Open Source and the Magic LAMP

Now that the players are on board, it’s time to go ahead. At this point it’s a good idea to toss any heavy baggage, pack lite and keep all eyes and ears open.

Travel light

• Drop Windows, MSSQL, Oracle, etc. Start off with a clean slate.
• Virtualize the Infrastructure.

Stay Open

• Make sure to keep in contact with the Open Source Development community. Get IM account IDs.
• Have a Sandbox environment outside of the internal network which mirrors the development environment. Give developers in the community access to help with issues.
• Contribute by submitting bugs, enhancement requests, documentation, patches, and plugins. Participate in the software’s direction.

Be inspired

Open Source Software grows and changes fast. The good apps get a lot of add ons, enhancements, modules and mash-ups. There are many important ideas out there in the OSS community. What benefits one organization will most likely benefit another. Take the opportunity to let those, and others improve your organization.