Gartner: Open source will quietly take over
In a few years' time, almost all businesses will use open source, according to Gartner; even though IT managers may be unaware of it, and prefer to talk about fashions such as software as a service. — Open-source promoters have welcomed …
Context & Ripple Effects
Gartner had already framed open source as difficult for businesses to avoid and argued that commercial software would incorporate it. Its latest forecast sharpens that arc: adoption need not be a declared IT strategy to become pervasive, even as managers focus on software-as-a-service.
First-order effects
- IT managers must account for open-source components already entering their software estates, rather than treating open source as a separate purchasing category.
- Commercial software vendors face a market in which incorporating open source becomes a baseline expectation rather than a distinct product position.
Second-order effects
- Gartner's forecast reinforces pressure on software licensing costs, consistent with its earlier prediction that those costs would decline over the coming decade.
- Software-as-a-service discussions may obscure the underlying adoption shift, making component visibility and software governance more important for enterprise buyers.
Third-order effects
- If Gartner's forecast holds, enterprise software competition shifts from proprietary code alone toward the management, support and integration of mixed open-source and commercial stacks.
- Open source becomes infrastructure for commercial offerings, with differentiation moving to the services and controls built around shared code.
The trend: Enterprise software is moving toward pervasive open-source components, while value migrates from ownership of code to the commercial layers around it.