The Inextricable Link

What do we actually want? Do we want a single monolithic Linux and open source strategy that some Linux fanatics prophase? Or is it to break the barriers created by the battles between Microsoft and the providers and evangelists of Linux and open source?

Less than a decade back, it was always the opposing strategies foundered by the rocks of Microsoft’s well-entrenched monopoly and the superiority of their execution that had taken forefront. Then came the enterprise strategy of some of the more famous open source projects.

But what is happening to the biggest collaborated development project in the world today? (Read Linux) Today’s enterprise scenario is totally different from what it was a few years back. There has been an immense change in the way applications are being delivered. Though enterprises are adopting the SaaS way, the open source community is pretty much rooted with the idea of software being distributed and being installed on local machines. How does it become the technology of future, I fail to understand?

The apostasy-despised open source community needs to further look into strategic issues before being a major player in every corner of the enterprise technology ecosystem.

What the proponents of open source must focus on today is to build bottom-up solutions to real-world problems that are interconnected by an architecture that is Internet-like, and one that mitigates interoperability problems within the enterprise. Now I am not suggesting an open source project to beat the .NET frameworks and services. But this is where the world is moving and if Linux and open source want to maintain a good position in the enterprise space, this is definitely a start.

I think the open standards approach is one of the best that has happened in the technology landscape, and Microsoft as well as all proprietary and open source vendors should be looking at creating an open architecture that allows interoperating with disparate solutions that exists in enterprises today. Personally, I feel that Microsoft’s strategy of ‘embrace and extend’ strategy will only result in the downslide of technologies that adopt it. Look at Netscape as a classic example. On the contrary all those technologies that have countered this strategy and adopted an ‘open and connect’ strategy have succeeded.

I know I keep jumping between open architecture and interoperability, but I am convinced that they are inextricably linked. What do you think?