Open source products

I love open source products. It’s like having tens or hundreds of very talented and committed developers working for you across the globe for free without the need of any project management or supervision on your part.

And this is exactly what open source software is. Obviously one has to choose the right products for their needs. What I found the most important is to stick to the base technology stack when choosing open source products. I have been using Java products and I only use Java open source products when defining the new platform. This makes it easier to integrate various open source products and basically only requires good Java developers to work on a project. It is possible that a particular open source solution developed in .NET or PHP is more superior then a Java one and vice versa, but the headaches of integration and lack of in-house knowledge outweighs the possible advantages.

Some business owners, executives and managers tend to be too pragmatic and request integrating a mix of products developed with different technologies into a single solution. Though it is possible and some companies do it, the cost effectiveness, maintainability and flexibility is not there.

Mixing and matching various technologies might be fun, but businesses are looking for a ROI and expedient delivery of solutions. Simpler and consistent solutions work better.

Check out some of the more popular open source Java products at http://java-source.net/