One of the most oft asked questions in 2007 had to be, "What are the barriers to open source adoption?" It was asked by analysts, lawyers, IT Managers, security executives, developers, potential customers, and industry veterans. I know we asked it several times ourselves. There are many definitions of the word "adoption", and as you'd probably guess most have to do with the parent-child relationship. Even in that context though, there is still an aspect of the definition that fits.

The definition I felt fit best was: The act of accepting with approval; favorable reception; "its adoption by society"; "the proposal found wide acceptance".

So by this definition, open source adoption is something that has been discussed and agreed upon. A conscious choice was made to bring it into the organization and people are open to it. In fact, they may be downright enthusiastic. However, it is difficult to reconcile this definition with the scenarios playing out across organizations worldwide.

To me, and I'm just splitting fine hairs here, when "open source" and "adoption" are in the same sentence, there needs to be some sort of disclaimer that says: Adoption pertains to open source applications (in their entirety) brought into the enterprise and installed on the network.

Without this disclaimer, it would be safe to say that 100% of all organizations running software of any sort, have already adopted open source. It's inherent in every piece of software running on the network. It's a way of life for your software developers. It's in the applications the outsourcers are building for you. It's in the products you're building. You already have it.

It never fails to amaze me that our code audits (and we looked at over 300 million lines of code last year) continue to turn up anywhere from 5-10x more open source code than organizations knew they had. Some do an very good job of tracking their code and still, they were missing 30-50% of it.

But I digress...

My point is that when we as an industry are discussing the "adoption" of open source, we are discussing it as if it were not already present on the network - and it is. Whether or not you were aware of it.

--Melisa LaBancz Bleasdale