How to Evaluate Open Source Software

Open source software is written by volunteer programmers. Though those programmers are often skilled programmers who produce quality software, there are times when software is written by amateur programmers and is of lesser quality. Though the community aspect helps to even this out, open source software still needs to be evaluated before used in mission-critical applications.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Evaluate Open Source Software

1. Download the open source software and try it. Since open source software rarely costs any money, it's convenient to do.
2. Evaluate whether the software works. As simple as it sounds, sometimes software just doesn't work right. Perhaps the developer used the software for a very specific task and the software will not be suitable for any other use.
3. Check to see if the community is active. People using and developing the software need a place to gather and talk. There are often web forums or mailing lists associated with software projects. If the communities are active (have recent posts that get answered) you can be sure that there are people out there using the software and contributing to the project.
4. Find any open bug reports on the list maintained by the bug reporting software. Bug reporting software is a lot like ticketing software in that reports are filed and given a status. Once the report is resolved and the bug is fixed or discounted, the bug report is closed. If there are an excessive number of bug reports, developers are probably ignoring them, which is a sign that the project is either stagnating or doesn't have enough active developers.
5. Audit the source code, or, if you're not a programmer or don't have the time, get someone else to audit the source code. Look for common bugs (which differ depending on the programming language used), messy source code (which can lead to bugs) and lack of comments (which can lead to misunderstandings and bugs).
6. Ask for opinions. Sometimes open source software succeeds because it is the only free alternative to a commercial software package, while other times it succeeds because its users don't know of anything better. Open source software can pass all the evaluation tests and still be quite flawed.

Tips & Warnings

• Ask people outside the project's community for opinions, although you shouldn't make a decision based on this alone. The programming world can be competitive and sometimes people will evaluate software poorly for less than technical reasons.

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