https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • Analytics
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud
    • Data Centers
    • Desktop
    • IoT
    • Mobility
    • Networking
    • Open Source
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Virtualization
    • Voice/Connectivity
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Best Practices
    • Business Models
    • Channel 101
    • Channel Programs
    • Channel Research
    • Digital Transformation
    • Diversity & Inclusion
    • Leadership
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Specialty Practices
  • MSSP Insider
    • Back
    • Business of Security
    • Cloud and Edge
    • Endpoint
    • Network
    • People and Careers
    • Training and Policies
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2020 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2020 Hot 101 Rankings
    • 2020 MSP 501 Report
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Our Sponsors
    • From the Industry
    • Content Resources
    • COVID-19 Partner Help
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Reports
    • Videos
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • EMEA
  • Awards
    • Back
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • 2020 MSP 501
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Partners Evolution
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
  • Channel Mentor
    • Back
    • Channel Market Intelligence
    • Channel Educational Series
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • Analytics
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud
    • Data Centers
    • Desktop
    • IoT
    • Mobility
    • Networking
    • Open Source
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Virtualization
    • Voice/Connectivity
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Best Practices
    • Business Models
    • Channel 101
    • Channel Programs
    • Channel Research
    • Digital Transformation
    • Diversity & Inclusion
    • Leadership
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Specialty Practices
  • MSSP Insider
    • Back
    • Business of Security
    • Cloud and Edge
    • Endpoint
    • Network
    • People and Careers
    • Training and Policies
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2020 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2020 Hot 101 Rankings
    • 2020 MSP 501 Report
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Our Sponsors
    • From the Industry
    • Content Resources
    • COVID-19 Partner Help
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • Reports
    • Videos
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • EMEA
  • Awards
    • Back
    • Excellence in Digital Services
    • 2020 MSP 501
    • Top Gun 51
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • Channel Partners Evolution
    • Channel Evolution Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
  • Channel Mentor
    • Back
    • Channel Market Intelligence
    • Channel Educational Series
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Digital Service Providers
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • CHANNEL PARTNERS ONLINE
 Channel Futures

Open Source


Open Source Software’s Top Five Challenges for 2017

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • January 3, 2017
Open source software is thriving, but it faces challenges related to cloud computing, IoT, corporate control, software forks and more.

It’s a new year, and open source software is more popular than ever. But the open source community is also confronting a new set of challenges. Here’s what open source programmers and companies will need to do to keep thriving in 2017.

There is no denying that open source has come a very long way in a relatively short time. In January 2007, only a handful of major companies were invested heavily in open source. Closed-source software vendors like Microsoft and VMware dominated the enterprise computing market. On the desktop Linux front, you were lucky if you could get your Linux PC to connect to a wireless network, let alone actually use it do work.

Fast forward to January 2017, however, and open source software is everywhere. More than two-thirds of companies are contributing to open source. Open source technologies like OpenStack, Docker and KVM are being used to build the next generation of infrastructure. And it has been years since I have had to fight with Xorg.conf or ndiswrapper in order to make Linux work on my PC.

Open Source’s Top Challenges

Yet for all that the open source community has achieved, a new set of challenges has arisen. It includes:

  • Cloud computing. Virtually everything is migrating to the cloud, and cloud computing is projected to continue growing at a compound annual growth rate of 19.4 percent for the next several years. That’s good news for open source technologies that power the cloud, like OpenStack. But it’s bad news for people who believe that the primary purpose of open source (or free software) should be to free users. Even when clouds are powered by open source code, cloud computing’s architecture denies users many of the freedoms they would otherwise gain by using open source software (as Richard Stallman keenly points out).
  • The Internet of Things (IoT). IoT presents challenges for open source that are similar to the cloud. Many IoT devices, like smart thermostats, are powered in part by open source technologies. But that doesn’t mean much to users, who usually have little ability to modify the code running on the devices — which tend to be undocumented, to lack interfaces that facilitate modification and to depend on proprietary components.
  • Apple. The open source community has won its long war against Microsoft. Redmond declared its “love” for Linux and made many open source-friendly moves in recent years. But that other major consumer computing company — Apple — remains considerably less in love with open source (which is ironic, given that macOS is built in part on open code derived from BSD). Sure, Apple publishes some open source code. But most of Apple’s products and platforms are super-proprietary and closed. (Case in point: Facetime, which is so proprietary you can’t talk to people with non-Apple devices.) As long as Apple looms as a highly successful closed-source software company, open source will face stiff competition in the consumer market.
  • Docker. Docker containers, which provide an innovative way to isolate applications and build next-generation infrastructure, are the hottest open source story of the moment. But Docker comes with a downside for the open source community. Concern about open standards for containers helped to drive talk of forking Docker several months ago. That never officially happened, but Red Hat launched a competing container framework called OCID. Red Hat swears OCID is not a Docker fork, but it kind of looks like one. All of this competition in the container ecosystem suggests that the spirit of collaboration that has traditionally undergirded open source projects is breaking down in the container world — and that forks and rumors of forks could damage Docker’s momentum.
  • Corporate control. In elder days, most open source code was written by volunteers. Today, the vast majority of code contributions to projects like Linux and OpenStack come from programmers paid by companies like Red Hat and Intel. There’s nothing wrong with this; the fact that companies are investing so much money in open source development is a good thing. But this change does reflect a much higher degree of corporate control over open source code. That leads to tensions that the open source community must contend with — such as the kerfuffle last January about the Linux Foundation’s board of directors giving too much control to companies at the expense of individuals.

There is no doubt that open source software will continue to thrive in this new year. But as open source reaches new frontiers, the open source landscape is changing. The open source community must adapt with it.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Open Source

Related


  • cloud data
    Your Cloud Data Is Protected, But Is It Portable?
    Why flexibility and containerization are the new must-haves for cloud data.
  • Spinoff Company
    IBM Names CEO of New Managed Services Spinoff
    The former IBM CFO is well-known to those within NewCo.
  • JEDI lightsaber
    AWS Still Chasing JEDI, Blasts Trump Administration Again
    AWS still wants to get JEDI from Microsoft. And there’s a new alliance in town. Plus, an update from iXsystems.
  • CEO Andy Jassy during keynote at AWS reInvent 2020
    AWS Partners Flooded with New Capabilities, Opportunities at re:Invent
    Channel head Doug Yeum introduced services, competencies and more ways for the channel to team with the cloud provider.

3 comments

  1. Avatar David H Deans January 7, 2017 @ 2:46 pm
    Reply

    Yes there are challenges, but
    Yes there are challenges, but there’s also significant new upside opportunities within the open source marketplace. Hyperledger will gain momentum in 2017 as more organizations seek a blockchain platform that is a secure standards-based solution.

  2. Avatar YourSpamFilterSucks January 13, 2017 @ 3:14 pm
    Reply

    If you couldn’t use wireless
    If you couldn’t use wireless with Linux in 2007 then you really shouldn’t be using Linux (then or now). Where do you get your information Mr. Tozzi?

  3. Avatar Christopher Tozzi January 13, 2017 @ 4:20 pm
    Reply

    Personal experience 🙂 I am
    Personal experience 🙂 I am remembering a wireless card I owned (some kind of D-Link — I forget the exact chip) that only worked with ndiswrapper, and it would crash after an hour or so and not work again until you rebooted (reinserting the module was not enough). I recall other cards that lacked native Linux drivers, so you had to use ndiswrapper, but you couldn’t get a 64-bit Windows driver for them so you had to run a 32-bit kernel in order to use wireless. And on top of all of this there were Broadcom chips, which only worked after you extracted and installed proprietary firmware (this was before there was a handy script that did that for you), and even then support was hit and miss depending on the chipset.

    These days, I have not used ndiswrapper in years, and most Linux wireless cards “just work.”

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Dell Technologies Expands PowerProtect Portfolio, Embraces Data Protection Priorities
  • Wipro, Navisite, 2nd Watch Bolster Cloud Service Portfolios
  • IBM Cloud for Telecommunications to Rely on Integrators Right Away
  • WANdisco Partners Get First Formalized Partner Program

Galleries

View all

New, Changing Partner Programs: AWS, Tech Data, Avaya, Verizon

January 11, 2021

Industry Perspectives

View all

The Rise in Remote Work Increases the Need for Patch Management

January 27, 2021

Partners Share Their 2021 Goals—and Plans for Achieving Them

January 26, 2021

The Importance of Being Security-Centric

January 22, 2021

Webinars

View all

Your Network Perimeter Has Changed

February 18, 2021

In Case of Emergency: The Importance of Proactive Critical Event Management

February 23, 2021

How Managed Hosting Providers Thrive with the Alternative Cloud

February 24, 2021

White Papers

View all

Product Brief: Kaseya VSA Integrated Workflows with BMS and IT Glue

January 26, 2021

Why Subscription Business Model

January 15, 2021

The Ultimate MSP Guide to Sales Efficiency

January 14, 2021

Upcoming Events

View all

Channel Partners Virtual

March 2, 2021 - March 4, 2021

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

November 1, 2021 - November 4, 2021

Videos and Fastchats

View all

FASTCHAT: How SOAR Eliminates Security Challenges and Elevates Service Provider Revenues

January 6, 2021

Happy Holidays from Channel Partners & Channel Futures!

December 21, 2020

FASTCHAT: How Old, Unpatched Technologies Are Creating New Security Threats for MSPs and Their Customers

December 3, 2020

Twitter

ChannelFutures

.@CloudSphereAI looks to former @Microsoft, @Google exec Jane Gilson to fill CEO role. dlvr.it/RrXP6F https://t.co/mSUXUYHxFp

January 28, 2021
ChannelFutures

Building an efficient and profitable #patchmanagement practice in 2021 @ConnectWise #cybersecurity #endpoint #MSP… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 28, 2021
ChannelFutures

International effort takes down #Emotet botnet, but @Netenrich, @digitalshadows, @Vectra_AI say it will be back.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 28, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@Microsoft @Azure’s Tyler Bryson, new U.S. channel head, talks priorities at @GetNerdio’s #NerdioCon… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@CryptoStopper hires @GetChanneled to build partner program, act as virtual channel chief. #ransomware… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

MSSPs, check for this ‘novel’ social engineering threat from North Korea. #Google. dlvr.it/RrTS9J https://t.co/2mDcnNvkHz

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@keepersecurity report shows financial sector heavily targeted by #cybercriminals. dlvr.it/RrTBPz https://t.co/joTBNeb2MT

January 27, 2021
ChannelFutures

.@Trustwave unveils new global referral partner program. #cybersecurity dlvr.it/RrT9Td https://t.co/amXCw33UsF

January 27, 2021

MSSP Insider

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Channel Partners Online

Want more? Find more channel news and analysis on our sister site, Channel Partners.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Online
  • Channel Partners Events
  • MSP 501
  • MSSP Insider
  • IoT World Today
  • Webhostingtalk

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X