Making the Case for Open
Source over ClearCase:
Total Cost of Ownership
and other Considerations
Table of Contents
Rapid and Disruptive Change .........................................................................................................3
A Greater Value .............................................................................................................................3
Making the Move to OSS ...............................................................................................................4
Guiding Your Decision ....................................................................................................................4
Further Reading .............................................................................................................................6
Learn More ....................................................................................................................................6
Rapid and disruptive change
We live and work in an era of rapid and often disruptive change. Old models that fail to evolve are
disappearing—or else are hanging on simply because their user base has not yet shifted to a newer, more
functional platform. This juncture especially is evident within the present polarity between proprietary and
open-source source code management (SCM) software.
What is open-source software (OSS)? According to Wikipedia, it’s “software whose source code is published
and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source code without
paying royalties or fees.” As a result, its presence on the marketplace is a growing challenge to the developers
of older, “closed” proprietary software.
Companies with proprietary solutions, such as IBM with its Rational ClearCase product, point to potential
deficiencies in open-source SCM solutions. In particular, IBM cites so-called “hidden” costs “within hard-toquantify areas” as well as “opportunity costs, which are loosely defined as the costs of overlooking the
alternative choice.”
IBM’s suggestion here, that feature deficiencies in OSS deprive the user of opportunities otherwise found in
proprietary solutions, is altogether misleading—and as OSS performance metrics will show in this paper,
untrue.
A Greater Value
While waving such red flags may dissuade uninformed consumers, the fact is that in today’s enterprise software
market, open-source software (OSS) is everywhere, from Linux, Eclipse, Android and Apache to Subversion and
Git. Many programming languages are open source as well — Python, Ruby and Perl. In the light of this growing
popularity, especially in the enterprise sector, branding OSS as inferior, unstable, and costly is a flawed
generalization that is simply not true — and misses the larger reality.
As an overall platform for software development, many OSS products deliver the greatest value on the market
today. Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, a global provider of Linux® and open source technology solutions, puts it
best: “Open source isn’t about saving money, it’s about doing more stuff, and getting incremental innovation
with the finite budget you have.”
Despite what legacy vendors with proprietary technologies may otherwise claim, OSS offers four compelling
benefits:
Affordability: With no acquisition cost, OSS proves immediately attractive, and is also cost-effective in terms of
operations and administration. In fact, a report by the Standish Group states that adoption of open-source
software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. According to prominent
developer Martin Roesch, “We get tremendous efficiency in our development. The size of our research and
development team is very small compared to our competitors. [OSS] helps reduce costs and achieve a lot of
economy. I can’t imagine how expensive it would have been to build this company without the open source
world.”
Security & Stability: OSS products represent the highest quality standards of its contributing developers and
supporting companies, backed by a continuous process of testing and debugging on a rapid basis. This
environment of non-stop scrutiny in the OSS development process is able to meet and even exceed the high
expectations of its user community for reliability, stability and security. As a case in point, a 2004 study showed
that Linux source code has 0.17 bugs per 1,000 lines of code, while proprietary software generally scores 20 –
30 bugs per 1,000 lines.
Speed of Innovation: Open-source software development is unique in its workflow of constant refinement,
backed by a collaborative community of literally hundreds of committed developers — a much larger pool of
talent than available to proprietary solutions. For example, Subversion, the open-source SCM solution has
issued more than 100 releases since its inception in 2000.
Flexibility: Proprietary software is a closed system that is often resistant to any customization that would
address the specific use and budgetary needs of your enterprise IT. By contrast, OSS offers a highly flexible
Making the Case for Open Source over ClearCase: Total Cost of Ownership and other Considerations 3
development environment that helps companies avoid “lock-in” to a particular process. As stated in a case
study published by Netsight, a UK web design and development company, “The inherent flexibility of Open
Source Software, brought about by having access to the source code, means that the system can change as
you need it to…”
Making the Move to OSS
Given these proven benefits, many organizations already have taken the next step to OSS adoption. And, as OSS
requires active developer communities, it’s no surprise that some of today’s most advanced OSS projects focus
on development tools involved in SCM and revision control.
SVN and Git are the
undisputed, mainstream
market leaders in the
categories of SCM
In particular, when focusing on tools for development and DevOps, OSS products like Subversion (SVN), Git and
Jenkins have emerged as well-defined frontrunners, especially when compared with proprietary legacy tools
such as IBM Rational ClearCase. Owning 80% of the SCM market (per a 2012 Eclipse survey), SVN and Git are
the undisputed, mainstream market leaders in the categories of SCM, and so is Jenkins in the category of
continuous integration (CI). Overall, these tools are outperforming their proprietary counterparts in terms of
market adoption, even within larger enterprises like Cap Gemini, Deutsche Bank, Cardinal Health and US
Department of Defense.
Over a five-year period, from February 2004 to June 2009, CollabNet research shows that SVN adoption on
public Apache servers jumped from a few hundred to over 400,000. And in fact, the number of SVN developers
today exceeds 5 million worldwide. In its 2013 report, “The State of Git in the Enterprise,” Information Week
stated, “Git was created for development speed and according to our survey results, this is exactly why
organizations from a wide range of sectors have turned to it. Its speed and powerful branching and merging
have led to its adoption within companies of all sizes, both in terms of employee size and annual revenue.”
Guiding Your Decision
In terms of delivering a high-level proof of concept, such data is helpful. But to make an informed decision
about moving to OSS, especially in terms of an SCM platform, first consider the following questions:
Does the software offer the features that you need to meet your software development goal?
To answer this question, let’s compare two SCM options, Subversion (SVN) and Rational ClearCase. In the
research study “Software Change and Configuration Management, Q2 2007” published by Forrester, SVN is
cited for gaining momentum against ClearCase in a number of significant areas:
 Adoption growth
 Number of major releases
 Size of developer community and users
In addition, Forrester’s report noted that SVN excelled over ClearCase in the areas of:
 Platform support
 Scalability
 Performance
 Administration
 Geo distribution
 Security
In particular, Forrester pointed out the need of one full-time administrator resource for every 144 developers
(1:144 ratio) in case of ClearCase, compared to one administrator for every 1,000 developers (1:1000 ratio) in
case of Subversion.
In fact, the only area where ClearCase received the nod over SVN was in configuration workflow management.
The report also pointed out that both products relied on additional tools in the areas of:

Change management

Reporting and analytics

Lifecycle integration
Overall, Forrester concluded that OSS products like SVN are superior in most categories against ClearCase, and
advancing on a consistent basis. According to the report, “Forrester’s product-based evaluation of 11 leading
4 © CollabNet, Inc. All rights reserved.
SCM solutions across 123 criteria revealed that …. Subversion is the sole Leader in standalone software
configuration management (SCM).”
At the same time, Forrester noted that SCM stand-alones like SVN need to be embedded within a greater ALM
framework to achieve their greatest functionality.
What is the form and governance of the community?
A number of major software development companies have stepped in to help ensure that OSS SCM solutions
like SVN and Git receive the essential support and refinement required to evolve as superior toolsets. For
example, Google launched an inititiative to extend Git with the open-source Gerrit project. And CollabNet
subsequently packaged Gerrit alongside Git and Subversion into its TeamForge platform, to provie an off-the
shelf management platform for both enterprise Git and Subversion.
In addition, Git’s popularity in adoption and support continues to accelerate within the larger developer
community. According to the latest Eclipse developer survey, Git is today the second most popular SCM tool
The complete
Eclipse Survey
can be found here:
http://www.slideshare.net/Ian
Skerrett/eclipse-survey-2012report-final
after Subversion, with 27% market share. In fact, Git’s adoption rate has been growing at 100% YOY over the
past two years.
Does the license suit all your future plans for the code?
As many CIOs already know, proprietary software licensing in particular when combined with the high upfront
cost of a perpetual license can be an expensive proposition. As well, proprietary licenses lock your organization
into a closed system of support and services that may well not support your needs or meet your requirements
More information on open-
over time. In short, you have little to no control over your code, your budget or future product plans.
source licensing is available at the
Open Source Initiative at:
By contrast open-source licensing provides a much lower cost of ownership, with no-cost annual and additional
http://opensource.org/licenses/a
licensing. However, legal compliance with open-source licenses can be best addressed by your organization’s
lphabetical.
legal resource. In particular, Git is distributed under the terms of the GPL v.2, a copyleft license, while SVN is
distributed under the terms of the Apache License, a copyfree license.
Is the software enterprise-ready?
As mentioned previously in the Forrester study, Subversion is the market leader in standalone SCM for today’s
enterprise, as it continues to build momentum through continuous development.
Due to its flexibility and speed, many larger and geographically distributed enterprises also have adopted Git.
As the Information Week study notes, “Git, when used with other SCM and management tools to address
enterprise concerns, makes for a powerful tool in a multipronged approach to productive software
development. Git’s adoption in the enterprise, often led by a more conservative bunch, is clearly seen as a
shining point.”
What type of support is available from the open community and/or the organization that is packaging
the product, and who will maintain your installation of the software?
Support for OSS is readily available from a number of sources, both in the open-source developer community
and in the commercial sector. For example, CollabNet’s Subversion solution includes access to a network of
dedicated support professionals (which includes actual open-source committers) as well as professional
support, services and training plans. In the case of using a commercial source for OSS support, make sure to
review that vendor’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the complete list of services provided with a definition
of each service.
If you customize open source code for your organization, are you prepared to propagate those changes
into newer versions of the code?
Unlike with closed proprietary software, your organization has the option to customize OSS code to meet your
company’s specific needs. However, once you decide to do so, it’s also critical to align and integrate your
custom code version with newer iterations of the general OSS. The good news, of course, is that with their
revision control capabilities, SCM tools like SVN and especially Git can manage this process — and even manage
versioning to their own code.
Making the Case for Open Source over ClearCase: Total Cost of Ownership and other Considerations 5
Topics
trending now
How easy is it to integrate the software with your data or other software you already use?
Thanks to their leadership and support in the SCM market, OSS SCMs like SVN and Git can be easily integrated
with existing systems through essentially two options:
Many of the latest technology
announcements have implications for
PaaS and cloud development that will
serve agile businesses everywhere.
1.
integrating with Jenkins for build services.
 Enterprise Cloud Development,
www.collab.net/ecd
2.
Relying on a commercial turnkey governance management solution like CollabNet TeamForge, which
provides the central control and visibility across development process, and across pre-embedded OSS
 Enterprise Git Management,
www.collab.net/gotGit
 ClearCase Migration Strategy,
www.collab.net/clearcase
Working with the open API’s of the OSS SCM, to stitch together a solution e.g. by manually
tools like Subversion, Git and Jenkins.
Are benchmarks available to allow performance evaluations of the software with comparable
products/projects?
Aside from the studies already cited in this paper, additional benchmarking resources can be found through:

The report, “The Forrester Wave™: Software Change And Configuration Management, Q2 2007,”
product-based evaluation of 11 leading SCM solutions across 123 criteria. This study concluded that
SVN is the leader in standalone SCM over ClearCase and other products. Specifically, Forrester
pointed to a higher TCO (total cost of ownership) with ClearCase due to high administrative
overhead.

CollabNet’s own customer case studies, available at http://www.collab.net/. CollabNet customers are
managing thousands and even tens of thousands of Subversion and Git users with the TeamForge
platform, on-site and in hosted (cloud) instances. In many cases, those users also are geographically
distributed.
In growing numbers, companies are discovering greater benefits and savings by replacing Rational ClearCase
with an open-source SCM solution. To learn more, call CollabNet today at 1-888-778-9793 (or contact via
http://visit.collab.net/contact_us.html).
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Further Reading
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