The company has defined three 'key characteristics' to make sure open source software lives up to the label.

Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, Light Reading

August 19, 2016

2 Min Read
AT&T: What Is 'Open Source,' Anyway?

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Companies evaluating open source technology need to be careful that they get all the open source benefits. That's sometimes tricky, which is why AT&T has defined "three key characteristics of open source software that we consider paramount," says Greg Stiegler, AT&T assistant vice president of cloud.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is a leader among big network operators making a big open source commitment, with involvement in multiple projects and aggressive code-sharing. Last month, it released its Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy (ECOMP) for network management and orchestration (MANO) as open source. (See AT&T Offers 'Mature' ECOMP as Open Source MANO, AT&T Makes Case for Open Source Sharing and AT&T's Chiosi: Unite on Open Source or Suffer.)

A year ago, John Donovan, AT&T senior vice president of technology and operations, said open source comprised 5% of the carrier's code, with a target "north of 50%." He advised network operators to use proprietary code only sparingly, where there was real competitive advantage. (See AT&T Describes Next Steps for Network Virtualization.)

Figure 1: Head in the Cloud AT&T's Greg Stiegler AT&T's Greg Stiegler

With that kind of commitment to open source, AT&T has to remain vigilant that it's getting the real deal. "Open source sounds very straightforward. We have found it is not," Stiegler says. "We have defined three key characteristics for open source software that we consider paramount."

First: No license cost. "That's pretty clear -- it's free software," Stiegler says. Not everything about free software is free; you still need to support and extend it. But the licensing should be no cost.

Want to know more about the cloud? Visit Light Reading Enterprise Cloud.

Second: A vibrant community backed by a foundation, not locked in by a vendor.

Third: Source code is accessible. "We found a condition recently where you couldn't get to the source code."

AT&T divides open source into two models: pure and commercial. Pure open source meets the three characteristics. Commercial software requires a proprietary edition to use it in the enterprise, or extensions with use costs. "The nature of vendor control leads to less public documentation such as testing and bugs. It also doesn't include test frameworks to evaluate production readiness. These problems make it clear that the pure open source model is preferred," Stiegler said.

— Mitch Wagner, Follow me on TwitterVisit my LinkedIn profile, Editor, Light Reading Enterprise Cloud

About the Author(s)

Mitch Wagner

Executive Editor, Light Reading

San Diego-based Mitch Wagner is many things. As well as being "our guy" on the West Coast (of the US, not Scotland, or anywhere else with indifferent meteorological conditions), he's a husband (to his wife), dissatisfied Democrat, American (so he could be President some day), nonobservant Jew, and science fiction fan. Not necessarily in that order.

He's also one half of a special duo, along with Minnie, who is the co-habitor of the West Coast Bureau and Light Reading's primary chewer of sticks, though she is not the only one on the team who regularly munches on bark.

Wagner, whose previous positions include Editor-in-Chief at Internet Evolution and Executive Editor at InformationWeek, will be responsible for tracking and reporting on developments in Silicon Valley and other US West Coast hotspots of communications technology innovation.

Beats: Software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), IP networking, and colored foods (such as 'green rice').

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like