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Author: Vijayasarathi Balasubramanian

Like many advancements in technology, open source development has been gaining popularity over the past ten years. Back in 2015, 78% of companies were running their operations on open source software (OSS), and now, that number has risen to 90%. OSS isn’t a new concept, but it’s become a de facto arm of software development in recent years.

So, what is OSS? It’s software with publicly available source code that third-party programmers can modify, deconstruct, or upgrade for free. This software is maintained by its community and relies on public support for financial backing if ever needed. You can also say that OSS is “owned by the public”, and there are more than 80 types of open source licenses that grant users and developers different rights. Some of the most well-known OSS are VLC Media, GIMP, Linux, Firefox, and jQuery.

The opposite of OSS that many people are more familiar with (in practice, if not in name) is called “proprietary software”. The company owns the source code and all rights to a product, and little, if anything, is made publicly available. The software is either maintained internally or is outsourced to a third-party of developers that the company selects and pays. Consumers have the option to pay for the software outright or can pay a subscription fee, which is another popular trend among software and services today.

Thinking in simple terms, it might seem obvious that a company should prioritize proprietary software over OSS. They get to keep the rights, they have full control over development, and they’re able to charge for products. So, passing that onto the community might come across as an unnecessary loss.

While OSS does come with its own drawbacks, there are also a number of benefits that can’t be ignored.

OSS has a vast and rich community that isn’t centered around any particular brand, software, or product. There are a number of communities, such as Open Source Initiative, Open Software Foundation, and The Linux Foundation, which foster an environment for veteran and budding developers to collaborate and learn from each other. GitHub has become one of the premier sites for open source development and source control, to such a degree that it has become crucial for upcoming developers to understand how to use the site as part of their skill set.

Because of this growing and interactive community, companies also benefit from having their software openly tested and rapidly developed. This greatly reduces overhead costs for the original owner of the software and also allows the company to get real-time case studies about how their software operates in an open environment. While this does introduce a number of unexpected variables, this does still provide valuable insight for current and future products coming down the corporate pipeline.

OSS can also be installed on any computer and doesn’t require authenticated licenses. This might set off some red flags, but rest assured, this just makes it so that users anywhere at any time can have access to the OSS they desire. Consider the end user in this scenario. Not everyone has access to the most recent technology and isn’t able to make the upgrade. With OSS, users are able to go back to an old version of the software that’s readily available and is able to use it at launch without jumping through any additional hoops. While having a licensed product is key from a brand perspective, freedom of access has become an invaluable commodity to modern, everyday users.

Also, the freedom to update OSS on the fly has provided infinitely more flexibility and communal agility, and this encourages an unmatched level of innovation.

Let’s talk about this for a moment. Apple, for example, is known for being one of the biggest innovators of modern technology. In order to stay ahead of the curve, it’s been known to have a strict  and precise internal work culture that defies even the norms today. Secrecy about projects and a dedicated information funnel coupled with a cohesive brand, clear mission statement, and expert level insight into its numbers industries has made Apple a titan among its contemporaries. It’d be unfair to say that Apple is short of innovation in any way—however, it does lack features that some users would love to see from this almost fifty year old company.

Firefox, on the other hand, has opened its doors to the community, allowing them to create plug-ins, updates, themes, and more to the browser. Brave is FOSS (free and open source software) from the ground up and has its own dedicated following. By allowing users to become closer to the products they use, they’re able to provide personalizations, faster bug fixes, and even enhance security better and faster than those with proprietary software because its developers are on the ground floor with the user base.

Other companies are seeing this as well. Meta released a second version of its popular language learning model (LLM), appropriately named Llama 2. Unlike its previous iteration, Llama 2 is free and open source and has an integrated chatbot that, as Meta claims, “is capable of generating results on par with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.” While competitors are seeing this as a risky move, Meta is once again setting its gaze forward on what has become an inevitable future in software development.

Will OSS take over the landscape of software development as we know it? It’s unlikely as there’s still a lot of value to be offered in having private, proprietary software and building a brand based on one’s own methodologies. However, it’s also hard to discount the numerous benefits and challenges that OSS has presented. In an age where the Internet has become more centralized and stagnant to a lot of users, OSS turns the page to a new chapter of possibilities, enabling everyone to build towards a future they not only want to see but actively take part in.

About Vijayasarathi Balasubramanian

Vijayasarathi Balasubramanian is an AI/data science expert with seventeen years of experience and specializes in developing data ingestion and inventive solutions. As an avid professional, he is always closely watching changes in data science and technology and is now exploring Generative AI, ChatGPT, and graph based recommendation engines.

Vijay currently works at Microsoft,a leading cloud solution provider as a Senior Data Scientist, contributes his knowledge to a number of open source communities including Apache Airflow, Beam and Tensorflow, and mentors science startup founders. He is also affiliated with a number of technical organizations such as IEEE, IET, and BCS and has served as a judge at the Golden Bridge Awards and the UK IT Awards.

To learn more about Vijay or his future pursuits, you can find him on his website.