Open Source: It's Not Just for Software Anymore

Open source is more than free

The author of the study, LEF Researcher Simon Wardley, says there’s an important distinction between software given away at no cost, free software and open source projects.

“Software that companies don’t charge you anything to obtain is still controlled by a person or a company. Free software is software that you have access to the code, it can be used and modified by anyone and it is free from many traditional constraints. Open source software, on the other hand, had not only a focus on freedom from constraints but encouraged the growth of a community and a collaborative manner of development around a piece of software. That’s a critical aspect of the open nature.”

Wardley says Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system, pioneered today’s concept of open software development. “Torvalds created more than an operating system; he built a large community around his project. This collaborative way of working helped rapidly evolve the project and drew more people and companies into the Linux universe.”

Popular open source projects can become global collaborative efforts, Wardley explains, with features and bug fixes contributed by software developers around the world.

“It’s a highly collaborative approach that encourages the development of a community around an idea,” Wardley says. “Individuals contribute to open source projects because they’re interested in the solution a piece of software provides, but it is also a means to improve and display their coding skills and gain peer recognition.”

Clearly, the incentives to participate are powerful, and popular. Black Duck Software, which maintains a knowledge base of open source software projects, estimates that as many as 600,000 open source software initiatives have created more than 100 billion lines of code through 10 million person-years of human effort.

Without open source products such as Apache, mySQL and Hadoop, Wardley says, transformative technologies such as the Internet, cloud computing and big data would be far more expensive and limited, if they existed at all.

What drives the influence of open?

Today, the open concept is spreading to areas beyond software – from open data to open hardware. This open notion of collaborative and community-based efforts is gaining acceptance in manufacturing, science, higher education, government and beyond.

“Software is indispensable in virtually every industry, so it should come as no surprise that the dynamics of the software industry should begin to be modeled elsewhere,” Wardley says.

The collaborative work practices honed by software developers are being borrowed by other departments inside the business. Competitive pressures play a role, too. Wardley’s research shows that the continuing need to drive out costs while increasing innovation is causing companies to consider new and more open strategies.

The open movement extends well beyond commercial interests. Wardley says that both a growing emphasis on open science in universities and free curricula have roots in the open source movement. Government is getting in on the act, too, with a growing commitment to more transparent operation, the publication of data and creating level playing fields with open standards.

The open movement isn’t limited to intangibles such as software or data; the manufacture of physical products is seeing the effects of the open movement as well. “One of the most intriguing aspects is the power of open source manufacturing designs when combined with 3D printing,” Wardley says. “There is now open activity at virtually every level of business and IT.”

Open as a strategy

While individuals may participate in open source projects to demonstrate their expertise, companies are generally motivated by economics. Wardley explains that open initiatives are a tactic companies can use to tilt markets in their favor.

“You have to understand your value chain very well, and if you do, an open strategy creates opportunities for you to build walls around some aspects of your value chain, or perhaps lower barriers [to] entry at other points that would impact your competitors,” Wardley says.

Google, for example, uses a mix of proprietary and open strategies to maintain its market leadership. “Google offers many products that are open, such as its Android operating system, but its search algorithms remain proprietary. In the case of Android, you can view this open approach as a way for Google to protect its value chain around data from the walled garden that Apple was creating. It’s a highly competitive play to build an alternative ecosystem to compete with Apple.”

While the vast majority of companies consume open technology, the most advanced companies think highly strategically and appear to use open as a competitive weapon.

IT as consultant

The growing influence of the open movement and its roots in information technology offers an interesting opportunity for the enterprise IT department.

Wardley says that the experience IT departments have gained with open models in software and services makes them natural consultants to other parts of businesses that want to adopt open models.

“IT’s knowledge in these areas can be leveraged in new and often highly strategic ways, from methods of collaboration to tactical game play to the importance of transparency, governance and standards to the practical details of how to operate an open project,” Wardley says.

Many businesses lack experience in these areas, and the forms of cooperative competition they often imply remain strange ideas to many people who built businesses through proprietary, closed methods.

Wardley believes that the ability to adapt to open methods is an imperative that companies must address. And what fate lies ahead for companies that fail to adapt?

“That’s an open question,” he says, adding, “Failing to adapt to a changing environment doesn’t normally work out well, though.”

Dayle Coyner is a writer for CSC's digital marketing team.