Objectives of knowledge management

 Open- source software
The selection of 
 open- source software
to support digital business applications is a significant 
decision for anyone managing technology infrastructure for a company. Open- source software 
is now significant in many categories relevant to digital business, including operating systems, 
browsers, web servers, office applications and content management systems (including blogs).
The Open Source Organisation (www.opensource.org) explains its benefits as follows:
The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redis‑
tribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People 
improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is 
used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.
We in the open source community have learned that this rapid evolutionary process 
produces better software than the traditional closed model, in which only a very few pro‑
grammers can see the source and everybody else must blindly use an opaque block of bits.
Table 3.5 summarises some of the main advantages and disadvantages of open- source 
software. To gain an appreciation of the issues faced by a technical manager pondering the 
open- source dilemma, complete Activity 3.4.