There is not a litmus test to determine whether an open source project is a success.  It is hard measure its success, but if you stand back and take a look at your project you should be able to tell.  Tech Week Europe asked the question, “What Makes an Open Source Tech Success?”  After a brief reminder about Red Hat hitting the billion-dollar profit mark and how open source is being adopted by literally everyone, the article voyages into the common waters of open source benefits.  It gives the usual spiel about cheaper solutions, tailoring to individual needs, and the community help.

Finally, it explains that in order have a successful open source project one needs to take into account manpower, costs, and whether companies will want to contribute to the open source community.

The real definition comes from:

But when it comes to a successful open source project, we want to see how an organization discovered an area of the business that needed improving, looked out to the market, used open source and then gave back to the community. That’s the beauty of open source – it’s the IT gift that keeps on giving. And we want to see companies keeping the various open source feedback loops going.

Again yet another article touting the necessities of community, getting all of your geese in a row, etc.  Some real advice would be to check out LucidWorks cloud and enterprise search applications.

Whitney Grace, September 26, 2012

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