• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Articles
  • News
  • Events
  • Advertize
  • Jobs
  • Courses
  • Contact
  • (0)
  • LoginRegister
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS
      Articles
      News
      Events
      Job Posts
    • Twitter
Datafloq

Datafloq

Data and Technology Insights

  • Categories
    • Big Data
    • Blockchain
    • Cloud
    • Internet Of Things
    • Metaverse
    • Robotics
    • Cybersecurity
    • Startups
    • Strategy
    • Technical
  • Big Data
  • Blockchain
  • Cloud
  • Metaverse
  • Internet Of Things
  • Robotics
  • Cybersecurity
  • Startups
  • Strategy
  • Technical

Will the Open Source Movement Backfire?

Bill Franks / 4 min read.
December 21, 2018
Datafloq AI Score
×

Datafloq AI Score: 52.67

Datafloq enables anyone to contribute articles, but we value high-quality content. This means that we do not accept SEO link building content, spammy articles, clickbait, articles written by bots and especially not misinformation. Therefore, we have developed an AI, built using multiple built open-source and proprietary tools to instantly define whether an article is written by a human or a bot and determine the level of bias, objectivity, whether it is fact-based or not, sentiment and overall quality.

Articles published on Datafloq need to have a minimum AI score of 60% and we provide this graph to give more detailed information on how we rate this article. Please note that this is a work in progress and if you have any suggestions, feel free to contact us.

floq.to/tGMGg

While open source software has been around for decades, its adoption level and breadth of focus have exploded in recent years. Most companies now make regular use of open source software – and that usage is increasing. However, there is a potential downside to the open source explosion that may be heading our way. Is it possible that the open source movement will backfire on us? This blog will explore that possibility.

Open Source Started Focused

In the early days of open source software, there was heavy focus on a smaller number of large projects that were broadly adopted. Web browsers and web server software (Apache) were two early and popular open source focal points. Both of these areas are now dominated by open source. There is no turning back from open source in areas like these since the software is an integral part of so many consumers’ and companies’ processes.

This isn’t to say that a wide range of open source projects didn’t exist years ago. But, only a small set of open source projects made it into the hands of a broad swath of the population. This focus made it easier to get contributors to keep the software up to date and to add new features.

Open Source Today is Widely Spread

Open source is no longer focused only on broad functionality that the masses require. There are now also open source projects focused on targeted, niche areas. Within the analytics world, for example, we have R and Python that cover a broad range of analytic capabilities. But we also have niche projects that address only certain aspects of the analytics process. These include projects like D3 for visualization and Scikit-learn for machine learning libraries. On the technology and operating system side, there are a wide array of options available ranging from Hadoop, to Spark, to PostgreSQL.

The point is that there are now multiple open source projects focused on identical subject areas. As opposed to a single analytics-focused open source project, there are dozens or hundreds. Companies are also adopting and incorporating multiple of these projects into their internal processes. This works fine as long as the community keeps the software up to date. However, it can become a big problem if some of the projects end up abandoned or mostly ignored by the developer community that owns it.

How Open Source Might Backfire

There are only so many top-notch programmers who know a given subject area well and who also have time they are willing to devote to contributing to open source projects. As more and more projects open up, the pool of available contributors is stretched further and further and they are forced to focus on a few projects they are most passionate about.

This is where the potential problem comes in. A few years down the road as many of the long-standing Apache HTTP server contributors retire, will younger programmers have an interest in taking up an old, unexciting project like Apache HTTP server? They may instead opt to contribute to sexier options like TensorFlow in the AI space. This means that even mature, widely deployed open source software could struggle to maintain support over time.


Interested in what the future will bring? Download our 2023 Technology Trends eBook for free.

Consent

Worse, will the new projects mature effectively? With developers hopping from project to project, open source could become like the nightclub scene. The hot club this month with all the crowds could be dead in six months as a new club takes over the market. The new club gets all the attention for a while until yet another club takes over.

For example, Hadoop was among the hottest, sexiest open source projects out there for a few years. There was no problem getting world-class contributors to help Hadoop grow and expand very quickly. Today, however, Hadoop is becoming widely regarded as yesterday’s news. Much of the contributor community may start to move on to other, sexier projects. This does not bode well for Hadoop’s ability to maintain enterprise readiness in the long term. Keep in mind that Hadoop is simply an illustrative example of the broader issue. I’m not trying to pick on Hadoop.

Hedging Your Bets

Not long ago, many organizations were hesitant to implement open source tools at all. Further, when open source was implemented, it was at a strategic, enterprise level. Today, most organizations have embraced open source and are allowing groups such as analytics organizations to implement open source tools specific to their domain. If that hot new open source analytical tool doesn’t take off as expected, an organization will be stuck with orphaned software that has no support structures in place.

Much of the open source software being implemented today is far less mature and far more niche than implementations of the past. Are we heading for a future filled with a lot of half-completed, unsupported, low-quality open source projects in place? Possibly so.

The action to take is to be careful and deliberate in your pursuit of open source toolsets. Don’t just install every up and coming project and start building critical processes with it. Focus on implementing mature projects with a wide contributor base and make sure the project looks like it will be here for the long haul. Then, track and monitor the state of any implemented open source tool carefully so that there is time to react if the project looks to be heading for trouble. Finally, build your processes in such a way (like a Lego kit!) that it is easy to swap out components without disrupting the entire chain.

The last thing anyone wants is to be caught with a mission-critical piece of software that suddenly needs to be replaced. The software may be free but fixing the problem will be far from it.

Categories: Strategy
Tags: analytics software, data science, open source

About Bill Franks

Bill Franks is an internationally recognized chief analytics officer who is a thought leader, speaker, consultant, and author focused on analytics and data science. Franks is also the author of Winning The Room, 97 Things About Ethics Everyone In Data Science Should Know, Taming The Big Data Tidal Wave, and The Analytics Revolution. His work has spanned clients in a variety of industries for companies ranging in size from Fortune 100 companies to small non-profit organizations. You can learn more at https://www.bill-franks.com.

Primary Sidebar

E-mail Newsletter

Sign up to receive email updates daily and to hear what's going on with us!

Publish
AN Article
Submit
a press release
List
AN Event
Create
A Job Post

Related Articles

The Advantages of IT Staff Augmentation Over Traditional Hiring

May 4, 2023 By Mukesh Ram

The State of Digital Asset Management in 2023

May 3, 2023 By pimcoremkt

Test Data Management – Implementation Challenges and Tools Available

May 1, 2023 By yash.mehta262

Related Jobs

  • Software Engineer | South Yorkshire, GB - February 07, 2023
  • Software Engineer with C# .net Investment House | London, GB - February 07, 2023
  • Senior Java Developer | London, GB - February 07, 2023
  • Software Engineer – Growing Digital Media Company | London, GB - February 07, 2023
  • LBG Returners – Senior Data Analyst | Chester Moor, GB - February 07, 2023
More Jobs

Tags

AI Amazon analysis analytics application Artificial Intelligence BI Big Data business China Cloud Companies company crypto customers Data design development digital engineer engineering environment experience future Google+ government Group health information learning machine learning mobile news public research security services share skills social social media software solutions strategy technology

Related Events

  • 6th Middle East Banking AI & Analytics Summit 2023 | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - May 10, 2023
  • Data Science Salon NYC: AI & Machine Learning in Finance & Technology | The Theater Center - December 7, 2022
  • Big Data LDN 2023 | Olympia London - September 20, 2023
More events

Related Online Courses

  • Oracle Cloud Data Management Foundations Workshop
  • Data Science at Scale
  • Statistics with Python
More courses

Footer


Datafloq is the one-stop source for big data, blockchain and artificial intelligence. We offer information, insights and opportunities to drive innovation with emerging technologies.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent

  • 5 Reasons Why Modern Data Integration Gives You a Competitive Advantage
  • 5 Most Common Database Structures for Small Businesses
  • 6 Ways to Reduce IT Costs Through Observability
  • How is Big Data Analytics Used in Business? These 5 Use Cases Share Valuable Insights
  • How Realistic Are Self-Driving Cars?

Search

Tags

AI Amazon analysis analytics application Artificial Intelligence BI Big Data business China Cloud Companies company crypto customers Data design development digital engineer engineering environment experience future Google+ government Group health information learning machine learning mobile news public research security services share skills social social media software solutions strategy technology

Copyright © 2023 Datafloq
HTML Sitemap| Privacy| Terms| Cookies

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp

In order to optimize the website and to continuously improve Datafloq, we use cookies. For more information click here.

settings

Dear visitor,
Thank you for visiting Datafloq. If you find our content interesting, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter:

Did you know that you can publish job posts for free on Datafloq? You can start immediately and find the best candidates for free! Click here to get started.

Not Now Subscribe

Thanks for visiting Datafloq
If you enjoyed our content on emerging technologies, why not subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive the latest news straight into your mailbox?

Subscribe

No thanks

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Marketing cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!