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WTF is Cloud
Origins: Increasing emphasis on automation Increasing reliance on network services Increasing commoditization of hardware and software components Increasing scale-out of operations Goals: flexibility, agility, automation and economies of scale
April 6, 2012
Origins: Increasing commoditization of software + downward price pressure Increasing connectivity and knowledge sharing between interested parties Increasing demands for easy adoption Deploy first, ask questions later A sprinkling of advocacy Goals: quicker development, economies of brain scale, defining (and defending) fair marketplace
Both reflect a changing landscape in the data center towards automation and agility Both reflect increasing independence on the part of developers and operations Both also drive more of the above Positive feedback loop for more data center automation
Open source facilitates adoption-led model Cloud computing thrives on an adoption-led model Open source facilitates faster development Cloud computing thrives on faster development
Hypothesis #1:
A.) buy lots of expensive proprietary software, hardware and hope the investors don't mind B.) DIY with lots of custom glue around freely available open source bits
Con: It's really expensive Con: It's difficult to change course Pro: Will (probably) be easier to deploy, configure and admin Conclusion: how much is your business agility worth?
Con: It's really expensive Con: A lot of necessary customization Con: Domain experts are essential Pro: I can do whatever I want
It's not about up-front cost It's about agility, fast adoption, iterative course corrections, no gatekeepers Ergo, Open source is necessary for cloud to exist Prediction: every cloud player will utilize open source on a massive scale
What major companies couldn't exist as we know them sans open source? See Paul Krugman's work on geographic impact on economies
Impact of Cloud
Impact of Cloud
3 possible hypotheses:
cloud computing deemphasizes software in general, therefore will reduce production and/or consumption of open source software cloud computing will neither augment nor reduce production and/or consumption of open source software cloud computing will increase the production and consumption of open source software
Impact of Cloud
I chose #3!
Prediction: cloud computing will speed up the development of open source software
Hypothesis debunking
Hypothesis: cloud computing deemphasizes software in general, thus reducing need for open source software
Local computing is also a delivery model, like cloud Cloud computing still needs to run software And cloud demands efficiency and agility open source will continue to be utilized to build cloud-y services
Prediction: open source will continue to dominate cloud computing, and the need for open source software will only increase
Hypothesis debunking
Hypothesis #2: cloud computing will have no impact on open source software, because they're orthogonal
Yes, yes, one is a delivery model, the other is a development model, therefore there's no causal connection, right?
competition == increasing demands for agility and efficiency == open source competition drives community participation increasing popularity of cloud computing will drive increasing usage of open source software
separation of services from software actually makes this easier ie. Open core is dead
Hypothesis Bunking
Hypothesis #3: cloud computing drives more open source software + participation
if open source software gives companies more agility and helps them deliver services more efficiently, then there is definite ROI therefore, a company would be foolish not to invest in open source development the adoption-led model of open source ties directly into the credo of cloud computing:
Ok fine, Open source begets cloud, which begets more open source, now what? Will cloud services be open sourced themselves? What does that even mean?
Linux started the long trek to glory in the data center So did apache And MySQL. And PostgresQL And later Mongo, Hadoop and GlusterFS :) And lots of other infrastructure technologies
Prediction: cloud services, like mobile apps and desktop applications, will remain mostly proprietary/non-free
Prediction: cloud services, like mobile apps and desktop applications, will remain mostly proprietary/non-free
Hypothesis: in a world where the distinction between copyleft and liberal licensing is diminished, liberal licensing will grow
delivering a service over a network does not convey software, according to the GPL v3 the central driver of vanilla GPL is obviated Apache licensing will continue to grow
every market entraps customers, preventing them from leaving data matters it just wasn't obvious enough in the context of local computing the source code was not enough in all contexts
Lock-in
Entity 4
Entity 5
Hypothesis: er... maybe? In some cases. In some social media cases, maybe walled gardens do not lend themselves to total openness
Too much value in keeping some data locked up Will competition prove the difference?
Probably not
Summary
Open source enables cloud computing Cloud computing, in turn, enables more open source May not graduate to the service/app/data layer NEEDZ MOAR RICHARD STALLMAN
Thank You
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