Why you need more than just open-source

Why you need more than just open-source

Kamal Brar, Vice President and General Manager of Asia Pacific, Hortonworks

In 2016, the Open Source Drives Digital Innovation study commissioned by Red-Hat and conducted by
analyst house Forrester revealed that 52% of CIOs and senior IT decision makers
in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are already tapping open source software in
areas such as cloud, mobility, big data and DevOps.

More IT decision-makers are turning to open source to
drive better efficiency and digital innovation, as its flexibility enables
organisations to build new customer experiences, services and products more
quickly.

As more enterprises tap open source there are some
misconceptions about what open-source means. Open source technology allows for
incredible collaboration between people, communities and projects. Yet many inadvertently
associate the words “free” and “easy” with open source which is not always
true. Open source makes tech easily accessible and collaborative, which drives incredibly
fast innovation.  But open source is much
more than easily accessible tech. Enterprise needs must be considered and that
is why the business of open source tech is about more than just accessibility.

Here are five reasons why you need more than DIY
(Do-It-Yourself) open source.

1.     Open Source doesn’t mean it’s all designed to work
together.

The open source tech community is not necessarily
motivated or inspired to make an integrated set of different open source
technologies (projects) work together. Each team is in charge of their own
project – but making it all work together, easily, seamlessly – spending time
to test and certify different sets of tech together is not their mandate. The
community is responsible to their members, and to the guidelines of their
community – each of which can have differing rules, different codes of conduct
for each project. The community is not responsible to other communities and are
not necessarily developing the necessary “glue” to make everything work
together for an enterprise grade level of integrated functionality.

Success Requirement: Someone (usually a software
vendor) who is a member of the communities, to compile different projects into
a single implementable software package.

2.     Open Source creates an unprecedented pace of
innovation

The collaboration of open source creates an
unprecedented pace of innovation, but this pace is not always compatible with
enterprise business. Not every business can implement new systems or
upgrade existing ones, create new processes and train people to adapt at the
same pace that the community is developing at. And in fact, sometimes such a
pace can be detrimental to good business outcomes where some stability is
required to refine and develop best practices and outcomes.

Success Requirement: Access to multiple (possibly more
mature) versions of the integrated software package to give enterprises the
freedom to update to newer versions at their own pace.

3.     Open Source is typically focused on the bleeding edge

Not every enterprise customer needs the leading edge,
or the so-called “bleeding edge”. While the open source community continues to
shift towards the next version, the newest features, the new release, it still
takes time to mobilize an enterprise to adapt to the change. Enterprises may
not always be on the same leading edge innovation that the open source
community is on. Business critical environments may be based on more mature
versions of open source tech for better business stability. Creating a balance
of adapting innovative new tech with stable, more mature tech is not
necessarily in alignment with the objectives of the open source community.

Success Requirement: Establish a clear new technology
introduction path, usually by including an early version of the new tech as a
technical preview into the integrated software package.

4.     Not all needs naturally create open source communities

Some requirements – such as enterprise security and governance  do not organically manifest themselves in open source
communities. Only when there is an application, and integration across
different technologies does this become an issue. For some needs to be met in
open source, there needs to be a voice representing enterprise needs in a
public forum, to foster innovation and collaboration of needs into either new
or existing open source communities.

Success
Requirement:  An enterprise voice in the open source community.

5.     The
open source community is not responsible for your success

Open source means collaborative
innovation that is easy to access. But easy to access doesn’t mean it’s easy to
succeed. For example – almost everyone has access to a grocery store and the
raw ingredients it offers. But to make a casserole, a souffle, to create duck
au confit requires experience and expertise. The open source community is no
more obligated to making enterprises successful with their tech, than a grocery
store is obligated to make someone a great chef.  To make your project
succeed enterprises need expertise; expertise than can be home-grown, hired,
and/or trained. In most cases a combination of in-house staff and experts from
outside who had done this many times are the best approach. Simply being able
to download bits does not result in a successful business outcome.

Success
requirement: Connect in house software deployment, integration and testing with
outside experience, expertise, enterprise support, professional services and
education.

There is much more to being successful with open
source technology than just a Do-It-Yourself project of downloading and
installing raw bits of technology. Hortonworks is in the business of helping enterprises harness the power of open source
technology to create successful business outcomes.