In the last post I discussed commercial open source CMS which are open source in that their code base is available to the public but are not entirely free like open source.
True Open Source is where popular systems like drupal and joomla and others live. These systems don’t have any paid components (core or extensions) and their code base is entirely open to the public. For the big players (like Joomla, Drupal, and Plone), the library of community-contributed extensions can be mindblowing. (Joomla alone has over 4,300 extensions.)
In my experience, true open source CMS tend to evolve the most quickly, and are likely to stay up with current trends (integrations with social media, new web apps, etc.). A great number of the extensions contributed were initially designed by developers to solve a unique problem they had when working on a specific problem. When thought of this way, you’re not just looking at a massive amount of code, but a massive amount of intellectual capital – that is, people using technology to solve their problems and sharing those solutions on the web.
Open Source has many of the same advantages that commercial open source has. Cost avoidance can be achieved by maintaining the code yourself, and you can’t be left out in the cold even if the community dies (which does happen) since you have the code base and can maintain it yourself.
Recognize, of course, that not every extension is safe to use. This is the primary reason that open source CMS get a bad rap for security. (IBM Internet Security 2008 Year Trend Stats – Drupal, Joomla, make top 10 vulnerability list.)
But if you stick to the core and do some due diligence yourself on any extensions you use, open source is going to be a good option for your CMS.
