1. How important to you see each aspect of the OSA’s mission (advocacy, interoperability, meta-community) to your successfully adopting open solutions?


- Advocacy and awareness do matter – but there are two parts to this. First is simple awareness of the solution, the second is believing that the solution is viable. I think the problem is more the second than the first.

- Yes, agreed. – Many of my peers don’t want to touch open source apps because they’re not ready for enterprise use – or that’s what they think because they don't see widespread adoption.

- Those mainstream guys won’t touch you until they see lots of evidence of success. Everybody in the room, 10 out of 10, nodded their heads vigorously that this is a problem.

- There needs to be evidence that these little companies take quality, scalability seriously. I'm sure they do, but how many of their customers can vouch for this?

- Interoperability is huge. I’m feeling lots of pain there.

- What do the analysts say? To a certain degree, mainstream CIO’s will believe whatever Gartner says.





2. Which areas of interoperability are most important to you?


These were raised, in no particular order of priority:

- Single signon and user management. Managing our users is a mess right now. Both within app suites, and with external systems or corporate directory.

- Front-end UI should be seamless. Don’t confuse users with disparate look-and-feel.

- Consistent management and monitoring, especially for heterogeneous environments. This came from a Groundwork customer, who then added that Groundwork was driving some real thought leadership around making this better.

- Workflow integration, how to get workflow functionality inherent in one product to work outside that product. Others mentioned this is a common problem with CRM and ECM products, one of them was an Alfresco customer.

- Integrating with email/IM/other messaging media.

- Interoperability with legacy and proprietary. ActiveDirectory, Exchange, QuickBooks were mentioned. Hey Microsoft, are you hearing this too?

- Need to have consistent methodologies and best practices for deploying this stuff to avoid pitfalls later on. Today there are no consistent approaches to upgrades, patching, scalability, etc.

- Licensing. If I’m installing a pre-integrated suite, I want to read through at most one license agreement.

And we could have kept going, if we weren't pressed for time. Clearly, interoperability in all its forms has been a cost issue for these customers, and they look forward to somebody, anybody!, attempt to address it.




3. What open source solutions are you currently using?


The answers indicated mostly infrastructure and collaboration tools, including the following. However one made the comment, after which several nodded, But I'm always learning about some open source tool that my guys are using anyways, and they find their way into production whether I like it or not!

- wikis and blogs

- custom apps on top of open source databases (mysql, postgres)

- instant messaging

- one is an Alfresco customer

- one is a Groundwork customer

- one uses Jasper reports

- several are, of course, SpikeSource customers, most are using our older infrastructure stacks, but some are starting to use our "SpikeIgnited" apps as well.


This, by the way, is representative of a lot of SpikeSource's customers. Their experience with open source is at the infrastructure and collaboration level, usually through their developers, and they are evaluating applications for the first time.




4. What does “open source” mean to you? How much do OSI-approved licenses matter to you?


- I don’t care whether it’s ‘open source’. I just want it to work.

- To me, open source means it’s flexible; I can make changes, but then I worry about how to maintain it.


Some hadn't heard of the OSI, so we educated them...

- Well, if they’re established as providing ‘good housekeeping seals of approval’, then it makes sense to work with them. Definitely we want to make sure there is truth in advertising. We couldn't agree more!


And finally, this nugget:

- I don’t want ‘open source’. I want ‘open source with adult supervision’.




So there you have it, the voice of The Customer. Clearly, most "early adopters" such as these CIO's have been using, or are at least willing to use, open solutions in their respective organizations. However they all agree that there is a perception problem, especially among their "mainstream" and "laggard" peers, many of whom don't put open solutions on their "shortlist" of consideration because they simply don't know where to start and don't know of the many success stories already out there. We can collectively do a better job of addressing it. Moreover, there's definitely agreement that interoperability is a major issue, and collective effort is the best way to resolve it. And, finally, there was a strong sentiment the OSA should act as "good citizens" of the open source world, both promoting and giving back, and we intend to do exactly that.