Open source has won and will continue to win.

I can still remember the endless discussions I had with customers about open source 15 years ago. Open source was insecure, unfinished, un-everything. The IT departments, at that time mainly responsible for eBusiness projects, could not and did not really want to imagine that software whose code was public and usually completely freely available could be of any value to their company.

Open source software in its infancy

And so they usually spent an enormous amount of money on very mediocre software. Especially in the CMS sector, which dominated the web services business in the noughties like no other genre (my favorite question from customers at the time: Why do we need a website?).

On the other hand, there were the developers of open source software, most of whom spanned enormous ideological arcs and saw themselves as part of a movement that used the Internet to free society from restrictive conventions.

Bringing both groups together seemed impossible. On the other hand, it was also clear that both sides, the primarily economically minded customers and the ideologically oriented developers, needed each other in the long term. As is often the case, the reason is surprisingly simple: it’s the money.

Companies can get much more software for the same money with open source software than with proprietary solutions. And open source developers have escaped the carefree adolescence and are confronted with mortgages and family maintenance. This development was foreseeable.

Ideology vs. business?

At the time, I had the vision of building an international open source software service provider, but for various reasons it didn’t really take off and I left my former company. Kian Gould, founder and CEO of AOE, had the same plan and a much better hand. When I joined AOE in 2012, the company was already more than 100 people big and had projects and clients around the globe.

It is the success story of a great company. But it is also the success story of OpenSource. Because in recent years, the reservations of large companies about OpenSource have almost completely disappeared.

This does not mean that proprietary software has disappeared, but the proportion of open source products is now considerable. There are serious alternatives from the open source sector in practically every field of digital technology. Open source-based products are market leaders in many fields.

And the relationship between die-hard OpenSource “community members” and money has changed fundamentally. It is now understood that money is necessary to move open source projects forward.

However, this mental transition process was not so easy. I experienced this at first hand when I initiated the idea of a commercial, operational arm in the TYPO3 community. The discussions surrounding this idea, a company that would provide professional services and marketing for the TYPO3 ecosystem in return for money, could not have been more diverse. I was condemned as the gravedigger of the spirit and almost worshipped as the savior. Mostly in the same workshop.

It was actually already clear in 2012 that something like this would have to exist in the longer term in order to formalize the relationship between the economy and an open source community and to siphon off money for further development. The situation could not have been more absurd: On a value creation of around 4billion with TYPO3 worldwide, the TYPO3 Association only collected around EUR 700k annually. Far too little to support reasonable further development and marketing on a global level.

Now that the start-up TYPO3 GmbH has emerged from this idea and the first successes are becoming apparent, it is clear that this is the right way to go. Even if there is still a lot to do. I think that’s how open source works these days.

Open source has won

If there ever was such a thing as a battle between the open source and proprietary models, it has to be said that the bottom line is that open source has prevailed. This is because the vast majority of proprietary software products now also use open source components.

What we are therefore seeing is not a “winner/loser” situation, rather I think that OpenSource is slowly but surely “merging” with “Proprietary”. This can be seen, for example, in how formerly “super-proprietary” players such as Microsoft are becoming heavily involved in the OpenSource sector.

Free as free speech

One of the fundamental misconceptions about open source software is that it is completely free. For a long time, if the code doesn’t cost anything, then everything else shouldn’t cost much either. In the OpenSource world, there is therefore the saying that FreeOpenSource software is not “free as in free beer”, but “free as in free speech”.

This principle, too, is becoming more and more blurred. Many providers are creating strict business models around their open source software. The classic business model does not exist. And I maintain that this is a good thing.

Because I think the exchange of information is a natural human need and helps us all move forward. On the other hand, those involved in creating these opportunities should also be funded accordingly. Not for simple economic reasons, but mainly so that they can continue their work.

Concerns?

On the other hand, I very rarely encounter reservations about open source software. On the contrary. In most cases, open source software is, at least in part, already a requirement. And that’s a good thing.

 

 

(This article was originally published on www.aoe.com )