CIOs and business leaders long have treated open source as an esoteric source of code that is used deep in the IT infrastructure and that has no real impact on business. With the possible exception of Linux, which is supported by Red Hat, Inc., Canonical, Ltd. and IBM, open source tools have not raised alarm over issues like support and interoperability.

However, as open source solutions such as Android, Docker, Hadoop and OpenStack are rapidly being adopted into business production environments, that attitude is rapidly changing, writes Wikibon Senior Analyst Stuart Miniman. In his latest Professional Alert, “Open Source Ubiquity Leads to Foundation Sprawl,” Miniman raises several important questions about the impact of open source on vendors, the market and users.

For instance, many open source projects are funded and staffed by very large vendors such as IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co. “Does this give them a competitive advantage in shaping the future of IT, even if it doesn’t directly impact their bottom line?” he asks.

One important issue is standards and interoperability. Traditionally software vendors defined “open” as adhering to industry standards set by independent bodies. Open source communities take a different approach, though, with standards evolving through implementations, customer adoption and evolving iterations of software. When standards are established, they come via consensus rather than from a standards committee. The governing bodies are increasingly foundations like the Linux Foundation or Apache Software Foundation.

As the open source community has expanded to create software for the next generation of IT, those foundations have proliferated. Examples include the OpenStack Foundation, the Cloud Foundry Foundation, the Open Container Project and the new Cloud Native Computing Foundation. They are taking on greater roles including structuring architectural discussions, planning development roadmaps and driving project awareness.

“As systems become more interconnected and complex, today’s foundations are now focused on broad architectural guidance,” Miniman writes. These sometimes overlapping charters have brought charges of jurisdictional overlap, backroom politicking and too much leeway for vendors to twist standards to lock in customers.

Overlapping scope and membership can confuse users, Miniman warns. Unlike the rules produced by standards committees, foundations don’t guarantee interoperability between implementations. IT organizations need to develop an understanding of how open communities operate, how different licensing models work and how they can become actively involved in shaping open source software.

Source: Teradata