There are a vast number of fantastic open source projects out there, though for every one that is widely adopted, there are many that remain cloaked in relative obscurity. How can the open source development model best be leveraged to take advantage of community feedback, ideas, and testing, and ultimately gather code contributions?

The open-source development model can can be powerful and incredibly beneficial for any software development project. Yet, even most open-source projects do not follow this style of development. Today, I want to talk a bit about why this is the case, and what can be done to set your project on the right path to enjoy the advantages of the open-source development process.

Open source software encourages learning, the exchange of knowledge and information, and project improvements that rely as much on its users, and its developers' colleagues, as it does the developer. It's not unlike education. Ideally, learning is a continuous cycle of taking in, processing, and giving back, with modifications.

xTuple, creators of the leading open source ERP, accounting, and CRM system, is looking for a few good hackers. By "hackers," of course, we mean developers willing to get involved in source code. The classical use of the term.

AMD announced on Sept 7 a major strategic change in open-source graphic processors support. It announced it would provide open-source information and a development package supporting the ATI RadeonHD 2000 series ATI Radeon X1000 series of graphics processing units on Linux desktops.

Open source is no longer a novelty, even within the largest corporations. Today, 53% of businesses use open-source software, according to a recent CIO.com survey. However, not enough of those businesses are contributing code back to the open-source community, said Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat, at the Red Hat Summit.

Digium and Fonality are two of the best-known channel brands in the IP PBX software market. But they rarely see eye to eye — especially when it comes to claims about giving back to the open source Asterisk community. In his personal blog, Fonality CEO Chris Lyman (pictured) offers his stance on giving back to Asterisk. The VAR Guy enjoys vendor showdowns. And this certainly qualifies.

Most businesses that embrace open source are content to consume products rather than giving code back to the community, according to Forrester Research.

Open source "alternatives" from SugarCRM, Openbravo, and Compiere have tapped the power of open source development to make customization easy, but the line between community and commercial is quickly crossed