I saw a headline from an InformationWeek story – UPS Unsure Open Source Can Deliver. But UPS uses open source widely in production environments- including Ant, Apache, JBoss, Linux, and Struts. Its just the headline that is out of whack.
So i thought i would post my own. The negative sub-editing is a little odd given UPS’ starring role in Info Week’s recent Linux goes Mainstream story. As an ex journalist myself, i know that subs can miss the point – so what is the key to the story?
Nick Gray, UPS’s applications manager for architectural services, explains that decisions are based on functionality, not religion. Gray is kind of like a mini Linus at UPS – a benevolent dictator for open source adoption or contribution- code neither enters, nor leaves, without his say so. He has a legal team to examine open source license issues, and is evidently establishing some clear best practices in open source software governance.
Gray makes it clear he doesn’t think open source is free–its just another operating environment, with associated costs. But he evidently has a bias in its favor–according to the story he uses Mozilla and OpenOffice at home…
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