Enterprise Architecture exists to drive IT technology planning across the organization. My question to the EA community at large is whether or not EA should be pushing Open Source software specifically or helping the rest of IT evaluate open source solutions on a case-by-case basis.

One thought is that Open Source Software (OSS) should be evaluated with similar (the same?) criteria as commercial software is evaluated. Most EA teams help project teams evaluate software alternatives. These commercial software reviews could be an opportunity to introduce OSS alternatives to the project teams where they may not have considered them. There are a lot of people in IT that view OSS as inherently inferior. The truth is that there are many areas where commercial software is way ahead of any open source alternative but there are also many examples where open source alternatives are just as good or even better. Should the software review process be used to introduce OSS alternatives?

I'm sure there are other ways to introduce OSS into the mainstream thinking - Technology Standards, Guiding Principles, Application Roadmaps, etc. I'm wondering what other people are doing in this space. Is it Enterprise Architecture's job to introduce Open Source Software solutions to the rest of IT?