Open Source Application Development

The Value of Open Source

We believe deeply in open-source solutions. When we bet on open-source many years ago, its future seemed uncertain. ISL's engineers recognized that the innovation and energy behind open source was bound to ultimately move beyond proprietary systems. Today open-source technologies provide more value for clients, and allows them to spend their time and resources customizing applications most relevant to their business and customer needs.

The success of open-source is seen in some of the largest web companies - Google, Yahoo! and Facebook - have built the most massive web applications on open-source platforms. We are also moving into an era where rich web publishing platforms like Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress and Movable Type - themselves built on open-source software - have become phenomenally successful by extending the cooperative open-source paradigm.

Open Source, Open Minds

Unlike many open-source development firms, our engineers have deep understanding and experience with proprietary software systems. We have a trained Oracle database administrator on staff, and have worked with the ATG Dynamo Java platform. We were also one of the few outside firms hired by BEA to work with on the WebLogic Java application server platform. Our roots in these systems have led to a more informed use of open-source software and allow us, where needed, to build applications that interface well with proprietary systems. Even today, clients sometimes want an open-source application that uses Microsoft's SQL server as the database. Our experience with proprietary systems allows us to let some of the best features in those systems inspire our open-source work.