Open source? is it here to stay?

Hi all,

Hope you read my intro and hope you will read this article.

I do not want to talk about why open source software is popular: its FREEE!! DUH!!. What I want to talk about is whether this open source movement will be able to sustain itself.

I personally think open source software is much like any other revolutionary movement like women's suffrage, civil rights movement, etc. Therefore, it is not here to stay forever, but only to develop a new mindset in the society. For example, the women's suffrage movement does not exist today; however, it helped us create the mindset that women as individuals have the right to hold equal power in making the decisions in our democratic process (Some of you will disagree, i know, but its just an example).

As we all have seen, there have been some great open source projects which have consistently beat their money bloated equivalents in productivity, efficiency and reliability. Most of us have been boggled by this concept. Smaller budgets, smaller teams have created marvels like Open Office which are a couple hundred dollars cheaper and perform much better. Linux is the most obvious one here.

So why did this movement occur in the first place? Because large software companies each picked a little section of the software development market (such as network services, operating system, database management system etc.) and started to hold a virtual monopoly on their little piece of the pie. As we all know, competitition boosts development and innovation. But these large companies stifled the competition and brought the software development industry to a screeching halt. Imagine, why would Microsoft ever try to improve Windows or Office if OpenOffice didn't exist, or now Google Documents didn't exist. And, if any of you have ever used Microsoft Office, you can only imagine what Office would be like without any constant improvements. I am not trying to bash Microsoft here, but rather providing the most insidious example.

What this movement is doing is creating competition that will again bring healthy competition to this industry and provide a wake up call to the large software companies to change the way they do business and produce better products. Some companies, such as Google, have taken the queue, others haven't. Eventually, however, all these companies will be forced to give up their old corporation style tactics and adopt better consumer friendly ideas.

Therefore, the open source movement will die, free software will again be elusive. However, it will leave us in a world where capitalism will not be able to rule our lives because they will remember the great open source movement which shook up their foundations without needing any money.

Next article will be on specific open source alternatives to boost productivity.

Peace,
Shaurav