The Open Source Supportability Assessment methodology uses a modified version of the Open Source Maturity Model developed by Bernard Golden of Navica. Open source software is ranked for use in IT organizations (both early adopters and pragmatists) by assessing the following functions: product maturity, training, support, product integration, documentation, professional services.
Each factor is assessed for maturity on a scale from 1-10 and then multiplied by a weighing factor to arrive at a normalized possible top score of 100 for all factors. The scoring is of course subjective; however, even that is useful, especially when comparing different software products. The Open Source Maturity Model is geared toward assessing the software's maturity for deployment in IT. It is used mostly to compare different open source software implementations, side-by-side, in order to make a decision on which to pursue further with a pilot deployment project.
The model is too general for assessing the software's supportability score. However, the model does provide a basic framework for assessing open source software for supportability. Thus, in order for us to determine these decisions in some analytical fashion, the Open Source Maturity Model is modified to better fit our needs.