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Open Tech

About Open Source

Mission
To develop a roadmap to educate, train, create awareness and enable resellers to build relationships and increase revenue through new markets.

Objectives

  • To create an Open Source resource to acknowledge the presence and importance of the open source industry
  • To develop partnerships with ISVs to provide development of open source applications and solutions
  • To establish an avenue for resellers to develop business in the OSS market as well as to create a forum for communication and training
  • To add value to the OSS reseller community by aggregating and streamlining the processes for acquiring the technology
  • To provide access to multiple vendors' for enterprise-class solutions


Open Opportunity Overview
Simply put, OSS provides free access to source code. This code can be used, copied and distributed with or without modifications. OSS is everywhere. From Twitter to TiVo, many of today's most robust applications leverage some form of OSS.

The majority of OSS licenses carry a stipulation that any applications derived from the open source software cannot be redistributed for profit. This ensures that OSS remains open. The General Public License (GPL) is the most popular OSS license. For more details on the GPL, click here.

Since the source code is fully editable, it can be customized for almost any environment. Another fringe benefit is that with thousands of OSS developers around the world constantly revising code, bugs are worked out in days rather than months or years.

Unlike perpetual proprietary licenses, OSS licenses themselves are free, however, the services to support them are available on a subscription basis.

The benefit of OSS for resellers is that you can build support services around this practice---installation, tech support, updates, etc. You can even build OSS into a business intelligence, content management, virtualization or collaboration solution to ensure an affordable alternative to comparable proprietary solutions.

Because the source code is customizable to meet specific needs, OSS solutions are very attractive end-user alternatives. With thousands of developers around the world writing code in their spare time, chances are someone somewhere has already written the applet your end user is looking for.

By partnering with Tech Data and our OSS vendors, you will have an expert resource to connect you to the perfect solution for your customer's environment.