Open source is not competitive to the cloud
I am not sure why some people think this, but yesterday I read two articles that clearly seem to pit open source versus cloud solutions and open source versus managed services. In my mind nothing can be further than the truth. In fact open source is the great enabler of both of these technologies. Much of the underpinnings of the cloud are in fact open source based. From Linux to the original open source Xen to OpenCloud, the software infrastructure in the cloud is by and large open (except for perhaps Microsoft Azure of course). In fact one could say without open source, what kind of cloud would you have?
When you look at what applications are being run in the cloud, once again you find open source. Whether it be CRM like SugarCRM, or Drupal or MindTouch or a host (no pun intended) of others. The apps people are running in the cloud are by and large open source. The database they are using is usually open too. Even some of the “glue” of these massive cloud based sytems rely on open source like Hadoop and Cassandra. So why would people think the cloud is a threat or competitive with open source?
In my friend and editor Julie Bort’s article, Jason’s Deli has chosen Google Apps over an open source email solution. Forgetting for a second how much of the Google gmail and apps are built on open source, was that really an open source versus cloud decision? I don’t think so. It was a cloud versus non-cloud decision. The benefits of the cloud versus an on premises solution are about the same whether it is open sourced or not.
What would be interesting if Jason’s Deli had chosen Google Apps over a hosted open source email solution. But even if they had, all that means is that someone needs to make a better hosted, open source solution. That is the real power of the cloud to open source. It makes for an instant commercial open source strategy. Take an open source solution that is competitively equivalent in the market and sell it as a hosted, SaaS solution or managed solution.
That is the great promise of what the cloud can bring to open source. No longer will you need to download and tinker with open source software (OK, some of you will because you like to). Much like Standing Cloud offers, you will be able to just log on and fire up an open source solution in a matter of seconds. There will be some cloud based open source offerings that will just host your app for you in a IaaS model, there will be others that use SaaS or PaaS and all of the configurations and such are done. In that kind of vision open source and cloud go together like peanut butter and jelly!
The same is true in a managed services world. Managed services are moving more and more to a cloud based model. Again so much of the infrastructure is open source based. So many of the tools used to manage are also open source based. So when I see an article asking “Does Open Source Fit Into A Managed Services Strategy“, I have to ask myself, how can you do it without it?
So please lets not start thinking of open source solutions somehow in competition with cloud solutions. If you do, you may just find out that your enemy is you.
