tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203557.post7809814675219602819..comments2023-09-27T14:38:58.735+01:00Comments on Mark Little's WebLog: Is Cloud the death of open source?Mark Littlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15072917010265365428noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9203557.post-32246919310279746112013-04-23T14:18:46.761+01:002013-04-23T14:18:46.761+01:00I agree that cloud relies heavily on open source *...I agree that cloud relies heavily on open source *today*. And possibly for several years to come. But as cloud providers consolidate (remember, cloud is all about economies of scale) things may change.<br /><br />Lets imagine a world where there are, say, 5 major cloud providers, giving you all the *aaS that you need, in every flavour that a developer or business could ever want. The natural differentiation from that point on is for each of the 5 vendors to be faster, more efficient, cheaper, etc. This will lead to custom hardware (we already see this with Google and Facebook), which in turn will lead to custom variants of the open source stack used today. Again, we see this with Google (custom Linux, custom MyQSL) and since these all run hosted services, there is no pressure (nor any desire) to share any of these customisations.<br /><br />Extrapolate this even further and we may well see these 5 major cloud providers running variants of Linux, etc., that are so heavily customised and loaded with proprietary enhancements, that you might argue that all progress from this point on will be proprietary.<br /><br />At least on the server-side. Open source will still live on on the client - browsers, JS libraries, Android. And the few thick-client operating systems that may still be lurking about. :)<br /><br />- MManik Surtanihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09780985868877754056noreply@blogger.com