Well, Ben Reed has been on to me for some time now to start a web log about OpenNMS. Since I spend so much of my life working on that product, I figured it would be better to start a web log about my experiences with building a company around open-source and, of course, OpenNMS.

So, welcome to my adventures in open source. I really do believe in the open source model, but you may notice that I am not an open source bigot. I am using Movable Type as my blog editor, and I am writing this on a Mac Powerbook running OSX. The right tool for the right job.

So, if I don’t believe that open source is the “be all” and “end all”, why do I bust my hump working on OpenNMS? Because in this case, open source works. Network management is hard, difficult to the point that you can’t really utilize most software “out of the box”. So what you need instead is a tool, a tool that is powerful enough to be useful in many different situations.

But OpenNMS is and will always be growing, so check back here to see my thoughts on how we are doing, and feel free to add your own.