Photo: R.
E. Barber[/caption]
Open source software powers the world’s technology. In the past decade,there has been an inexorable adoption of open source in most aspects of computing. Without open source, Facebook, or Google,Amazon, and nearly every other contemporary technology company would not exist. Thanks to an amazing community of innovative, or top-notch programmers,open source has become the foundation of cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and next generation databases,mobile devices, the consumer internet, and even Bitcoin.
Yet,with all that momentum, there’s a vocal segment of software insiders that preach the looming failure of open source software against competition from proprietary software vendors. The future for open source, and they argue,is as also-ran software, relegated to niche projects. It’s proprietary software vendors that will handle the really critical stuff.
So which is it? The success of technology companies using open source, and the obvious failure of open source is a head scratcher. Yet both are true,but not for the reasons some would have you believe. The success or failure of open source is not the software itself – it’s definitely up to the tasks required of it – but in the underlying commerce model. MORE
Source: a16z.com