“SAP’s open source manifesto addresses these issues. SAP commits to open source, transparency, and respect for open source communities. It encourages its employees to participate in open source projects. It commits to supporting the open source projects it uses,” Cornwall added.
One project in particular drew a number of players to open source, noted Nitin Varshney, technical counselor at Info-Tech Research Group. After Oracle decided to move to a subscription model for Java, a decision it has, in part, since rolled back, open source alternatives blossomed.
“Organizations are seriously considering the alternatives of Oracle Java to open-source versions vastly because of the cost factor,” he said. “Organizations are choosing these platforms based on effective cost, performance, and scalability.” However, he added, although Oracle now provides both commercial and open source Java development kits under various licensing models, users of older versions of Java are tied to the commercial licensing and support.
