 months.

In areas where OSS projects are most mature, IT departments appear comfortable using OSS components to enhance existing infrastructure environments. However, in the less mature areas of application software, OSS is more readily used as a replacement for commercially available software, probably because of the cost and sophistication required to customize many applications.

Customer service continues to be the leading business process for which OSS projects are used, followed closely by enterprise integration, finance and administration, and business analytics. Sales and marketing, customer analytics, field service, ERP and CRM solutions are also moving up the adoption ramp, further increasing the influence of OSS in many enterprises.

Formal Policies Needed

However, Gartner found that 69 percent of companies surveyed still have no formal policy for evaluating and cataloging OSS usage in the organization, opening up huge potential liabilities for intellectual property violations.

"Just because something is free doesn't mean that it has no cost," said Laurie Wurster, research director at Gartner. "Companies must have a policy for procuring OSS, deciding which applications will be supported by OSS, and identifying the intellectual property risk or supportability risk associated with using OSS. Once a policy is in place, then there must be a governance process to enforce it."

Governance, or the lack of it, was the No. 1 challenge for OSS users in the survey, followed by conflicting terms and conditions and the availability of too many license types and forms.

"Understanding when and how an OSS alternative may be used is a frustrating process, especially when there are so many license types and forms from which to choose," said Wurster. "As time goes by, many of these concerns will be addressed, but this continues to be a slow process. Increases in OSS popularity and in the rate of OSS adoption will drive the required changes."

OSS is gaining in popularity because it offers many benefits. Most OSS is built upon industry standards, increasing interoperability and compatibility. And because open-source licensing schemes generally prohibit the addition of proprietary components, it helps free organizations from the vendor lock-in and inflexibility associated with proprietary solutions. With the right policies and procedures in place, IT departments can enjoy the freedoms inherent in open sourcing without putting their organizations at risk.