A World of Open Source Communities

The Massive Open Source Developer Community Serving The World

The open source developer community is a large rising movement of software developers numbered in millions who provide open source-based solutions for hundreds of thousands of business projects. The developers ranged from the major household manufacturers and service providers within Web IT and computing, to SMEs and new startups. The community rely upon published open standards, and access to software made available under the GPL to produce cutting edge innovative solutions. The principal websites, where projects are offered include Sourceforge.net, with over 150,000 projects registered, and Elance.com, offering 100,000 projects per year, and both holding upwards of 2 million registered members.

It is the ideal community to provide high-quality technical solutions to support business entrepreneurs, seeking to capitalise on new market opportunities.

Typical projects covered include proprietary Microsoft OOXML to Open XML converters, HR management systems, databases of all descriptions, project management, media players, Web analytics, drivers, document management, and of course websites. This huge pace of innovation depends on open published standards, and a sharing and unencumbered development culture without threat of patent assertion.

The Open Source Supplier community Increasing Sales and Profit in an Ideas hungry world

This community includes the big names in search, IT, IT services such as Google, Sun and IBM, and a whole plethora of focused solution providers throughout Europe, who work to bring to life specialist booking systems, new financial services, property portals, online commerce, transport signalling systems, logistics systems, and many other solutions required by a modern high-tech society.

By blending a mix of their own developers, and high-quality development resources from around the world, hitherto unaffordable projects are delivered to time and competitive cost. For the basic office, the open source supplier community can radically reduce the cost of Office IT, such as e-mail, document spreadsheet and presentation software.

Reaping the Benefits - The Open Source Business community

The business community enjoys the benefits of open source through the wide variety of products and skills now accessible to help them start and run richer and more effective businesses at reduced cost and time to set up. Diverse far reaching projects from Bluetooth Telemetry systems to PC recycling with Open Office documents turn from old style major investments in proprietary technology to business plan milestones, boosting profits and employment in fast growing economies.

For example, as applications moved to the web, it is now possible for new cash restricted businesses to manage former desktop office applications, with fully Microsoft compatible PC based and web based solutions, keep business data in highly compatible formats on web databases, store files virtually, with easy access throughout the world without the need of proprietary servers, licences, or support fees, in fact often at low or zero cost.

Open source solutions are particularly successful at helping new-to-the-world businesses find new customers, through e-marketing systems, blogs, online advertising, information sales management. At the same time, by permitting established businesses access open source-based solutions to help run the business, dramatic operational cost savings are there for the taking.