Comment: The industry used to look to Red Hat to define open source success, but the cloud has made things more complicated.
We are in a strange, somewhat unpredictable period for open source, probably due to the fact that Red Hat’s industry impact has waned over the years. On Twitter, Brianna Wu asked men over 40 to comment on “structure [that] existed in your life to teach you how to be a good man. ” The answers included things like Boy Scouts. A similar type of question could be asked about developers and “open source architecture … to teach you how to be a good open source citizen.”
When I started using open source, the obvious answer to almost every question was “Red Hat”. What is the right way to build a business in open source? Look at the Red Hat is the stock response. What is the right way to advocate for open source freedom? Again, look to Red Hat.
SEE: Over 40 Linux and Open Source Terms you need to know (TechRepublic Premium)
Over the past 10 years, Red Hat has lost its status as the centerpiece of the larger open source community, though not through any fault of its own; instead, other organizations have replaced Red Hat’s power without replacing it. We don’t seem to be better for it.
How to disappear not so completely
AWS VP – and perhaps more appropriate for this post, former Red Hat engineer – Matt Wilson correctly identified many types good open source stuff coming from Red Hat over the years. And he was exactly like that assertive that Red Hat employees “like Kevin E. Martin are still advocating open source software graphics drivers, going back to 1998. And still scoring wins for the larger community.”
And yet, Red Hat no longer defines open source success, whether in business or in code. The biggest open source contributor? That’s Google if we define it as lines of contributed code, or Microsoft, if we define it by the number of active employees on GitHub. Even the flawed AWS has more active contributors to open source than Red Hat. You can run this analysis yourself using Open source project Fil Maj created.
In terms of business, it’s the same. Not only do the major cloud providers contribute more code, they make more money with and from open source than Red Hat. Deep Discovery CTO Russell Jurney has argued that it is move to the cloud that devalued the fundamental open source ethos that had dominated the Red Hat years: “The move to the cloud reduced the number of companies that produced direct investments in open source to some large extent and centralize control of companies’ Indirect investments in the hands of a few intermediaries who lack the same offers as the individual companies guarantee participate ethically. ”
He may be right that moving to the cloud has destabilized the way open source was built in the past, but it’s hard to see how true his argument is given the fact that massive investments in open source across the cloud landscape, especially if we include companies. provides services through the cloud such as Netflix and Facebook. These companies that sell services, not software, have revenue models that make it much easier for them to become big contributors to open source. Open source entrepreneurs and venture capitalists Peter Levine famously argued that there would never be a Red Hat againwhich the industry first made an impression (“Of course it will!”) and then showed indifference, because Red Hat is no longer a marker for success.
Youth [open source] waste land
There is no Red Hat as our accepted standard, which is an industry where we don’t seem to have a North Star. Or maybe we have some. Is that a bad thing?
It can be a mess sometimes. “[Y]ounger developer[elopers] today is about POSS – Posting Open Source Software. **** license and admin, just commit to github. ” So awaken RedMonk co-founder, James Governor, and thus gone open source licensing on GitHub. It’s hard to ignore the continued decline in purportedly licensed open source code on GitHub, although it would be unwise to think that this somehow means that developers don’t care about integrity. open in code. But that openness is generally about access, not distribution.
SEE: Master Linux and Docker before the next Linux adoption boom (TechRepublic Academy)
It is also the case that although Red Hat set a standard, it was never followed globally. Back in 2007, SugarCRM was adopted CPAL, which requires explicit attribution or “badge” of the SugarCRM logo to prevent commercial forgery. Over the years, there has been a series of methods known as Open Core for licensing. While there has been a lot of discussion about such licensing approaches, customers don’t seem to be paying much attention. Whether it’s the post-open source GitHub kids or the quasi-open source companies, there doesn’t seem to be an accepted way to “do open source”.
I used to think this was important. Great number of. I’m not sure anymore.
On the one hand, I like the clarity of the Red Hat era. On the other hand, I like to experiment with whatever this current era should be called. No, I didn’t like each of these tests, and you probably don’t either. I don’t know where we’ll land either. The new business normal seems to require a fully managed cloud service to make open source easy to use, but we don’t seem to have a great consensus on how it should all be. be licenced. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Or, like Percona’s Matt Yonkovit expressed it, “The evolution and changes in open source are good, scary, troublesome and welcome all in one.” He’s right.
Disclosure: I work for MongoDB and have worked for AWS in the past, but the views expressed here are my own.
