Is open source business intelligence (OS BI) software ready for prime time? The author thoroughly investigated each of three OS BI toolsets--Pentaho BI Suite, Jaspersoft BI Suite, and Talend Open Studio--by installing the OS BI tools himself, by interviewing technologists at academic institutions who had implemented these OS BI solutions, and by discussing the products with their developers/vendors. The author saw the benefits starting right up front, with the self-assessment and product-evaluation stage. Typically, with proprietary enterprise-level applications, the requirements assessment and software evaluation are time-consuming processes. Technologists ordinarily look at all possible options relative to the assessed requirements, and then create a short list of three or four products worthy of detailed scrutiny. With open source products, however, the evaluation process is relatively painless: Download it, install it, and run the demo. This article discusses the open source difference compounded in BI and offers several best practices for OS BI implementation.