The Qualification and Selection of Open Source software (QSOS) is a methodology for assessing free and libre
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Ope ...
. This methodology is released under the
GFDL
The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the r ...
license.
General approach
QSOS defines 4 steps that are part of an iterative process:
* 1 - Define and organise what will be assessed (common Open Source criteria and risks and technical domain specific functionalities),
* 2 - Assess the competing software against the criteria defined above and score these criteria individually,
* 3 - Qualify your evaluation by organising criteria into evaluation axes, and defining filtering (weightings, etc.) related to your context,
* 4 - Select the appropriate OSS by scoring all competing software using the filtering system designed in step 3.
Output documents
This process generates software assessing sheets as well as comparison grids. These comparison grids eventually assist the user to choose the right software depending on the context.
These documents are also released under the free GNU FDL Licence. This allows them to be reused and improved, as well as to remain more objective.
Assessment sheets are stored using an XML-based format.
Tools
Several tools distributed under the GPL licence are provided to help users manipulate QSOS documents:
* Template editor: QSOS XUL Template Editor
* Assessment sheets editors:
** QSOS XUL Editor
** QSOS Qt Editor
** QSOS Java Editor (under development)
See also
*
Open source software assessment methodologies
Several methods have been created to define an assessment process for free/open-source software. Some focus on some aspects like the maturity, the durability and the strategy of the organisation around the open-source project itself. Other methodol ...
*
Open Source Software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...
*
Free Software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...
External links
Official QSOS websiteCommunity website for the QSOS project
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Free software culture and documents
Maturity models