Open Source Software - To be or Not To Be

TechiJargon - This article explores the relevance and vision for Open Source Software, attempts to outline future and its adoption within organizations. 

Open Source Software (OSS): With enough information existing on “Open Source Software” and its big techie jargons, am just trying to simplify it here.

In an easy to comprehend definition, OSS points to source-code, which is freely accessible to users to modify and then distribute as their own version, without any licensing fee involved. User community works on modifying and improving functionalities. The OSS comes with a license which enables the changing of software as per the user need or choice and meets the Open Source Definition criterion.

OSS community usually agrees that for any software to be called an ‘Open Source Software’, it has to meet conditions like:

-         It should be freely distributed

-         Access to the source code

-         The source code should be modifiable

-         Redistribution of modified source code should be possible

-         The license should allow the derived version to be distributed with and more so the terms should be same as of the original software.

-         No annual licenses fee or otherwise

Chris Hoffman, who is a technology writer, says, “Open-source software also allows developers to “stand on the shoulders of giants” and create their own software. Witness Android and Chrome OS, which are operating systems built on Linux and other open-source software. The core of Apple’s OS X – and therefor iOS – was built on open-source code, too.”

The Software stack is not without its downside and needs to be planned and mitigated. The downsides are related to skills availability, training materials, features availability and roadmap of future enhancements, compatibility across other systems (Open & Proprietary) & Infrastructure/ Hardware’s, formal support structures etc.

Few of the advantages for using Open Source are :

That new cloud provider can and are adopting not to use the traditional software licenses (that is the biggest cost saver) but adapt and invest into open source software stack.

Another advantage that drives adoption and growth of open source based software is “consistency”. Cloud provides consistency of features for use and adoption of an enterprise which leads to manage and operate less complex systems. This reduces high cost of maintaining and managing the customization that has become bane for organizations.

With advantages like complete control and investments, cloud providers are able to manage and commit better availability and service levels. The dependencies on external vendors for the cloud providers have reduced and they can challenge established providers with better value for the money as well as effective operating commercial construct. They can also provide better agility and flexibility by providing faster release cycle and not depend on the OEM to do the release cycle.

So what’s the Future has in store :

Even with all the baggage and disruptions of Cloud, new kids on the block (Amazon, Google ad others) are creating an opportunity for the OSS to flourish and grow. It gives an avenue for the new model to challenge and beat the might of established software vendors.

All this is proved true when the cloud computing services of Google and Amazon among others, is being built on open source technology, and is also offering services for open source-based Big Data applications and data management.

DevOps - combining the concepts of infrastructure, application and data - is changing the way organization are consuming these resources for development projects. There are strong trends and cost benefits that are driving DevOps to be early adaptors to the Cloud. I expect most of the organizations moving their workload for DevOps to Cloud and this would constitute for majority of the organizations who are not on cloud as their initial Cloud footprint. 

The desire or need of the new age consumers’ - to always be connected all the time has driven the solution for digitization to be on cloud which actually means that the technology and the solutions should be available ‘all the time’. Hence, the new ecosystem for the digital economy is around the open source and is driven through Cloud.

With strong winds blowing toward organizations looking to buy solutions and not technology components, new age cloud providers would focus on providing business outcome driven solutions, and management responsibility and technology risk with the provider. “Pay on Demand or Usage” would drive the commercial construct. Only those providers that are able to transform themselves into this mindset would strive and grow and others risk being part of history.

Disclaimer

This is my personal blog. The views in this blog are mine so they belong only to me and not to any organizations, unless explicitly stated. The information I have provided is correct to the best of my knowledge but there might be mistakes or omissions. The stuff written here in this blog is only for informational purposes only not meant to provide any kind of advice.Comments are welcome. However, I have the rights to edit or delete them without notice. I am not responsible for the stuff written in comments.