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OpenLogic was created to bring more formality, structure, and predictability to open source as applied in the enterprise software realm. Founded by Rod Cope in 1998, OpenLogic was acquired in August by Rogue Wave Software, which appointed Cope as its CTO.
His focus when he founded his company was on helping larger companies succeed with open source, providing the benefits of the approach while mitigating various risks, including licensing. “When companies turned to the big, traditional sources for software development tools, and they had a problem, it was never the fault of the companies providing the development environment, or it would take two years for a fix. Open source was quick and easy, but not formal enough. There was a need to round out the commercial side, provide documentation, support, certification – to create an environment that risk-averse companies needed to feel comfortable going the open source route.”
The reasoning behind the acquisition, Cope said, includes convenience and customer demand. “Our offices are 20 minutes from Rogue Wave, and they were looking for a way to build their presence in the open source world. They have 3,000 customers in 50 countries, and more and more of them were asking about open source. For us, being acquired gave us a larger way to get what we do out to the world, given the increase in marketing and sales resources.”
As part of Rogue Wave, OpenLogic continues to provide provisioning, finding the right open source packages to solve its clients’ problems; a certification process that vets open source packages, ensures that the right licenses are in place, and that everything is ready to use; support, including business hours, 24x7 and guaranteed performance metrics; a platform to manage the use of open source tools and licenses; and scanning services that reviews code and reports what open source tools have been used in a product. Rogue Wave’s acquisition of Klocworks, which scans source code for security and quality issues, will complement this latter OpenLogic service.
Cope is enthusiastic about where Rogue Wave will allow OpenLogic to go, and about the open source culture in Colorado. “We have a new strategy and vision, and the ability to extend our reach, and double our business in the next few years, and expand by orders of magnitude beyond that. It is cool that we can do what we do here – launch a successful startup, get VC, grow it, and get acquired. We’re creating high-tech jobs, making cool stuff, keeping it local, and watching it grow.”
