As one of the largest open source projects in the world, with thousands of developers contributing code, maintaing a proper security posture has become paramount.

"Never let a good crisis go to waste." That’s the mantra a former operations vice president I worked with liked to use. She believed that crises themselves weren’t the problem, but rather our failure to learn from them. At Synaxis, our hearts and minds are with those from Wilmington to Boston, and New York to Detroit, who are struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Indeed, two of our staff members work out of offices in Washington and New York City. But we are also ever mindful of the lessons that organizations should take from this disaster.

Today, Synaxis introduces a new monthly series of interviews, “OSS Thought Leaders.” The purpose is to give our readers and clients access to those thinkers who can describe the trends in OSS, help you better understand OSS’s value, and better deploy OSS in your organization. Today, we sit down with Brian Proffitt to discuss OSS security, licenses, costs, and the software’s surprising non-surprise.