Jim Zemlin: Are You Ready for the Next Open Source Blockbuster?

Open source is fundamentally changing technology and redefining the tech industry, said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of The Linux Foundation, in his keynote at OpenStack Summit in Paris. On every layer of the technical stack, whether it is networking, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, or web frameworks, he noted, there is a hot open source project that is defining that particular category. 

A key development that is making open source software so important now is the emergence of the software-defined economy.  “Software is eating the world,” said Zemlin quoting Marc Andreesen. And, today, “open source is eating the software world,”  he added. There is too much software needed for any one company to write it all on their own.  Increasingly, he said, more companies are moving to the Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule, where 80% of the software in any product or service is open source. 

As the open source model increasingly becomes the dominant form of software development, Zemlin said, it is critically important for companies understand how to manage their external research and development. Open source collaboration requires a new set of skills that includes knowing how to pick the right projects; understanding the intellectual property frameworks that govern those projects; understanding the social coding style within those projects; knowing how to integrate it – collecting that code within the organization, improving it, making changes, giving those changes back to the central project;  as well as creating projects and services that enable “the virtuous cycle of continuous improvement” for both the company and the open source project. 

“If you don’t have an external R&D org at your organization, you should start doing that right now,” Zemlin told the audience. “The question to ask is: Are you ready for the next open source blockbuster?”