Comparison of resource sharing features in open source reporting

Comparison of resource sharing features in open source reporting tools

In large scale reporting projects sharing resources is key for efficiency. This article tries to compare the three most popular open source tools to understand to which extend their feature set supports the various resource files that are likely to be shared.

As an example: Maintain style definitions in a centralized global file. Instead of having to change a particular style in all the reports, this can simple be done in one global file. The clear advantages are: (1) It saves a lot of time and (2) consistency: every style is defined the same way for all reports and it is not as error prone as changing the style in every report.

Apart from styles there are several other report properties which can be maintained in global external files to achieve a similar effect.