In 2009 open source has been a buzz word, used by many companies in so many different ways.

Wikipedia: Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product’s source materials—typically, their source code. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology. Before the term open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; open source gained hold with the rise of a public, worldwide, computer-network system called the Internet, and the attendant need for massive retooling of the computing source code. Opening the source code enabled a self-enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. [1] Subsequently, a new, three-word phrase “open source software” was born to describe the environment that the new copyright, licensing, domain, and consumer issues created.

This is a long, but i would suggest correct definition of the open source world.

So why is it that open source products (yes i get the irony of that phrase) are now enterprise ready? Why is it that open source is now acceptable and come of age?

It’s a topic that I have been embroiled in for the last few years, and with all the technology, functionality, user groups, advances, cost, quality; which are all great reasons. My only conclusion is that the leaps forward have been the in the whole Open source world waking up to user interface design.

This morning i was looking for an open source vision alternative, reading through hundreds of blogs the same them came coming out, ‘the functionality is great, but the UI looks like something from Circa windows 3.1′. It struck me as obvious, think about wordpress for example.

All techies know that wordpress is not built in the best way, the code behind it works, but a lot of it is old school, but the interface is massively slick (it could be better, but…) it is easy to use ,looks very now and people, companies and corporates are loving it. It is a great example of what interface design and indeed brand can do for open source.

A nice segway in to brand, i don’t want to sound patronising, but it seems that 2009 was the year of brand awareness in the open source community, led along with initiatives like wordpress, jquery, zend. They have all created brands, with values, nice shiny bits and made everything look and feel professional. It is now possible for techies and Geeks (said as one!) to sell these products (yes, i know) in to corporates, in to the larger and smaller business as an alternative to expensive and mostly under functional software options.

Obviously the fact that PHP has grown up, makes a big difference, the lifeblood of open source has become enterprise ready, which makes everyones lives easier, adopted now by the likes of Multi Nationals like the BBC, Cable&Wireless and even NASA, the future is bright for open source initiatives.

Lastly, linking this to a previous post about the big things in 2010, Creative Technologists, understand open source and can embrace it. They will bring cost and time savings to your business and your clients business, so make sure you get a good one