A Thriving Developer Community is a Competitive Differentiator
Link: One Company’s Search For The Perfect Open Source Software - InformationWeek
H&R Block wanted a flexible, easy- to-use document management system to capture clients’ tax documents and move them digitally to its tax preparers’ offices. It considered [closed-source] products, such as FileNet and Documentum. But H&R Block CIO Marc West eventually directed the team to focus on open source options, since the cost of putting commercial options in 13,000 fields offices wouldn’t fly. That left about 300 open source content management packages to choose from, with names like Alfresco, Drupal, JackRabbit, and Joomla.
"The first thing I do
is go out to the community pages," Ginn says. "How many active members
are there, how many [discussion] threads? It tells me whether the
community is thriving."He also checks for how many developers are involved and how frequently
the project puts out releases. He watches how effectively bugs are
dealt with and inserts his own questions to gauge the caliber of
response.
Terrific worm’s-eye view of how a corporate IT manager evaluates an (open source!) ISV.
Related posts:
- How to run a technology community ...
- Wanted: Flickr Drupal Integration ...
- Death to Developer Contests Over on his blog Microsoft’s Dan Fernandez courageously decries the frequent use...
