Business Readiness Rating

• http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166404288
• http://www.openbrr.org/

What is it?

Business Readiness Ratings (BRR) is being proposed as a new standard model for rating open source software. It is intended to enable the entire community (enterprise adopters and developers) to rate software in an open and standardized way. BRR is a community initiative that is being sponsored by Carnegie Mellon West Center for Open Source Investigation, O'Reilly CodeZoo, SpikeSource and Intel. Phase one is a public comment period. We are asking the community to provide feedback and help shape this standard to make it useful to both enterprise adopters and open source developers. Why is it needed?

BRR will give companies a trusted, unbiased source for determining whether the open source software they are considering is mature enough to adopt. There are over 100,000 open source projects listed on SourceForge, CodeHaus, Tigris, Java.net and Open Symphony. Some widely adopted projects have become high-quality software suitable for mission critical production environments. Many others are less mature and pose potential risks. Today, companies evaluate open source suitability based on homegrown assessment methods without access to useful assessment data or methods.

The ultimate goal of BRR is to give companies a trusted, unbiased source for determining whether the open source software they are considering is mature enough to adopt. It will help adopters assess which open source software is best suited to their needs and enable them to share findings with the community. It promotes use and adoption of open source software and may assist developers in creating and delivering software geared to enterprise use.

Why is it good for open source developers?

BRR promotes the use and adoption of open source software. It’s a tool that can assist developers in creating and delivering software geared towards enterprise use. And if you don’t intend your software to be used in enterprises, you can let them know.

How can I provide feedback?

Please read the Business Readiness Ratings white paper and provide feedback in the BRR Forum.

• BRR Forum: Website and white paper feedback: http://www.openbrr.org/index.php?option=com_forum

-- MartinCleaver - 02 Aug 2005