Very nice presentation, Haggai. I see a lot of efforts was put into it. What font did you use? Love it!
I'm afraid sticking to OSS makes the whole set weaker than it could be. Does it really matter to run on a pure OSS stack or it's more important to have the best tool for the job? My issue tracker of choise is JetBrains YouTrack (I'm far from being a JIRA fan) and my build server is TeamCity. None of them is open source (and never will be, probably) but I couldn't care less as they're the best ones I could find. YouTrack costs money but I received a free open-source license for my projects. And TeamCity is free for less-than-corporate use. I mean, come on .. Bugzilla ? Eclipse ? Knowing IDEA has free open-source community edition ?
Rather than discussing whether a certain tool is OSS or not, I'd discuss its value and cost. "Free" is not of much value and I'm one of those people who prefer to pay a real money to get some kick-ass tools (ask those who pay twice as much for Macs why they do so). Sticking to "free" and "oss-only" cuts some costs but personal productivity and fun may also suffer, as a result.
Nice overview that addresses some of the aspects of ALM. The wikipedia definition is a fine start, but it fails short regarding different aspects. Haggai, there is a book on the market on Agile ALM; maybe you want to have a look on that. I agree with Evgeny: limiting tooling to "open source" directly subtracts low budget tools that are commercial but pay off by having an excellent ratio of costs/value. That's the reason I speak about "lightweight tools" in my book, that includes tools like TeamCity, YouTrack, JIRA, and others. I find it more helpful to contrast those lightweight tools with heavyweight toolsuites, and it makes it more structured to show possible implementations of concepts with lightweight tools, that can form efficient tool-chains when being integrated with others.
The ILTAM user-group was looking for solutions aimed at small to medium sized businesses, don't misinterpret my statement here - I believe Open Source can scale in large ordinations too. In addition this presentation was supposed to present the Open Source alternatives, if you take a closer look no proprietary software was mentioned, of course there are other great tools out there which can do the (and have been) the job and quite well I may add.
Personally, I think Open Source software in general should be encouraged. Of course if it limits you in any way don't use it - and you can say the same on Proprietary SW too ..., what is most important when using open source is the Freedom (not Free in terms of cost) to customise or "stretch the limits" and perhaps the usage to the benefit of my origination something I will not be able to do easily with proprietary SW.
In regards to willing to pay look at MAC ... , I think MAC design is great although I would not pay so much (MHO) & I never said OSS if free, it might even cost you more sometimes ..., the "free" is in freedom again is in the flexibility not cost.
In regards to Eclipse ... Bugzilla ... really - hell yes! I use eclipse (A few instances simultaneously) for the projects I support and it has become a permanent & loyal member of my tool-set, Bugzilla too has become (after experimenting with others ...) an effective companion which is both stable and reliable - again without insulting any other tool out there which does the same or more than Bugzilla.
As I replied to Evgeny I wasn't excluding proprietary SW per-say but introducing the Open Source alternatives out there which are mature and can IMHO stand proudly near "heavyweight" tool suites.
The title "Achieving ALM with Open Source" is the exact weight given to what the presentation implies which is ALM can be achieved by utilising a combined stack of Open Source Tools.
In Regards to Agile or Any SW Development Methodology, I see that they all share the principles (which are discussed throughout the presentation) - of course each methodology may have a different implementation but they all share the same concepts.
And regarding Agile ALM - I have about 5 books lined up on the subject I will add this one to my wish list.
I apollogize, let me re-phrase that "I have a pile of books lined up (not on the subject ..., I dno't think there are 5 books on "Agile ALM" !)" - I will be sure to add Agile ALM to it.
Well, absolutely, being able to debug or patch a tool does help indeed. And it helped me in several occasions already. But it so happens that OS tools are usually thought of as "better" just because you get to see the code and it costs nothing (initially). Sadly, this is not true and that's why I rarely see any point on focusing on "open-source" criteria when choosing a tool.
However, I do see a point on making tools open-source! My projects are open-sourced and GitHub-hosted and that's how I want it to stay. But it has more to do with common sense and practical choices than it is with ideology. Ideology is something that I believe can be tricky and dangerous.
Comments
Cong Hagzag, one of the best
Very nice presentation, Haggai. I see a lot of efforts was put into it. What font did you use? Love it!
I'm afraid sticking to OSS makes the whole set weaker than it could be. Does it really matter to run on a pure OSS stack or it's more important to have the best tool for the job? My issue tracker of choise is JetBrains YouTrack (I'm far from being a JIRA fan) and my build server is TeamCity. None of them is open source (and never will be, probably) but I couldn't care less as they're the best ones I could find. YouTrack costs money but I received a free open-source license for my projects. And TeamCity is free for less-than-corporate use. I mean, come on .. Bugzilla ? Eclipse ? Knowing IDEA has free open-source community edition ?
Rather than discussing whether a certain tool is OSS or not, I'd discuss its value and cost. "Free" is not of much value and I'm one of those people who prefer to pay a real money to get some kick-ass tools (ask those who pay twice as much for Macs why they do so). Sticking to "free" and "oss-only" cuts some costs but personal productivity and fun may also suffer, as a result.
Nice overview that addresses some of the aspects of ALM. The wikipedia definition is a fine start, but it fails short regarding different aspects. Haggai, there is a book on the market on Agile ALM; maybe you want to have a look on that. I agree with Evgeny: limiting tooling to "open source" directly subtracts low budget tools that are commercial but pay off by having an excellent ratio of costs/value. That's the reason I speak about "lightweight tools" in my book, that includes tools like TeamCity, YouTrack, JIRA, and others. I find it more helpful to contrast those lightweight tools with heavyweight toolsuites, and it makes it more structured to show possible implementations of concepts with lightweight tools, that can form efficient tool-chains when being integrated with others.
Evgeny,
The ILTAM user-group was looking for solutions aimed at small to medium sized businesses, don't misinterpret my statement here - I believe Open Source can scale in large ordinations too. In addition this presentation was supposed to present the Open Source alternatives, if you take a closer look no proprietary software was mentioned, of course there are other great tools out there which can do the (and have been) the job and quite well I may add.
Personally, I think Open Source software in general should be encouraged. Of course if it limits you in any way don't use it - and you can say the same on Proprietary SW too ..., what is most important when using open source is the Freedom (not Free in terms of cost) to customise or "stretch the limits" and perhaps the usage to the benefit of my origination something I will not be able to do easily with proprietary SW.
In regards to willing to pay look at MAC ... , I think MAC design is great although I would not pay so much (MHO) & I never said OSS if free, it might even cost you more sometimes ..., the "free" is in freedom again is in the flexibility not cost.
In regards to Eclipse ... Bugzilla ... really - hell yes! I use eclipse (A few instances simultaneously) for the projects I support and it has become a permanent & loyal member of my tool-set, Bugzilla too has become (after experimenting with others ...) an effective companion which is both stable and reliable - again without insulting any other tool out there which does the same or more than Bugzilla.
Thanks
HP
As I replied to Evgeny I wasn't excluding proprietary SW per-say but introducing the Open Source alternatives out there which are mature and can IMHO stand proudly near "heavyweight" tool suites.
The title "Achieving ALM with Open Source" is the exact weight given to what the presentation implies which is ALM can be achieved by utilising a combined stack of Open Source Tools.
In Regards to Agile or Any SW Development Methodology, I see that they all share the principles (which are discussed throughout the presentation) - of course each methodology may have a different implementation but they all share the same concepts.
And regarding Agile ALM - I have about 5 books lined up on the subject I will add this one to my wish list.
Thanks
HP
Hi HP,
sure, you've titled your presentation to cover open source tools, thus it is consequent to talk about open source tools.
You said that you've five books lined up on "Agile ALM"? I'm curious: which five books deal with "Agile ALM"?
I apollogize, let me re-phrase that "I have a pile of books lined up (not on the subject ..., I dno't think there are 5 books on "Agile ALM" !)" - I will be sure to add Agile ALM to it.
Thanks
HP
Well, absolutely, being able to debug or patch a tool does help indeed. And it helped me in several occasions already. But it so happens that OS tools are usually thought of as "better" just because you get to see the code and it costs nothing (initially). Sadly, this is not true and that's why I rarely see any point on focusing on "open-source" criteria when choosing a tool.
However, I do see a point on making tools open-source! My projects are open-sourced and GitHub-hosted and that's how I want it to stay. But it has more to do with common sense and practical choices than it is with ideology. Ideology is something that I believe can be tricky and dangerous.
nice, thanks for sharing!
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price
-- Richard Stallman