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At times, it can be rather difficult for people, especially businesses, to implement open source software since the programs lack the support of large corporations that can employ an abundance of staff to tend to a potential customer’s questions or concerns. Due to this, there have been various methods created to act as an assessment process for OSS. One of them is Navicas Open Source Maturity Model. The goal is to be able to determine how a piece of software is developed to perform its task and how well it does compared to its peers.
The Open Source Maturity Model institutes a few basic stages. First, maturity tests, composed of quantitative and evaluative inquiries, are conducted as to how a certain software program matches a specific set of criteria. Each test results in a score based on performance. Requirements weightings are in place for each test based on their relevance to the program’s primary role and its targeted users. In the end is a final score that rates the software’s comparative merit and how ready it is for deployment.
Each software program is evaluated in six categories by the OSMM. These are: software, support, documentation, training, integration and professional services. The weightings will be attributed to these categories. Within each category are templates that detail which components of the category should be looked at and what the maximum score is for each component, which is ten. The category scores will be multiplied by their respective weightings, which will yield the final score anywhere from zero to one hundred.
Lastly, the final score will be evaluated on a maturity table. The maturity table considers the level of users–Early adopters or Pragmatists–and whether the software is intended for experimental purposes or is designed for general production.
