According to a recent report by RedHat, “Open source is more important than ever.” But what exactly is open source? Open source software is software with source code that can be viewed and used by anyone and often allows community contribution to make changes, updates, and patches. In exchange for its free use, users typically must accept the license agreement but generally have permission to use the software any way they choose. Examples of popular open source software include Linux, an operating system for developers, the web browser Mozilla Firefox, or jQuery, a rich Javascript library for HTML and CSS development.
While the “free software movement” began much earlier, open source software development became popular in enterprise products in the 1990s. At this time, large companies like IBM announced support for and invested in the development of Linux, and Sun Microsystems released the source code for its office suite of software products. Today, according to the aforementioned RedHat report, the move from proprietary to open source is accelerating, with enterprise open source software expected to grow from 29% to 35% in the next two years, and community open source software expected to similarly jump from 21% to 24%. Open source today is being used for everything from development of AI and ML applications to IoT to serverless computing.
One reason for the growth in use is security. Eighty-nine percent of IT leaders surveyed in the report see open source as more secure than enterprise proprietary software. The top security benefit cited by survey respondents was their “team can use well-tested open source code for in-house applications.” Other reported benefits include well-documented security patches, quickly available vulnerability patches, and easy auditability of the code. Lastly, simply having more eyes on the code increases confidence in the quality.
Another benefit is cost savings. According to a recent report by the Linux Foundation, two-thirds of survey respondents reported that the benefits of open source exceed the costs of development. Cost savings stem partially from improved speed of development. Sixty-six percent of respondents cited faster development speed as highly beneficial for their organization. In the tech industry, where company mantras like “move fast and break things” are common, being able to develop quickly is paramount. Use of open source software allows developers to focus on innovating instead of reinventing the wheel. For organizations that have not yet embraced open source software, the advice is clear: “It pays to be more open.”