More organizations are opting to invest in free open source software (FOSS) in today's technology-driven, fast-paced business climate. Open source (which is software that developers can inspect, copy, alter, and redistribute) provides several benefits to businesses, including faster innovation, sound support from a sizable and avid community, and independence from proprietary lock-in.
Free Open Source Software can change your business
For many, open source is more than simply coding. It symbolizes a way of life. An open source community celebrates and promotes the concept that transparency, giving back to the community, sharing, and collaborating leads to better software - and, maybe, a better society.
Nowadays, there is no getting around open source software. Companies that use open source are among the most successful in the world. According to the consulting company BCG, 99% of Fortune 500 organizations utilize open source software. Last year, around 85% of the world’s smartphones ran on Android, the open source operating system built on the open Linux kernel.
Unsurprisingly, working with open source software is quickly becoming a prerequisite for all applications. So, are you wondering if your company's next technological move should be open source?
“Just a hobby”
Linus Torvalds, then a 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Helsinki, casually declared through a Usenet posting in August 1991:
"I'm building a free operating system, just a hobby, won't be large and professional like GNU...."
His passion led to the creation of the world's first free operating system, the Linux kernel, and sparked the free open source software movement.
The “free” denotes the users’ freedoms, i.e. the freedom to inspect it, copy it, alter it, and redistribute copies - a matter of freedom, not cost.
Tens of millions of people now use free software; in some parts of Spain and India, public schools now instruct all pupils to use the free GNU/Linux operating system. Most of these users, however, have never heard of the ethical reasons for which the system was created for the free software community because these systems and communities are now more commonly referred to as "open source," attributing them to a different philosophy in which these freedoms are rarely mentioned.
Three decades from its beginnings, "open" has become one of the primary methods for developing software. Companies make considerable use of open source software, which is progressively defining enterprise software architectures. Creating and distributing open source software is no longer a revolutionary concept, it is a strategic requirement in a rapidly changing digital environment.
FOSS is a strategic requirement in a rapidly changing digital environment
Avoid vendor lock-in
For many Chief Information Officers, open source has become a preferred option to vendor solutions with expensive user licenses and software maintenance costs, but limited features that need extensive modification to satisfy the needs of business users.
The limits of proprietary software result in inflexible tech stacks that are unable to survive today's digital disruption and continuing innovation. In contrast, open source is completely the reverse.
Libraries of easily-available solutions enable organizations to pick those that are the greatest match for their business groups and to adapt them to meet their specific requirements. This "take what you need" methodology has been shown to be beneficial for attaining long-term digital sustainability through agility, cost savings, and continual development.
Accelerate enterprise innovation
Software crowdsourcing promotes innovation by bringing together the greatest developer talent from across the world to solve challenges collaboratively. The open source community facilitates large-scale cooperation and experimentation, capturing a potential for innovation that no one enterprise can provide on its own.
More viewpoints foster unique approaches to issue resolution and quick innovation, which are typically not possible with standard development frameworks. Open source also allows businesses to access high-quality accelerators and frameworks from the community in order to implement agile development methods with a shorter time-to-market.
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Increase developer engagement
The worldwide developer community values cooperation and participation in order to generate high-quality solutions that benefit the whole community as well as companies. As a result, businesses that take this proactive and forward-thinking approach to software development find it simpler to attract top personnel from across the world, strengthening their own reputation and inventive skills.
It does not end with the acquisition of talent. Companies that promote open source inside their businesses frequently see excellent retention of top-tier developers, providing a clear competitive advantage in the age of the great resignation. Showcasing open source projects gives a glimpse into the sorts of challenges that organizations' development teams are tackling, making it simpler for them to attract top talent.
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