Open Source: Advancing Our Digital Commons A Q&A with Jack Suess Very few of us think “open source” as we use today’s advanced software application. But in fact, the majority of that software application is really based upon open source. IT leaders are recognizing the benefits of returning to open methods and are checking out alternatives to do that. To get some point of views from an experienced IT leader in this area, CT asked Jack Suess, VP of IT and CIO at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)– whose career course has actually wound its way through the many phases of open source– for his views on returning to the digital commons of open source. 
< img src ="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?iu=/5978/eof.cam&t=item%253d62b4682e_2633_4322_9366_b536209a410f%26pos%253dbox_c1%26Topic%253dQ_and_A%252cFeatures_and_Cover_Stories%252cCentral_IT%252cIT_Leadership%252cOpen_Source%252cARTICLE_TYPE%252cAUDIENCE&sz=300x250|640x481 & tile = 4 & c = 123456789"alt =""/ > The go back to open source controls the conference buzz during a workshop hosted by Ithaka S+R and Apereo in 2025, as individuals take on the tough discussion topic of “Sustainability in Open Science and Research Study”. (Image by Patrick Masson, courtesy Apereo. With consent.)
Mary Grush: How has your career included you in open source?
Jack Suess: My first deal with open source dates back to the mid-to-late ’80s. At that time, I was the main system administrator at UMBC. I was running a VMS cluster and a Unix environment.
To us, the world was wrapped around being able to take advantage of software application that was being developed at universities, or nationwide labs, or other proving ground acknowledged for open source software. The method we got our operating systems, at least in the Unix world, was by downloading them from FTP sites so we could install the open source software in your area. Therefore, a lot of our environments were running the Berkeley system circulation in Unix.
Right after that mid-’80s timeframe, MIT was releasing the Kerberos plan. And Carnegie Mellon was launching the Andrew File System (AFS) and Andrew system. All of this interesting advancement was happening within the higher education neighborhood that I matured in expertly. Both AFS and Kerberos are still in usage today at UMBC.
I didn’t call myself a developer. I have a math and computer technology background, though I never got deeply involved in development work. But I set up and supported all this open source software application and ensured it worked for faculty and trainees.
So, that was how I first came to experience open source. Then over time, as I got more involved in other sort of projects in college, I started to see an entire variety of settings where the world was being run by open source. A good example would be the early cybersecurity tools– they were often open source and had been developed and developed out through much of the Unix systems environments.
And mid-career, as I got associated with the identity management neighborhood, I found that a great deal of the work that Internet2 and different groups were finishing with SAML, or with middleware, was released into the open source community– and picked up not simply at universities in the U.S., however all around the world. I was able to see diverse communities develop in open source.