Typically management software makers keep their trade secrets to themselves. But this week Linux systems management software maker Open Country plans to make its source code available via licenses to other vendors in an effort to improve the options available to today's IT buyers.

As I have noted in recent newsletters, the big four management software vendors dominate many areas of the market. With customers already having several management tools in house, investments in new technologies are tough to come by. Those are just a couple of the reasons Open Country is offering the source code of its flagship OCM products, OCM Manager and OCM Provision, in licensing deals to system and device manufacturers, system integrators, VARs, service providers and independent software vendors.

"Open Country, or any small systems management vendor, will have a very tough time competing with the big four (or five, counting Symantec now) in direct IT sales. None of [them] make it easy for customers to make modifications to the source code -- it's their crown jewels, and it's not their business model," says Laurent Gharda, CEO of Open Country. "They focus on the enterprise, and essentially ignore a new breed of customers such as dedicated system/appliance vendors and managed service providers."

Open Country's OCM Manager is an agent-based desktop and server management application, which focuses on Linux systems and provides systems administrators a diverse set of capabilities for heterogeneous Linux deployments. OCM Manager is used to configure, manage and provision Linux PCs, database servers, blade servers and appliances. The software requires a 1MB software agent and a management PC, which can be Linux- or Windows-based. The software is a small application designed to address small IT shops or target specific needs within larger IT organizations, industry analysts say.

Gharda says offering Open Country source to others for development and customization in different types of products will help his company, other vendors and IT customers wanting to get their hands on this type of technology. He adds that the option of open source management software can also be too challenging for many smaller IT shops.

"What I'm launching is an alternative: licensing source code of a proven product line, on a non-exclusive basis, giving licensees the ability to modify the product -- add features, support new microprocessors, support new operating systems -- without being obligated to 'return' their enhancements to the open source community, thus enabling them to protect and preserve the incremental investments they've made," Gharda says.

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.