Overview
EOS is NOT a complete directory of all open source software. To be included in the EOS Directory, the open source software must be enterprise-ready. Only the products that match the enterprise benchmark in terms of functionality, community backing as well as maturity are listed.
The EOS Directory does not list products that do not at least meet the 
rating.
It’s the bigger share of the 140,000 open source products and projects that do not measure up with this benchmark. However, that does not mean that they cannot be used in certain situations. And of course there are many more good and enterprise-ready products and platforms in the open source ecosystem than the ones listed here. This is a subjective selection with the objective to help IT decision makers to find the right software for their needs.
The individual ratings should be seen as an indication and not as absolute decision criteria. For many applications, an open source product with a smaller functionality scope might be the better choice than a more complex one that does more than what is actually needed. In other situations, a simpler tool may be easier to integrate than a comprehensive one using another technology.
Expert Rating
On the basis of the other criteria and additional experiences as well as further product characteristics (e.g. how easily a base technology may be introduced into the typical enterprise, how reactive the community is, how easily a product can be integrated in commonly-found enterprise IT environments, or how well does the product support open standards) the "Expert Rating" indicator is consolidated. The EOS Directory does not list products that do not at least meet the 1-star rating.
The Enterprise Readiness is documented in the "Expert Rating". Enterprise decision makers and users are also welcome to add their own views in the "User Rating" on the detail page of each project.
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Product/projects matches or is superior to best comercially available and widely used products. It has proven to be a standard in a specific category that you can't pass. | Product/project is mature, fulfills the important requirements and is supported well, it's enterprise ready and conforms to typically found needs/requirements in enterprise production environments. |
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The right tool for the many situations, more investigations needed, not top league yet. Weaknesses may be driven by technology or lack of functionality or support. A proof of concept is recommended. | Not recommended (yet) to be used immediately in a broad and enterprise wide context, other than early proofs of concept or deployment in a controlled way (e.g. as a component that is understood by the developer). |
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Not recommended to be used in an enterprise, probably not worth further investigations. |
Functionality
The products’ functionality is compared with what is usually needed. In most situations, this is driven by what commercial products have to offer.
| Excellent - the functionality required by a typical midsize or large enterprise are covered. |
| Good – most common functional requirements can be met, minor gaps exist. |
| Fair - functionality might have some gaps against the average requirement baseline but is still usable in many contexts. |
| Low – larger gaps, but probably good basis for further development. |
| Poor - functionality can't satisfy enterprise customers, substantial deficits. |
Community
For the long term success of an open source project, it is important that there is an active and well-supported community behind the project. In commercial open source products, this community is often (only) the software development unit of the company behind the product. The input and contributions of external people are less important and influential. This can be seen as a risk, especially when the companies are small or have only limited funds available.
| Excellent - vibrant, very active and large community, substantial number of active members. |
| Good – large visible community and high activity level in most contribution areas (strategy/requirements, development, testing, bug reporting, etc.) |
| Fair - some activity both in development as well as bug reporting and fixing. |
| Low – small community or limited level of activity. |
| Poor - community not active at all or not existing really. |
Maturity
To put a software product in production, it needs to be able to run in a stable and error-free way. Maturity therefore measures quality and robustness of a software product.
| Very mature - strong, high quality solution, stable and meeting advanced performance expectations. |
| Good – some minor stability gaps or performance issues might exist, but probably can be overcome by most users. |
| Okay - not fully matching all enterprise expectations especially for high volume loads and massive usage. |
| Low – not matching the typical enterprise expectations, could still be good enough in some instances. |
| Poor - only usable for test and demonstration purposes. |
Trend
Open source projects and products develop fast and dynamically. It is important to understand whether the product improves because the project team has made progress, or whether there is no improvement or the quality and richness even decreases in comparison to the competition. With the “Trend” the expected future progress of the software product is indicated.
| Solution/component is progressing along most of the criteria and growing in importance over all. |
| Solution/component is stable or progressing normally. |
| Solution/component is decreasing along the given criteria's and against competitive approaches. |
