Open Source is the wave of the future for information technology. As license fees skyrocket from "name" vendors, costs and complexity become unmanageable. For the entire span of organization size, whether a 3-person non-profit or a $50billion enterprise, open source solutions have become the preferred path to reduced cost and increased security and stability.

In the public mind, three issues have presented perception barriers to the adoption of open-source technology.

First, the perception that open-source does not have the backing of a commercially-viable organization that will stand behind its products and guarantee performance. This perception is rooted in a reality that was first effectively challenged by Red Hat and IBM, and most recently in the deployment of scalable applications, by Spike Source, which has a track record of successful and stable implementations and a process that assures a level of stability and support unmatched by closed-source solutions. Thus, the reality has changed.

Second, the perception that an organization's intellectual property or specialized operational process would be compromised by joining the community of open development. In fact, this has proven to be a myth, as companies find that they gain far more in business and technical capability from the community than they lose through their give-backs of improvements and enhancements. Not to mention the demonstrable security advantages of a higher-quality technical framework embedded in best-practice design and code technologies. An easy win all the way around.

Third, the perception that an unpaid group of developers in a global community would be unable to produce superior technology and business solutions to a highly-paid group of Oracle or Microsoft engineers. Another myth, not only well-documented in terms of the functional and security aspects, where open-source often out-performs its commercial cousins, but but in its development process as well. Open-source developers build their components for the best of all reasons - for love of engineering quality and their confidence that they have the best professional skills in the software world and aren't shy about putting those skills into the harsh glare of public view. Quite a different motivation from closed-source developers, some of whom are also among the best, but are inevitably compromised by marketing and financial directives and shackled by being unable to interact with top professionals outside their shop. In fact, open-source developers DO get paid - for results in their implementations - not for producing lines of code of dubious quality. And often these open-source developers are in fact lead developers in commercial enterprises, contributing knowledge two ways, improving their organization's IT while simultaneously ensuring the needs of business and manufacturing are well-represented in open-source solutions.