Anticipated benefits Low cost. Widespread support through development communities. Ability to modify source code. Tools often constitute de facto standards.

Hurdles Tool quality varies. Some tools lack support. Slow upgrade cycles. Long learning curve compared with commercial tools.

Primary markets Enterprise development teams, especially those already using Linux or other open-source software. Software vendors. IT consultancies.

Estimated cost Zero licensing fees. Support contracts from commercial vendors add variable costs.

Major open-source projects

CVS (www.cvshome.org): Code management system.

Eclipse (www.eclipse.org): IBM-sponsored integrated development environment.

GNU Compiler Collection (gcc.gnu.org): Compilers for C, C++, Java and other languages.

JBoss (www.jboss.org): Enterprise JavaBeans application server.

Mono (www.go-mono.com): Project to replicate Microsoft .Net Development Framework functions on an open-source platform.

NetBeans (www.netbeans.org): Sun Microsystems-sponsored integrated development environment extensible via modules.

Tomcat (jakarta.apache.org/tomcat): Apache module for Java Servlets and JavaServer Pages.

Open-source repositories

Apache Jakarta Project (jakarta.apache.org): Repository of open-source solutions for Java.

SourceForge (sourceforge.net): Repository of open-source code and applications.