Open source movement sheds hippy image in battle for corporate mindshare

Every man and his dog seems to be partaking in Twitter activity these days but there is one group abstaining from sharing their views on what is now one of the world's most popular websites, and that is the open source community.

Ross Gardler, vice president of community at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), told V3 that the strongest advocates of the open source community refrain from using any kind of proprietary system if they can.

"They won't be found anywhere on Twitter," he said, adding that instead they will use identi.ca, which is a Free Software micro-blogging tool.

The ASF provides a mix of support for a broad range of open source software projects. As well as his work at the ASF, Gardler runs a consulting business that specialises in open source ventures, called OpenDirective. He used to manage OSS Watch as well, an open source advisory service to the UK's higher education sector, but recently gave this up to focus on his business.

Gardler was keen to discuss his work as an open source consultant, so V3 started off by asking him whether he would ever advise businesses against an open source strategy.

"If I don't think it's right for them, then I say so, but I know Free Software advocates would be horrified by this."

Gardler discussed the two different types of people he meets from the open source community, and distanced himself from the more "aggressive strand". That strand, he said, will only use open source software and will not take part in proprietary projects.

Gardler went on to discuss the trends he has seen when working with businesses in open source adoption. The big change for companies wanting to adopt open source software for the first time lies in coming to terms with an alien development process.

"OpenDirective doesn't advise businesses on procurement issues, but on how they engage with the open source development process," he said.

"They need to change their internal culture, so their main focus needs to be getting a product out into the open source community, rather than perfecting the development themselves."

Gardler was referring to technology developed by a company for its own IT systems, rather than for commercial gain.

"Another problem is that often, even when open source tools are being used by a business, it's within a hierarchical management system, which has a closed source nature. A lot of organisations find changing to a new model scary, and it takes a while to get used to," he explained.

The UK needs to change how software development is taught in universities to address this business alienation from the open source development processes, Gardler believes.

"Most universities still teach students how to build a system and then how to maintain that system. But that's not really what happens. The development process doesn't fit into such blocks," he said.

Open source development occurs through team work, and there is less management hierarchy, according to Gardler.

"Aberystwyth University has an open source degree now, but more universities need to follow," he said.