Ten reasons why open source software is the world

Open-source Software, formerly a favorite of technology enthusiasts, is now sweeping the software world. By 2016, open source software will be in the mission-critical software of nearly all the top 2000 companies in the world, according to Gartner. According to Black Duck Software, a source management software maker, there are more than million open source software projects worldwide. Here is the summary of the small series of open source software is able to quickly popularize the ten reasons.

Quality

Quality is the main reason respondents chose to open source, according to a survey of the future of the Black Duck open source software. This is a huge change. In the 2011, quality accounted for only 5th place. With more and more fans in open source projects, there is a growing number of contributors to improve project stability, locate and fix bugs, and simplify interfaces. Another factor associated with this is that the ease of deployment has also risen from 6th place in 2013 to 3rd place this year, another sign of the rapid maturation of open source projects. In fact, many open source tools are simpler to install than their commercial counterparts (the simple deployment of open source software is especially important given the complexity of business software selection and purchase procedures).

Functional combination

According to a report published in 2013 by the Linux Foundation, 80% of companies plan to increase their use of Linux over the next five years, with only 20% planning to increase their use of Windows. The number of enterprises that use Linux for mission-critical workloads has risen from 60% in 2010 to 73% in 2012 years. Of course, price is also an important factor. Even with support costs in mind, open source software is generally much cheaper. However, according to the Linux Foundation report, the price is only the 2nd place to choose Open Source, the 1th is the functional portfolio. This is a huge reversal from the early stages of open source technology, when people always think that business software is generally more complete and robust than open source software.

Security

Security was once considered a soft spot for open source products, but the situation has changed. This year, 72% of respondents to the Black Duck report said they chose open source because of their safety. Open source software allows users to evaluate various potential security vulnerabilities themselves. "I really like the transparency of open source software," said Daniel Polly, corporate information security officer at the first Financial bank in the United States. With open source software, you can see how the data flow flows in the application. He added that today, commercial software vendors are under pressure to catch up on the security features of Open-source software.

Faster innovation

Traditional software vendors create and develop their products internally. And Open-source vendors don't start from scratch-they start their projects on a common basis. "Open source provides a software base, and many projects rarely need to start from scratch," said analyst Jon Oltsik. Customizing for a particular purpose can also help speed up the entire development process. "Such as the cloud services sector, there are Amazon and Microsoft. "Here, I see that the Apache OpenStack cloud offerings offered by service providers are perfectly comparable to Amazon's EC2, and the differentiation advantage of open source is more pronounced in terms of diversity of services, professional services and customized service levels," said Citrix's Mark Hinkle. ”

Scalability

Traditional proprietary software usually focuses on the needs of niche markets, such as large businesses or small and medium-sized enterprises. and open source projects generally do not have such problems, because they are around the customer's general needs and developed.

"Generally speaking, we started an IT project almost entirely on the basis of open source technology," said Rafael Herrera, head of the Groupon BI International department. For us, the most critical elements are scalability, in addition to cost benefits. What we need is a framework that can dynamically support the whole process of project growth from the start. "For example, Groupon uses an Open-source data integration platform from Talend.

Customized

Open source software allows very professional users to use the source code directly and modify it. "We can expand Open-source software to suit our needs without hiring a third party." Said Paul Stadler, technical manager at the Pet Hospital in Chester County. They use open source veterinary management software that runs on a Linux server and delivers software services through the web-oriented desktop and mobile device for employees.

According to this year's Black Duck report, in fact, the applicability and flexibility of open source software is the 4th important reason why enterprises choose Open Source. This reason was only 8th in the last year.

Collaborative

In the past, if there were several businesses that needed the same functionality, they typically had to adopt a product from one vendor or build a team to develop or maintain the product. Open source software simplifies this process and allows competing businesses to do it together. This aspect greatly shortens the project development time, on the other hand also can let oneself have the differentiation superiority. According to the Black Duck report, 50% of respondents have contributed to open source projects, and 56% per cent said they would increase their contribution to open source projects this year. By participating in the project development, the enterprise can influence the direction of the software development and establish good collaboration relationship with other developers.

Standardization

It is encouraging to have a group of intelligent leaders to set standards and choose the best possible path for each industry. In practice, however, it is usually based on the de facto standards of some popular products, such as the Microsoft Word. doc format. A successful open source project can provide the same foundation without taking into account the risk of vendor lock-in. "Most of the time, it is easier to standardize because there are products that are actually heavily adopted," says Citrix's Hinkle. The Apache Web Server is a great example of a lot of adoption. It has facilitated the development of many web standards in the early days of the Internet. ”

Leading

In many areas, open source software is no longer behind the various patent platforms, but instead become the technology leader. Many high level Open-source projects have sprung up in areas such as cloud, mobile, large data [note] and IoT, which are driving technological developments in these areas. If you look at the development of the web itself, it is most of the need to rely on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP and other open source project development. Even some of the latest hot new areas, such as virtual reality, have a number of competing open source virtual environment platforms leading technological innovations, including OpenSim, open Wonderland, and open Qwaq.

Cost

Prices remain an important factor. In this year's Black Duck report, 68% of respondents said open source helped to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Of course, open source projects are not all free. Vendors will also charge for special editions, technical support, or custom development. In addition, enterprises need to spend some internal resources to adopt or inherit open source software. But prices are no longer the main consideration. "The traditional reasons for cutting costs, simplicity and ease of use are no longer a major factor in choosing open source software," says Lou Shipley, president and CEO of Black Duck software. Open source software has proven its quality and safety, and has reached a turning point in widespread democratization and proliferation. The