Open Source Software Evaluation

Abstract

If a person or corporation decides to use open source software for a certain purpose, nowadays the choice in software is large and still growing. In order to choose the right software package for the intended purpose, one will need to have insight and evaluate the software package choices. This chapter provides an insight into open source software and its development to those who wish to evaluate it. Using existing literature on open source software evaluation, a list of nine evaluation criteria is derived including community, security, license, and documentation. In the second section, these criteria and their relevance for open source software evaluation are explained. Finally, the future of open source software evaluation is discussed.