As of July 2008, a search of sourceforge for "CRM" yields 429 results. However, when the search is narrowed down to projects that have actually released something during the past 12 months, there are only 62 results left. In other words, more than 80% of open source CRM projects can more or less be considered 'dead'. Among those projects that have not had a release in that time frame are once popular packages, such as XRMS.

In addition, taking into account that not all projects are on the same terms when it comes to what Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is all about, more packages need to be eliminated from the results list. For example, some packages just provide address management functionality, but are nonetheless labeled as CRM packages.

Why is it that some popular projects seem to grind to a halt? The following statement recently found in a forum may be an indication: '... has a very simple road map: developers do what people pay them to do.' Now, that provokes a question: Why even consider a popular CRM package if there is such a risk that the community loses interest and no one is prepared to pay for new features? Taking into account an additional risk of having to face considerable migration costs, another question is whether open source software is still a viable option?

There is certainly no easy answer and the context dictates whether open source software should be considered at all. However, there are a couple of simple metrics that tell you something about the state of an open source project:

• Average number of forum threads per month

• Percentage of forum threads without replies

• Average time interval between thread was started and first reply was posted

The actual threshold values depend on the type of software and the impact on your business should the CRM package fail to live up to promises.

For example, you may consider an open source project community active when there are more than 10 forum threads per month on the average, the percentage of forum threads without replies does not exceed 5%, and the average time interval between topic start date and reply date does not exceed one business day.

If you are not prepared to pay for support, you are bound to rely on an active community. On the other hand, if you have a budget for support costs, you can go with a software support plan, which eliminates the risk of getting stuck in some way or another. Still, the above simple metrics are a good indication whether further consideration is justified or it would be better to shy away from a certain CRM package.