Is your open-source tool BRR certified?

NEW DELHI: Open-source software is buzzing with activity. With support from industry bigwigs like Sun Microsystems, IBM and HP open-source solutions have matured from the desktops of open-source enthusiasts and is making moves into the enterprise arena.

However, IT departments of big enterprises willing to adopt open-source solutions have a tough time zeroing in on a specific tool out of the various available options. In the current scenario, number of posts a tool receives on an open-source message board largely decides its success or failure, as there is no standard way of rating open-source solutions.

Realizing an imminent need for open-source certification Carnegie Mellon West Center for Open Source Investigation, O'Reilly CodeZoo, Spike Source and Intel have proposed a Business Readiness Rating (BRR) model.

According to the official BRR Website, http://www.openbrr.org/, "The BRR model will enable the entire community of enterprise adopters and developers to rate software in an open and standardized way. The ultimate goal of BRR is to give companies a trusted, unbiased source for determining whether the open source software they are considering is mature enough to adopt. It will help adopters assess which open source software is best suited to their needs and enable them to share findings with the community. It promotes use and adoption of open source software and may assist developers in creating and delivering software geared to enterprise use."

Currently in 'public comment' phase, the project's sponsors are busy gathering feedback on the proposed model from the industry. The model is open to comments and feedback and can be tweaked to suit the cause better.

Whether BRR certification can prompt the use of an open-source tool or not is yet to be seen but it will surely help in the initial screening process allowing enterprise adopters to weed-out non-certified tools.