Open Source Collaboration

Open source collaboration tools The collaboration between different enterprises and employees within one company is growing fast paced. Tasks and responsibilities are shared within one project team by using interaction between all project or group members. There are also cooperations over company boarders using modern technology. For international teams or consulting companys it is useful to use open source solutions for the development within intercultural projects.

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Software support for collaboration If this interaction is based on computer systems the term is “computer supported cooperative work” (CSSW). The goal of CSSW systems is to exceed company boarders.1 One aspect is the groupware that is based on a webserver / server in the internet or in the intranet. The access may be granted via a VPN connection. The typical architecture is plattform indipendent and thats make project interaction (exceeding company boarders) so easy. The following figure shows the open source collaboration that exceeds company boarders.

economic perspective: open source products are in most cases free of charge. Adoptions: Because (depending on licence type) the source code is free to be adopted for every body; specific adoptions are possible Open development community: The community that could adopt system functionality is world wide (WWR, WWK)2 Security: bcause a lot of developers adopt the functionality. Plattform independent; typical plattform infrastructure is available for free in the internet.

Disadvantages of open source solutions There are also some disadvantages for open source collaboration solutions. - Guarantee: there is no software developer guarantee available - Development: There is now information about the development and the future of the development (if the system is developed further on) System solution The following figure shows some solutions that are available in the market. These are not all solutions (only some of them).

Figure 1: scheme

open

source

collaboration

Advantages of open source collaboration There are several advantages for open source collaboration. The following points are advantages of open source collaboration plattforms:

Solution OpenGroupware

Webserver Apache

Simple Groupware

Apache

PHProject

Apache, IIS, Sambar

eGroupware

Apache, IIS

netOffice

JavaScript, PHP

DB3 Postgree SQL, Frontbase, Open LDAP My SQL, Postgree SQL My SQL, Postgree SQL My SQL, Postgree SQL My SQL

Licence GNU, GPL

GNU, GPL

GNU GPL

GNU, GPL

GNU GPL

2

1

Schwarzer, Krcmar (2004)

written in 2008

WWR = world wide resources; WWK = worldwide knowledge for more information see: Simoneit, F. (2008); p. 10 3 DB = Database

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Open source collaboration tools Figure 2: overview of some open source collaboration software tools.

Project management functionality of open source solutions

Net Office

eGroupware

PHP Project

Simple groupware

Open Groupware

The following table compares several funcitonalities that are important for the interaction within collaboration applications. This is only done for the open source solutions that are mentioned above. The following figure shows the availability of specific functionalities needed for open source collaboration. If the specific service is available the column is marked in grey.

Task Management Calendar Resource management

Literature: Schwarzer, B., Krcmar, H. (2004): Grundzüge der betrieblichen Datenverarbeitung, 3. Auflage, Stuttgart Simoneit, F. (2008): innovative creation in worldwide collaboration, Outskirt press. Inc., USA

Fabian D. Simoneit has been working in the german insurance and car manufacturing industries. He did his MBA in 2008 in Switzerland. His Blog is available over ideenfabrik.wordpress.com (in German). His Blog presents information about Ventures and new innovative ideas.

Figure 3: Project management functionality

Net Office

eGroupware

PHP Project

Simple groupware

Open Groupware

Another important issue is the communication functionality. The communication within the system is needed to share information and thoughts about specific information.

Manage Contacts eMail functionality Forum Newsboard Bookmarks Questionaires

Figure 4: communication functionality

The systems mentioned developed further on.

written in 2008

above

are

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