Open Source Programming Tools On the Rise

snydeq writes "Peter Wayner takes a look at several open source development projects making waves in the enterprise. From Git to Hadoop to build management tools, 'even in the deepest corners of proprietary stacks, open source tools can be found, often dominating. The reason is clear: Open source licenses are designed to allow users to revise, fix, and extend their code. The barber or cop may not be familiar enough with code to contribute, but programmers sure know how to fiddle with their tools. The result is a fertile ecology of ideas and source code, fed by the enthusiasm of application developers who know how to "scratch an itch."'"

Really?

[MrEricSir]

Here is a very unscientific survey of worthwhile open source tools that have caught our eye.

I guess CVS, Firefox, Linux, GNU Make, etc. didn't catch your eye years ago?

Open? Or free (as in beer)?

[Chuck_McDevitt]

I'll bet that lots of enterprise use of Open Source tools is due to the price tag, not the ability to fiddle with the source code.

Re:Easy

[clang_jangle]

I know that words are mostly defined by popular usage, but it annoys me that people say "the cloud" when all they really mean is "online". "The cloud" was supposed to be about distributed computing or using online computing resources from your choice of locations/devices. We're not seeing much of that, but we sure are aiding and abetting the marketing tards who keep saying "cloud, cloud" until it actually means nothing at all.

Re:Really?

[Sarten-X]

Years ago, they certainly would have been "making waves", but they aren't as impressive now. CVS is surpassed by Subversion and Git, with the latter mentioned in TFA. Firefox is rapidly becoming a bloated but unremarkable product. Linux isn't really a "programmer's tool", so doesn't blong on the list in the first place. GNU Make has certainly earned its place among the annals of history, but it's only had four minor releases in the past decade. These projects are important, but hardly eye-catching for an article written today.

I'll get off your lawn now.

The reason is clear but it isnot the one mentioned

[Quantum_Infinity]

I highly doubt that open source tools are used because they allow themselves to be modified. What percentage of people actually look into the code and modify them? The main reason is that most open source tools are free and have absolutely zero delay in being available. Download, install and code away! In most cases, you don't even have to install, just unzip and you are good to go.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU Make has certainly earned its place among the annals of history, but it's only had four minor releases in the past decade.

So?

If there isn't any bugs that needs to be fixed and no extra features to add, why would you need a new release?

Make 3.83 - Changelog:
* Updated year in copyright string.
* Updated version number.

Is that what you want?

Craft Guild

[oldhack]

Most of us pay our bills building god-awful websites and writing financial/accounting stuff. It is, intellectually, drudgery. Those of us in better situations, and others who manage to find energy, write tools to make the drudgery bit more palatable.

It's a labor of love.

Or sadism in Larry Wall's case.

Free, widespread and easy to trial

[Aceticon]

FOSS tools are widelly use in enterprises because of three reasons:

1. They're free: no need to justify a budget for them and the cost of failure (i.e. if it doesn't work for the company's needs) is low (all you loose is time)
2. They're used in many places: so your new developers often already know the tools in question because they used them somewhere else. New developers are much less likelly to be familiar with specific third party tools since they probably haven't used them in a previous job or at home.
3. Trying them out is easy: it's usually just a question of downloading them, installing them and trying them. FOSS tools usually come with simple and/or well known licenses (GNU, Apache) which probably have already been checked by the company's legal team for another tool. Compare this with tools from 3rd party vendors which often require getting in contact with the vendor in question to arrange a trial (if at all possible) and include a proprietary license, different from everybody else's.