Is cloud settling the Open Source vs. Proprietary software debate?
If you worked in the technology industry over the past couple of decades, you’d relate to this. The open source vs. proprietary software debate has been raging for a long while, and we seem to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Red Hat recently released “The State of Enterprise Open Source: A Red Hat Report”, 2020 written by Gordon Haff and a foreword from Jim Whitehurst.
The trend I found most interesting is that proprietary software has relegated its majority position to open source. Proprietary software usage as a percentage of overall software portfolio has come down to 42% from last year’s 55%. It does seem to be a tipping point in the decade long debate.
However, I would disagree with the insight that cost and quality were considered the critical factors for users selecting open source.
My colleagues and I have been using open source for many years now in our core products. We have come across some clients who mandate “thou shall not touch open source”, but that is an outlier. I strongly feel there are 2 aspects that have and will continue to favor open source.
- Agility and speed are #1 needs in the digital tech world. Open source allows you to adopt and accelerate vs. the proprietary software world of wait, learn and align yourself. Open source seems to provide the best balance of capability and control in defining your digital journeys vs. depending on a different organization to take you down that path.
- With the rise of cloud, the providers seem to have settled that operating system and layers of middle ware/ DB are theirs to provide and they are ok with open source. Organizations and users don’t seem to have the need (and option) to participate in this debate.
With this need for speed, and cloud settling the ownership issue, we should see open source becoming more ubiquitous.
The report also has other useful insights on legacy vs cloud adoption. Respondents indicate that they carry about 39% legacy in their landscape and interestingly, also suggest that they would leave 31% as-is (to sunset?).
Overall it looks like cloud ≡ open source and legacy ≡ proprietary. What do you think? Share your comments below. Thank you!
