In the previous company I used to work for, we always tried to look for ready-made software. However, often we had as a requirement that the project was really open source, so we could reuse important parts and components, without using the entire application as is.

As a "system integrator", we were responsible for delivering large scaled applications that would fit in with the organisation's infrastructure and existing software and platforms. Often, open source or free-ware applications (or, in fact, any type of application) have their own structure, their own database, their own (proprietary) data format etc etc preventing us from integrating the application seamlessly.

So, we did use a lot of readily available source and software, but we always tried to incorporate and adapt it to our software, instead of offering it as a complete solution. We "borrowed" a lot of source for Web / Server controls, forums, CMS systems, menus, etc, but we always changed it so it would fit in with *our* existing programming guidelines, design decisions and customer's requirements.


Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.
While typing this post, I was listening to: Battlestar Scralatchtica by Incubus (Track 10 from the album: Make Yourself) What's This?