What SAP can teach you on how to adopt open source

SAP, arguably one of the remaining enterprise software vendors to accept and use open source in its products, recently made news by announcing a broader open source strategy. More important, SAP explained how it planned for the greater acceptance of open source components in its projects. Enterprise IT decision-makers can learn from SAP’s approach to open source adoption.

Risk, a four-letter word in IT As IDG News Service’s Joab Jackson reports, SAP faced two key related hurdles in trying to grow its usage of open source components in its products: executive acceptance and developer education. Not surprisingly, these very same issues were also highlighted in a newly released Accenture survey of open source adoption among 300 U.S. and U.K. companies with more than $500 million in yearly revenue. Accenture explains:

Despite a very encouraging picture, some organizations still remain hesitant. The biggest challenge, mentioned by 35 percent of all companies, is around training developers how to use open source. Furthermore, lack of senior management support appears to be a key reason given for not using open source software among organizations that have looked at it but ultimately chosen not to use it.

[ InfoWorld’s Savio Rodrigues explains when you should open-source your internal apps | Keep up with the latest open source trends and news in InfoWorld’s Technology: Open Source newsletter. ]

Bob Sutor, IBM’s vice president of open source and Linux, recently detailed 10 questions he is frequently asked by customers considering open source. Here are a few of the key questions Bob typically faces:

• Of the hundreds of thousands of open source projects, how do I tell which are the good or bad ones?
• I need a 5- to 10-year plan for installing enterprise software. Which open source projects and companies can I count on to guarantee support for the software for that long?
• How do I avoid making a really bad, possibly job-ending, mistake when moving to open source software?
• Will I have legal or license problems if I use open source projects?

Sutor tends to speak with C-level executives and IT decision-makers. These audiences are often very concerned about risk mitigation and want to ensure that open source decisions do not add undue risk to the enterprise.

Open source approval processes mitigate risk Training developers to appropriately use approved open source projects and products in an enterprise software project helps address executive and decision-maker concerns surrounding open source adoption. This is true whether the software project will be used just internally or could be made public.

According to Jackson’s news report, SAP has standardized a process for managing which open source software is approved for use by SAP’s internal developers. Jackson writes:

Using a program called Code Center, offered by Black Duck Software as part of its Black Duck Suite, von Riegen’s office runs a companywide registry of which open source applications have already been approved by SAP for use in its products. It also specifies which versions of these applications have been approved, which streamlines the maintenance process for the company.

SAP’s open source approval process follows similar processes in place at software vendors such as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft, as well as at many enterprises.

The process begins by identifying which open source projects and products are already in use in the enterprise development process. Think it’s odd to scan for open source usage before a policy is in place? Think again — the open source folklore is laden with stories of IT managers stating “we don’t use any open source” and then seeing developers pipe in to correct them.

Second, more than likely with the help of your legal team, identify the licenses and project governance approaches that your company deems in line with your adoption of the related open source project.

The first two steps will result in a list of approved open source projects that your developers can use in their application development efforts.

Finally, determine which open source projects your company would be willing to let developers contribute to. Most enterprises don’t contribute to open source projects even as their usage of open source continues to expand. According to data from Accenture’s survey, only 23 percent of respondents expected to contribute to an open source project.

However, being able to contribute to an open source project as part of a developer’s day job is increasingly an attractive recruitment tool. As such, I wouldn’t be surprised if enterprise open source contribution were to accelerate. Thus, it’s important to start thinking about which projects could make the short list of projects your company’s developers are able to contribute to.

There’s evidence that more and more enterprises are trying to do the right thing in planning and managing open source adoption. Usage of products such as Black Duck’s Code Center or OpenLogic’s Deep Discovery Scanning Solution is growing, so there’s good news for enterprise open source.

Does your company have a formal open source adoption process? Why not?

Follow me on Twitter at SavioRodrigues. I should state: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.”

This article, “What SAP can teach you on how to adopt open source,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Rodrigues et al.’s Open Sources blog and follow the latest developments in open source at InfoWorld.com.