Stormy by name, not by nature

Sam Varghese
Monday, 04 February 2008 20:56

Opinion and Analysis

Says Peters: "We help them manage the open source software in their environment, so they can say who installed what, where, and under what licences. We help them generate reports of licences for their attorneys. They know they're using open source, and they're okay with the licences. We want to make sure that any changes that are made to the product get checked upstream and don't become like forks under different licences."
Despite the number of open source projects it is working with, Peters says OpenLogic is still a small company with less than 50 staff though it has been around for about eight years.

"We started out as a consulting company. Our founders, Rod Cope, and Eric Widener, they were doing consulting for companies, and they realised they were doing the same projects for each company. They were trying to use open source software and figure out how to integrate it and install it. They went and wrote a software project that helped install it and integrate open source software. And it's incorporated into our current software product."

Asked why many large companies were using free and open source software but afraid to openly admit it, Peters said: "(There are) two reasons. One, the management doesn't always know exactly what they're using. They know they're using open source software. They realise it's good for the business, but they don't know exactly what they're using. Nobody likes to talk about new things when they're not really sure how much or...

"And the second thing is they're afraid of negative publicity. So if you're a bank and you're using a lot of open source software, and you tell everybody what you're using and then you find out there's a security hole in one of those projects, you actually post up on the mailing list saying, 'I found this bug; can someone fix it?' They're worried that someone will pick it up and say, 'oh, the bank has a security hole because I saw them post it on this mailing list'."

Looking ahead, Peters said OpenLogic wanted to be the company that helped businesses use open source software. "We want to be able to help them figure out what to use, how to manage it in their environment, how to get it supported. We want to be the interface between the community and the companies. But we want to be the people that can help enterprises do better business through using open source software."

She has worked with companies from the US, Europe and Japan. She said there was a difference in approach in each case. "I think Europe is much more government and then the companies. I think the government started using it since they think software should be free and the stuff we develop should be available to all our citizens. And in the US it definitely came from the companies first and then the government."

As to the concerns over use of FOSS in Europe and the US, she said "the one difference I do see is that the Europeans are much less worried about the legal issues. The American companies are worried about getting sued for valid reasons, and the European companies don't have that same concern at all."