As you know, I am using a lot of Open Source software.

Be it Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware, Mantis, ProjectPier, Ubuntu, Squeak, Tcl, Perl, LAMP, WordPress, OpenX, R, Octace, Maxima, Gimp, Scribus, Inkscape, OpenOffice…. there are lots of areas where Open Source provides tremendous leverage and ability to customize that is unmatched by commercial offerings once you’ve been through the learning curve and strategic decision. (Check my Oloh badge in the sidebar for more).

I’ve nothing against commercial software. On the contrary, some is really superb and beats the pants of FOSS (in this area, I do use Explorer2, Nusphere PHPEd, GotoMeeting, GotoMyPC, FinalCut Express on Mac, Diskeeper, Sparx Enterprise Architect to name a few). I may run above EUR 10K of proprietary software licences on my laptop – All dutifully paid for).

But FOSS quality varies. And now, there is QSOS.

QSOS is a method, designed to qualify, select and compare free and open source software in an objective, traceable and argued way. It publicly available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Here is an overview:

The assessment goes on like this:

The funny bit is that Atos Origin is involved in this. Atos Origin being one of my customers makes this even more interesting. The world is a small place!

Too bad, Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware isn’t listed. Well, soon enough it will be!