Phase Shift: Open Source

Open source software is all around us. The Linux kernel powers most of the smartphones out there, and for infrastructural software such as databases, web servers, the battle has already been lost by the commercial vendors. In the up and coming, “hot” field called as big data, there isn’t even a single closed source vendor that is worth mentioning - at least in medium data days with its Oracles, Sybases, SQL Servers there was some amount of fun fight. There is pure silence now.

How did this phase shift take place?

It has to do with game theoretic choices of each actor in the business, and the spread of technical knowledge. The actors: programmers (the users of software), managers (deciding which software to use), software producers (vendors, OS contributers who provide the software).

Programmers gain certain key benefits from OS: in a 3rd Wave world when careers are fluid where there is a lot of shift from one company to the next, OS software is something they can take with them. They can build expertise on an OS software in one company, and continue using it in another company. A huge benefit. And the mechanics of this use/move/reuse?

.. which brings us to the motivation of the second actor in the system: managers deciding which software to use. Choosing free over commercial is much easier in terms of budget - as long as the quality is comparable to commercial software.

And that brings us to the third actor in the system: the producers of software which ironically in the OS world happen to be the programmers themselves. Or managers. Or… anyone. They could contribute code to OS because technical knowledge had spread far enough. The capability of the software community at large reached a certain maturity. Once hobbyists were done writing pong, hacking around games to get themselves extra points, writing calendars, todo lists, they turned their attention to infrastructure software. The rest is history.

If we throw all choices, priorities, can-do, cannot-do items, stir, and optimize (not for a single actor, for the entire system), it is clear the equilibrium point can be none other than open source.

This is a perfect example of a phase shift. There is the before-state, which is commercial software. There is the after-state, widespread OS use. The spread of technical knowledge is akin to temparature, it’s effects are steady, effects the system constantly. There is no “critical mass”, there is no motherf—king tipping point. A butterfly does not flap its wings then there is a flood in Argentina then “one man, makes a choice, and chooses open source [I said that in movie announcer voice]”, and all of a sudden OS becomes dominant. None of that is relevant. The neophyte looking at certain, specific time points sees “sudden change”, “crazy shifts”, but this is an illusion.