Open Source Being Repositioned in Corporate America

Open Source methodology has gained some ground in one of the last places you and I might expect: In the development area of corporations. Consultants are calling environments like Sourceforge Enterprise Edition a Digital Development Environment.

What about CVS and Subversion? They call that a code collaborative. Well, what about the developer's itch? That's now the sponsor's charter.

How long will it take for the new moniker of Digital Development Environment (DDE) to replace the term Open Source? I might assert that your guess isn't as good as mine. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. I just happen to live in that part of the consulting world where CIOs and Directors want to reposition OSS terms that scare their subordinates.

The term DDE appears is more digestible. CIO and directors are calling OSS methodology the new paradigm; it's something that IT workers expect as the world shifts away from analog development cycles to digital ones.

I anticipate that Open Source adoption will accelerate rapidly under the new moniker of DDE. If you think about it in terms of positioning, the term Open Source isn't needed in an enterprise.

One bright spot does exist in this "adopt and extend" model. If you consult, the companies engaged in changing their paradigms need you. They need a DDE consultant to teach them how to do Open Source development. Go figure.

Tom Adelstein currently works as a contract technical writer in the Information Technology Field. In March 2007, his latest O'Reilly Book, Linux System Administration was released. Tom's home web site Open Source Today has tips and techniques for system administrators and Open Source VARs.

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

DDE: Dynamic Data Exchange?

Adrian Price's picture

To me, 'DDE' will always be Microsoft's OLE/COM precursor (not a particularly pleasant memory ;-) )

DDE

Anonymous's picture

DDE?? Digital Development Environment could mean anything. Why not pick an acronym that actually means something, instead of yet more marketspeak?

corporate-speak

Alton Moore's picture

It's odd how people seem to need to invent these goofy terms. I guess the idea is that if someone else is doing it already, it must be laudable and one had better get with the program!

Ah, for the good old days, when we got together with the users, figured out what needed to be done, and then did it -- in Cobol at that -- and everything worked fine. And the computer didn't need to be rebooted and the server didn't need to be patched all the time. ;-)

Webcast
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers

Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.

Learn More

Sponsored by AMD

White Paper
Red Hat White Paper: Using an Open Source Framework to Catch the Bad Guy

Built-in forensics, incident response, and security with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Every security policy provides guidance and requirements for ensuring adequate protection of information and data, as well as high-level technical and administrative security requirements for a system in a given environment. Traditionally, providing security for a system focuses on the confidentiality of the information on it. However, protecting the data integrity and system and data availability is just as important. For example, when processing United States intelligence information, there are three attributes that require protection: confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Learn more about catching the bad guy in this free white paper.

Learn More

Sponsored by DLT Solutions