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Intro to managed open source p. 4: making more informed decisions

Jeff Stern
by Jeff Stern
on December 17, 2019

Updated on December 19, 2019

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In this six-part series, I’m highlighting each of the key features of the Tidelift Subscription. Today in part four I cover how Tidelift helps with package selection and version guidance. Check out part one, part two, and part three of the series. And if you’d like to start with a more complete view of how the Tidelift Subscription works, take a tour here.

When you’re selecting a package—or even choosing a version of that package—it can sometimes feel like it’s anyone’s guess as to which is best to use. Well, no more. Today I want to share with you another key benefit of the Tidelift Subscription: package selection and version guidance.

Before your team decides to use a new package, you can use our package search to evaluate the status and quality of the package. You can think of these pages as quick "reference cards" for any package you're using or considering, with key statistics and links. The tools are designed to guide you away from packages that look deprecated, unmaintained, or unlicensed. 

Version guidance comes standard with commercial software, but is almost entirely missing for most open source dependencies. With the Tidelift Subscription, we provide recommended versions or release streams for all of your open source packages in a standard format. We compile everything that we know about a package, coupled with the maintainer’s work, and recommend the best version for you.

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On each package page you can also see the work that Tidelift has done to verify the license, set up a coordinated disclosure page, and more. You can also “talk to the maintainers” from here—but more on that in our next post!

VIDEO: Watch Tidelift co-founder and CEO Donald Fischer explain the key benefits of the Tidelift Subscription.

 

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