In the past 20 years, open source software (OSS) has radically changed software development. Open source has gone from being a niche movement to mainstream and is now a core part of the commercial and noncommercial software landscapes.
Open source is a simple yet powerful concept. Open source software is the source code for software that anyone may view, modify, enhance and distribute for free. It allows for a globally distributed community of developers to work together on projects that, by their very nature, would be restricted within the walls of a single company.
Open-source projects are transparent and use the power of mass collaboration to show the source code. This is fast innovation because developers build on top of existing open-source code rather than always having to build the wheel anew.
The Growth of Open Source Adoption
A 2024 survey found that 95% of tech professionals now use open-source software in their tech stacks. This is up from 80% just four years earlier in 2020, showing the acceleration in open-source adoption.
There are several key factors driving this mainstream acceptance of open source:
• Maturing Ecosystem Enterprise. Many open-source projects already exist with robust features, documentation, and governance models that instill confidence in commercial usage. Projects like Linux, Kubernetes, React and TensorFlow have global communities behind them.
• Cost Savings. Open-source software licenses are generally free to use, modify and distribute. This provides enormous cost savings over proprietary models, allowing companies to allocate budgets to other priorities. Maintenance costs are also reduced, given that globally distributed teams are working on enhancements.
• Security. Surprisingly, others have found that open-source software is less prone to vulnerabilities than proprietary code. More developers can see codebases transparently and contribute fixes quickly, as bugs are found and patched quickly. More secure outsourcing software is produced from the mass peer review.
• Innovation Velocity. Barriers to source code access and building on source code have been removed, which means developers can do more freely. Open source often facilitates collaboration to the point that it allows for rapid experimentation and cutting-edge advancements by merging ideas within companies and geographies.
The New Norm for Software Development
Open source has transitioned from a fringe approach to the expected norm in software development. Developers now hunt for existing open-source libraries before considering building fresh proprietary code.
This “open source first” mentality has permeated the software industry for several reasons:
• Avoid Reinvention. Open source means that developers no longer have to always reinvent the wheel; they can stand on the shoulders of giants. It allows them to focus innovation on proprietary value adds instead of reworking commodity functionality.
• The Community of Shared Investment. The global model of open source means solutions improve over time through shared investment rather than just a single company’s budget. This pooled resourcing leads to healthier projects.
• Trusted Solutions. Battle-tested open source software with known security and support models are the trusted building blocks for integration into commercial products. Transparency and longevity bring confidence.
• Interoperability. Open source software is usually highly interoperable between tools and platforms because it ‘speaks’ open standards and data models. This greases the wheels of integrating complicated tech stacks.
The Rise of Open-Source Business Models
The early open-source zealots believed that software should be free for all to use and modify without commercial interests. This utopian ideology has evolved to accept that open-source projects still require sustainable funding models to thrive.
Gone are the days when open source advocates expected developers to contribute nights and weekends without financial incentive. A wave of innovative open-source business models has now emerged that balance commercial needs with community interests:
Dual Licensing
Companies offer the same software under an open-source license and a commercial license. The latter covers additional features, support services or legal protection unsuitable for open-source licensing. MySQL and Qt have successfully used this model.
Open Core
An open-source core product is used to drive adoption, while proprietary plugins and addons are sold by the project sponsor, as pioneered by MySQL. This avoids “open washing” accusations while funding development.
SaaS Delivery
Open source licenses require the free distribution of source code and allow charging for software delivered as a service. This enables open-core models to be paired with cloud delivery, which Elastic and MongoDB use.
Open Source Services
Consulting, implementation services, and managed hosting can be sold using open-source software that is freely downloaded. Red Hat built a billion-dollar business on this model.
These business models have unlocked open source as a commercially viable approach to balance revenue needs with community responsibility.
Impact on Technology Industry Segments
Open source is now pervasive across the entire technology industry. Here, we analyze the massive impact it has made on several key software segments:
Infrastructure Software
The infrastructure software segment develops the foundational tools for building technology platforms and products. Linux, Kubernetes, OpenStack and Cloud Foundry are all open-source infrastructure projects that have benefited hugely from community collaboration.
Linux now dominates the operating system market after proving itself to be more innovative, secure, and resilient than proprietary UNIX variants. The LAMP stack of entirely open-source components is estimated to power most of all public web servers.
The Kubernetes container orchestration engine has become the industry standard for deploying microservices-based architectures. Its vibrant ecosystem includes dozens of complementary open-source projects like Prometheus, Envoy and Istio.
By removing adoption friction and barriers to integration, open-source infrastructure software has commoditized many previously proprietary and fragmented technology layers.
Big Data
The big data analytics segment has rapidly transitioned to open-source software over the past decade. As data volumes exploded, early proprietary analytics tools like Teradata and Oracle proved prohibitively expensive for broad adoption.
This created a vacuum for open-source tools like Hadoop, Spark and Kafka to fill the void. The transparency, flexibility and lack of vendor lock-in enabled easier experimentation with big data.
Today, the most popular machine learning frameworks for building predictive analytics solutions, such as TensorFlow, Scikit-Learn, PyTorch and Keras, are all open source. Even public cloud providers now offer managed services for these tools.
The big data analytics industry has arguably seen the most significant impact from open-source tooling. Even traditional proprietary vendors now integrate and support open-source software due to customer demand.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) experienced its own “open source moment” in 2013. That’s when Google open-sourced its TensorFlow machine learning framework under the Apache 2.0 license. By removing obstacles to the experiment with AI, Google catalyzed an explosion of innovation among students, researchers, and startups.
The majority of organizations now use open-source machine learning tools rather than proprietary cloud services to build AI solutions. This allows models to be portable across any infrastructure. Open-source AI avoids lock-in and provides transparency into how algorithms behave.
The open data model used in many open-source AI projects has also made it easier to replicate research results. This improved integrity has accelerated scientific discovery to unlock practical, real-world use cases.
Frontend Web Applications
Thanks to open source, the frontend JavaScript ecosystem underwent a renaissance. React pioneered component-based web development, which improved code reusability. This was followed by an explosion of open-source libraries and tools that transformed web development productivity.
Frontend open-source projects tend to move faster than proprietary alternatives that rely on the roadmaps of a single vendor. The mutual benefits for community contributors and consumers keep projects vibrant.
Open-source JavaScript frameworks have commoditized basic functionality, such as UI widgets, form inputs and data tables. This allows faster development of custom application functionality rather than reinventing basic building blocks.
Programming Languages
Even foundational programming languages now face competition from open source alternatives. Languages like Python, PHP, Ruby and Go have found mainstream success because open source enables faster learning and easier integration.
Proprietary languages often falter due to high licensing costs and vendor lock-in. Without transparency into their governance, developers also worry about investing heavily in skills that may become obsolete if the steward company loses interest.
The popularity of open-source languages has consequently put pressure on proprietary options like C#, Swift and Objective-C to open up. Some segments, like mobile development, now default to cross-platform open-source tools rather than proprietary native SDKs.
Industry Impact Summary
As evidenced by the industry segments above, open source has transitioned from a fringe philosophy to the expected default model for software development. Both startup disruptors and incumbent enterprises now embrace open source to build better products faster.
Proprietary software certainly still powers many mission-critical systems, particularly in regulated industries like healthcare and finance. But even these segments are gradually shifting towards open source for non-core functionality.
By eroding monopolies and creating level playing fields, open source ultimately gives software buyers more choice. Over the past two decades, the community-driven model has proven to be the most sustainable approach to building innovative technology.
The Future is Open
Open source began as a rebellious idea to transform software development. Two decades later, it has firmly become the default model across most technology sectors. Core infrastructure, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, cloud platforms and application development frameworks now all run on open source.
This ubiquitous adoption was no accident. The collaborative community-driven model has simply outpaced closed and proprietary approaches consistently over the past 20 years. Open source unlocks faster innovation cycles, better security, lower costs and interoperability advantages that proprietary models struggle to match.
While the future will see ongoing attempts by incumbents to balance openness with commercialization, buyer scrutiny and community vigilance will ultimately favor projects that honor transparency and inclusivity principles.
The lasting impact is that software development is now a truly global endeavor unrestricted by geographic boundaries or proprietary interests. The open exchange of ideas has become unstoppable. This genie cannot be put back into the bottle, which promises tremendously exciting innovation across all technology segments in the coming years.
