"We have been talking with CIOs for almost four years," Pal said. "They've been saying that they don't have places to get information on open-source."

"You're looking for that level of information that you can use to make a valid business decision," said George Pace, a systems architect at Prudential Financial Inc. in Newark, N.J. "It's like having a customer reference account for open-source."

Adam Braunstein, an analyst at Robert Frances Group Inc. in Westport, Conn., suggested that the new program may be more germane to IT professionals at small and midsize businesses.

Most large companies are already involved in some open-source projects, so the ground-level questions have been answered, Braunstein said. Big companies are "already there," he said. "It would be more useful for [small and midsize businesses] because they're not as aware of all this stuff."