The difference a few years makes to open source

For those new to open source, whether on the business or development side, it's hard to appreciate just how far the movement has come in the past few years.

In 1998, when I had my first taste of open-source software through my company's investment in Cobalt Networks, virtually no one knew what open source was, including now-common projects like Linux. Things were a little better in 2000, when I joined a Linux start-up (Lineo), but I spent much of my time working with prospective customers to ease their concerns over open-source licenses like the GPL.

The world is open source's oyster.

By 2004, when a group of friends and I founded the Open Source Business Conference, there was significant, growing awareness of open source, but its adoption was still stymied by Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, much of it fomented by Microsoft (Steve Ballmer in 2001: "Linux is a cancer") and the SCO Group (lawsuit over the provenance of Linux code in 2003).

Today, SCO Group, once a high-flier, is struggling for existence. Meanwhile, Microsoft has committed another $100,000 to Apache Software Foundation, has started its own open-source foundation, and has embedded significant bits of open-source code within its proprietary programs, among other things.

Linux, for its part, struggled to get noticed in data centers back in 2003. It has since become essential, mission-critical infrastructure across the Global 2000 ranking of public companies

We've come a long way.

This progress reflects itself in the job market, where Linux-related jobs have seen a 6 percent rise in 2009 alone, while Windows-related jobs have plunged by 8 percent, according to data from Dice.com.

But it's also evident in enterprises' willingness--even eagerness--to discuss open-source adoption plans. Virgin America CIO Ravi Simhambhatla tells The Register that his need to do more with less drove the company to adopt open source and suggests that the open-source philosophy is a positive, disruptive force:

Our company doesn't need just another IT team, the more and more we get entrenched in the...way of doing things the less and less room we will make for ourselves to be innovative.

In 2004, when I was trying to find an IT executive to speak at OSBC, it was a lost cause. No one wanted to paint a legal bull's-eye on themselves for SCO or Microsoft. Today, company executives line up to talk up how they're differentiating through open source.

Open source has "arrived," and the signs are everywhere, from the U.S. Defense Department's efforts to boost its open-source adoption further to patent-rich Qualcomm's foray into open source.

Open source is no longer a question of "why" but rather one of "how." It's the way the industry does business, and the way it does development.

No, not everyone in the industry, all of the time. But for those of us who have been involved in open source for even the past five years, it's amazing to see how much things have changed, which suggests they'll evolve even further.

For some within the open-source world, this is unwelcome news. They defined themselves as freedom fighters, battling the forces of proprietary darkness. And as far as good-and-evil metaphors work in technology, they were.

But as that world embraces open source, they're largely left bereft of bogeymen, like old soldiers still struggling against an unseen enemy.

Winning can be a bit disorienting.

All the same, it's time to move on. There are no more vampires to slay, but simply further open-source education to undertake. Enterprises need open source now, more than ever, and they're adopting it now, more than ever.

What a long, strange trip it's been.

[vikinzer]

I agree with you up until the end Matt. The fact is there will always be proverbial vampires to slay. The old freedom fighters don't understand them anymore, but the vampires were never directly connected to closed source software, it just happened to me the tool they used at the time. The fact is big business will always be concerned primarily with profit. Profit involves separating individuals from their hard earned dollars. In an ideal world that process involves providing a good or service that makes sacrificing the money worth it. In reality it turns out quality service isn't nearly as efficient as manipulating business conditions to require the outlay of money for little value.

Open source seriously injured one of the late 20th infant 21st century's best tools to meet that end, but the movement to an online data centered model creates a situation where sooner or later the old business ghouls will find other schemes to do the same thing. They may or may not be as successful, and they may or may not be the businesses we are all concerned about now, but it will happen. It's been happening over and over for the entire history of business. It's the way of things. We shouldn't forget that big business comes with power, and power corrupts, and someone always needs to keep those with power in check by mitigating the amount of control they have.

That said, it is wise to occasionally take a deep breath, back up a step or two and re-evaluate where you think the boogie men are hiding. They may well have moved, and you may be swinging at shadows.

[gfsdfge]

Very well put Vikinser.
I think OS will have a tough time ahead of it as cloud computing (or whatever it will eventually be called) really takes hold.

[vikinzer]

I am still not convinced that the OS is going by the wayside any time soon. I think it's going to become more of a commodity item though. None of the cloud computing functionality has ready dealt with high performance items like creative content creation, video gaming, and media watching. I think the one thing Matt generally gets right is how much cloud computing has to do with data.

As long as we need something physical to process all this wonderful cloud data then there will be a need for some sort of OS, and until someone can create a cloud World of Warcraft client, and similar high intensity game/app cloud clients then the OS is still going to be relevant. What it won't be is the place where all the important features are kept. And if the OS isn't the house of important stuff then justifying payment is going to become harder and harder to do. Eventually people might figure that out.

[pentest]

You will always need an OS to manage the interface between hardware and software.

[Random_Walk]

"You will always need an OS to manage the interface between hardware and software."

Sort of... Virtualization (when done right) has pretty much turned the OS itself into a commodity.

You could theoretically take a thin clinet with a hopped-up graphics package, give it some directable bootp love, and have it wake up, dial its control server, then download (or simply remote to) enough of an OS to get the job done.

I do this @ work right now with these little critters: http://www.panologic.com - no OS needed at all on the client side. Now mind you the bandwidth is the equivalent of two RDP sessions, but they work rather well for anything that isn't graphics-intensive (and even then, I say that only because I haven't tried it yet). You also need a low-latency connection, but I can see an ISP providing VM images for customers to use.

[pentest]

It is still an OS Random Walk.

The browser isn't about to manage hardware interrupts, process schedulers, etc.