O'Reilly Network Weblogs: OSCON: Paradigm Shift in Open Source

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http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3468

OSCON: Paradigm Shift in Open Source

by Robert Kaye
Jul. 9, 2003

Tim's keynote speech took a close look at where open source software may be headed in the future. Over the past few years the open source community has worked hard to establish itself and to nail down the processes and terminology for our new method of developing software. Now that open source begins to mature and becomes more accepted, it's time to look towards the future and make sure we're not getting caught off guard by new trends.

The common misconception is that Linux has no killer applications, when Linux's killer applications are Google, Amazon, PayPal, and Yahoo Maps (FreeBSD). Yet, these killer applications are not open source -- they are fiercely competitive and the binary distribution clauses of the open source licenses do not apply to these killer applications.

In the early days of the IBM PC, IBM made the decision to open up the hardware of the PC and allow others to create compatible hardware. This attitude created an open market for hardware which lead to the commoditization of hardware components. This trend caused IBM and Compaq to surpass Apple with its closed architecture.

A similar shift is about to come to the open source community and Tim suggested: "Open architecture inevitably leads to interchangable parts." He further calls on open source developers to create plug compatible software components that give users more flexibility over the composition and configuration of software systems.

Tim outlined the three C's that will be important in the future:

Commoditization of software -- create plug compatible software components and foster competition by avoiding vendor lock in. Open source drives down margins on for sale software and projects like Apache changed the landscape so that web serving is no longer a revenue model. Proprietary software solutions will not be able to compete unless they become free (as in beer).
User Customizable systems -- interchangable components give users more power in creating software systems that are more flexible than off-the-shelf solutions. Plus, these systems are not suited for sale, but suited for creating services that can be updated much quicker than traditional software can. More dynamic and customizable systems can be driven by data, rather than being driven by tedious custom code.
Network enabled Collaboration -- tools like Rendezvous, Hydra and wikis will allow distributed teams to be more effective and will help to bridge geographic and timezone gaps. These tools also allow more people to get involved in the software creation process, since the overall process is more approachable than with previous Cathedral models.

The power of commodity software becomes apparent when you look at Linux's killer applications: Google, PayPal and Amazon. These applications are great examples of hidden business models that have the power to enable a service based software economy.

In taking these lessons to heart and watching for the paradigm shift, Tim encourages the open source community use commodity software to build a customizable Internet OS, in order to drive prices of software down and to enable more service based business models. Tim also encourages us to look towards the alpha geeks for new trends in technology -- for example, geeks writing screen scraping scripts predicted the rise of web services and wireless technology hackers created the concept of community wireless networks.

Its time to think about the future of open source and how to embrace the concepts of commodity software and that data is becoming more important than code, as Amazon and Google are demonstrating with their web service APIs. It's important for the community to anticipate this paradigm shift and to be ready embrace this change.

Robert Kaye is the Mayhem & Chaos Coordinator and creator of MusicBrainz, the music metadata commons.