Is It Worth Going Open Source
Over the years, companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and several others have extracted monopoly-like software rents that the top developers of that time did not believe were world-class. Thus, beginning with the most commonly used software components — operating systems and databases — progressive developers collaborated, often asynchronously, with the author of large pieces of software. Everyone could not only see the software in the open but through a loosely-knit governance model, they added, improved, and enhanced it.
The technology was initially designed by and for developers, which meant that it wasn’t the most client-friendly at first. But it was powerful, robust, and flexible. These principles have slowly spread across the computing community, and it has been 22 years since the phrase ‘open source’ became popular, ever since it has become a subject of debate between tech companies and programmers that whether it should be used or not. The response to this, however, has been very apparent since its inception and the statistics have been a testimony to this. As per a report published by Blackduck in 2016, 96% of consumer products were produced that year leveraging software development tools. It would therefore not be incorrect to say that the world‘s software breakthroughs owe their success to the triumph of open source development.
The best illustration of open source software is Linux, initially developed as a personal project by Linus Torvalds, which is now the second most popular OS for servers (next to Windows). In the words of Mr. Torvalds, he initially had no intention to make this open-source, but he just needed to demonstrate his software to have some helpful input. Despite him being stubborn, he maintains that Linux being open source has been one of the key reasons for its worldwide acceptance today allowing different people to work together in an amicable manner, therefore, ensuring that the public good is the central concern during all professional computing work. The successful implementation of Linux and MySQL laid the groundwork for the second wave of open-source companies whose poster children of this generation were Cloudera and Hortonworks.
In the last decade, we have seen a range of occasions where open-source tech has become a breakthrough for several other start-ups. Arduino, developed by Massimo Banzi, has proven to be a boon to many students as it has converted their projects into a usable commercial product. Further, everyone should realize that open-source has brought the entire community together, no matter where they belong, and has empowered a lot of people in turn. Therefore, creating opportunities for members of the organization or group to grow as professionals. Wikipedia, for example, has been a milestone in this movement because it has succeeded to overtake the New York times as far as their influence is concerned. The claim that it only requires approximately $5,000 a month to keep things running is astounding. In addition, Customers of closed-source tech firms are all at the behest as to where their software provider plans to take them. They have a modest impact on the vendor’s objectives, schedules, and financial model unless they are their top client. Altering vendors once their software has become part of the business is prone to be outrageously expensive.
In comparison to proprietary software, some of the strongest open-source businesses have been able to expand their enterprise at triple-digit growth levels far into their lives while retaining modest cash burn rates.
This growth of the open-source industry originates with the modern concept of intellectual property law, especially with regard to trademarks and copyright. As Professor Viola Schiaffonati asserts, without Copyright laws, open-source may not find success, as most conventional laws are unproductive in their safeguarding. The open-source concept on its own involves the copyright license of a software project to meet certain requirements in order to be considered as technically open source. As far as learners are concerned, open-source software such as Git and Stack overflow can really help them build an astonishing portfolio for themselves, something that they could use in their resumes to entice better job prospects.
In Rachel Botsman ‘s words, reputation has become a global currency, more like a third wave of trust in the tech industry, and is directly proportional to the wages the programmers are offered. Furthermore, this revolution has contributed to the development of innovative software and applications that are an integral part of the rapid reform of the federal bureaucracy itself, therefore, Contributing to society and to human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing. In Jennifer Pahlka’s words, ‘Code for America’ has completely changed people’s attitudes, as they no longer feel like a crowd of voices, but a crowd of hands, as they, as a community, have provided successful solutions rather than just complaining about the situation.
Last but not least, for our project GHDAS (Global Health data analysis System), we intend to conceptualize it as a proprietary software as it is related to a very sensitive issue of COVID-19, thus demanding attention from a close-knit community of WHO to monitor and maintain it independently. Having said that we still want to keep our doors open for valuable feedback from the government officials and more specifically the frontline workers, which would help us to enhance it further.
