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I have shared my opinion on this blog (and provided more detailed research over in the Features section of the ebizQ Open Source tab) about the importance of building up the open source software (OSS) applications catalog. I'm talking industrial-strength enterprise applications. If OSS is to continue to grow as a development model for the largest IT suppliers and as an entree into the IT market for smaller suppliers that need a minimal barrier to entry, that growth will come in the applications/solutions area of the market.

That's because surely there will not be another OSS operating system and the OSS middleware stack is consolidating almost as rapidly as the so-called proprietary middleware stack. I say "so-called proprietary" because much of the stack from the large middleware suppliers is already OSS. And consolidation from a marketing perspective means there is no money to be made.

That leaves the solutions/applications space as the area of OSS growth potential.

Microsoft realizes that solutions will be the battlefield for the next 10 years and is gearing up to out-Eclipse Eclipse with the release of Longhorn as its next-generation platform and the next generation of Visual Studio. Microsoft plans for its partners--the melding of the Business Division partners that work with Great Plains/Navision/etc. and the group known as Windows Solutions Providers--to develop multiple solutions in every one of the theoretical 9,999 industry niches represented by the North American Industry Code (NAIC) at the four-digit level.

Some of these Microsoft solutions (or components or services if you prefer) will be standalone business intelligence and transactional applications. Others will be add-ons to Office and Dynamics. Some will be somewhat monolithic and others will be mash-ups. Some will be licensed in the sense we have come to know for the last 20 years and some will be available as a service (SaaS). Some of the SaaS offerings will be monetized by advertising, some by paying for related content (e.g., tax tables) and others by support arrangements. But all will be seamlessly architecturally compatible and interoperable. All 15,000-plus of them.

The OSS world by design and culture does not have such a unified launching pad for the thousands of industry-centric solutions that the market demands and the OSS community could provide. It has the LAMP stack but as I have illustrated elsewhere that stack is as often WAMP or LAOP. The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) could be the change agent that puts OSS on equal footing with the Microsoft ecosystem and helps preserve the open choice that many of us would like to see.

More than a LAMP stack or replacement, OSS needs a WebSphere or NetWeaver equivalent, a stack with more muscle than a low-level middleware layer and database access on which to base solutions. The OSA recognizes that need but is not quite ready to step up to the plate to provide it. But this week at LinuxWorld the OSA did come out into the on-deck circle. It introduced the first interoperability scheme in its ambitious Interoperability Roadmap. The OSA’s debut "prototype" includes specific standards and best practices for delivering a Common Customer View (CCV) across open applications. And the OSA has initiated projects in business process management, identity management, service level agreement action, and in other application middleware categories.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Development |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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