An Open World

Hi !

As we look at our current growth - our 2 new offices last year, and the increasing number of IBEXIans, and our future growth, and related infrastructure, it is time to look how we can better manage our internal processes.

Over the next few months, we will take up an ambitious programme to change and improve these.
One of these is to look at the software we are using in our offices, and those we plan to use.

• The open-source model has a lot to offer the business world. It's a way that many companies and individuals can collaborate on a product that none of them could achieve alone. It's the rapid bug-fixes and the changes that the user asks for, done to the user's own schedule.
• The open-source model also means increased security; because code is in the public view it will be exposed to extreme scrutiny, with problems being found and fixed instead of being kept secret until the wrong person discovers them.
• Another issue is increased reliability. Think about how closed sources made the Year 2000 problem worse .. and how when developers have to show the entire code to the end-users around the world, and to their peers, how quality is forced to improve.
• And a fundamental one is Freedom from Legal Entanglements. Using most commercial software involves software licenses, and tracking software copies and usage. This demands record keeping, and legal exposure. Both raise costs. Thus, juggling software licenses and copies is a source of costs to businesses, and legal risk to businesses and individuals. In many (most? all?) businesses, such tracking is imperfect, sometimes intentionally, usually not. Any such imperfection exposes the company to legal actions (fines, litigation, arrest) due to breaking laws and violating copyrights; an intellectual property quagmire. Most/all open source software can be freely copied and used. There are no licenses to track and thus no related costs, or legal risks.

This translates into not just lower costs, but also higher availability of tools to do your work. Look around you, and you will see in many companies absurd restrictions - on adding email ids, providing access to project management software, absence of tools for automation, for design management, ... for CRM.

If the tools were available to you, you could do your work faster, better, freer.
That is what we seek to achieve, as we move to an open world, using open source solutions.

We will have to manage this change carefully across the company with minimal disruption and maximum continuity.
We need to ensure we can continue to interact with everyone - customers, prospects, using a variety of proprietary or open-source software.
In the spirit of open-source, I am asking for volunteers to help us in this transition. To sign-up, write to me.

Welcome to an open world, coming soon to IBEXI.

--
Regards,
Surajit Basu

www.ibexi.com
Reflecting on the future

Related documents:

• MITRE REPORT: "A Business Case Study of Open Source Software".

• "Your Open Source Plan" from CIO magazine.