Open Source Solutions for State and Public Health

The need for cost effective and mature software products within the federal workspace has long been at odds with the timelines and resources made available for IT solution development. This fact has never been clearer than during these financially challenging times. This presentation highlights the open source options and direction the CDC is exploring to support the state's needs for less expensive software and accelerated timelines.

Open Source software covers a large range of products with a vast spectrum of maturity levels. As is true with all software selections one must evaluate the product maturity, ability to meet application requirements and suitability for given environments. With the lack of corporate legal responsibilities associated with the products it is even more essential in the open source community to fully incorporate these measures into the selection process. This presentation reviews the selected products, the selection processes and implementation procedures of these products as a function of the Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM). By following these guidelines the teams may find that a properly managed, mature open source project is a sound and at times superior approach to using commercial alternatives in all stages of the software lifecycle.