I'm an open source devotee. When I started my own business I finally had the chance to practice my hobbie at work. The question is: which applications am I going to use? I've not reached an answer but I document my approach here in the hope of helping others!
Enterprise IT in the corporate world tends to paranoid bureaucracy. All the applications are out of date but you can't install or upgrade anything... "Why would you want to view the page source?"... "You don't need to create batch files!". The technicians deal with complexity by stamping out individuality!
As director of my own company I now have completely free reign over my software choices. With great power goes great responsibility. The term "mission critical" seems so much more important when it's my mission! I've spent a good deal of time investigating and experimenting with open source alternatives for a range of requirements. The choice is overwhelming.
I've documented my decision making process as follows:
- Criteria for choosing software
- Requirements/ applications for software
- List of software choices (not published yet)
- Current selection of software (not published yet)
