Agile” software development is an increasingly popular development process for producing software in a flexible and iterative manner that can deliver value to the enterprise faster, reduce project risk and allow adaptation to changes more quickly.

Open source software components have characteristics that afford their use in agile processes because they are modular, component oriented and standards-based. While open source software has enormous potential to be used in new projects so enterprise developers can avoid wasting time reinventing the wheel—there are hundreds of thousands of components available for reuse on the Internet—open source must be managed properly according to corporate policies and procedures.

Open source software has associated licensing,management and security issues that need to be addressed so the enterprise can increase the velocity of agile development by reusing open source components. Without an automated process to manage license and component approval, it is impossible to efficiently take advantage of open source in agile development because the organization could not work the legal and corporate policy approvals in the tight timeframes required for agile development sprints.

This whitepaper explains the advantages of reusing open source components in projects implemented by agile development teams, discusses the issues and risks that must be managed and highlights the benefits organizations can receive by leveraging open source components. It concludes with a brief case study that demonstrates the productivity gains that can be swiftly realized by integrating agile development and open source software.