Progressive open source

Abstract

The success of several Open Source/sup TM/ software systems, e.g., Apache, Bind, Emacs, and Linux, has recently sparked interest in studying and emulating the software engineering principles underlying this innovative development and use model. Certain aspects of the Open Source development method are having fundamental and far reaching consequences on general software engineering practices. To leverage such Open Source methods and tools, we have defined an innovative software engineering paradigm for large corporations: progressive open source (POS). POS leverages the power of Open Source methods and tools for large corporations in a progressive manner: starting from completely within the corporation, to include partner businesses, and eventually complete Open Source. In this paper we present the design goals and principles for POS. We illustrate POS with two programs in HP: Corporate Source and the collaborative development program. We present early results from both these programs suggesting the power and necessity of POS for all modern large corporations.