Is open source the way of the future?
Do you even Linux bro?
Do you even Linux bro?Perhaps you’ve heard of this operating system called ‘Linux’. Strictly speaking Linux isn’t an operating system so much as it is an architecture that allows coders to create an operating system, using the Linux platform. It’s of the most famous opensource projects out there and is possibly the operating system running on your phone, that is if you have an Android. Apple’s iOS is a cousin of Linux but that’s a story for another time.
Opensource software is everywhere and it’s proliferation in computing is only increasing. In the past large businesses used technology from companies such as Oracle, Amazon, and Microsoft, who dominated enterprise solutions for large organisations.
So what changed?
To better explain let’s go back to the beginning and look at why and how Linux was started. Linux was started in 1991 by Linus Torvalds who had grown disillusioned by the dominance of Microsoft and IBM and didn’t want to feel forced to use Windows to use his PC.
Linus started coding his own operating system, eventually creating the Linux kernel that enabled him to use his PC without Microsoft or IBM’s involvement. Linux grew from this kernel into an operating system he could use and from this point Linux was born and people began to work together to add to the codebase.
Linux has grown massively over the years with many thousands of people around the world contributing code, morphing into many different flavours and distributions. Linux has become so much more than a home computer project and now provides the operating system for purposes as different as connected devices, home computers, enterprise servers, and networking devices. The list goes on.
The opensource community as a whole is responsible for many advancements in the technology you take for granted; not just within server technology but within areas as distinct as databases and information centralisation, communications platforms, but also extending into gaming. Two of the most famous opensource communities sprung up around Minecraft which brought server technology for open worlds to the game, and the Grand Theft Auto modding community that introduced FiveM so that you could run your own GTA worlds for players to participate in.
One of the unsung heroes of opensource is within the unsexy world of databases. You’d be forgiven for thinking that a database is just a simple and boring Excel document that stores information like contacts, financial data, or graphs but it’s a lot more than that. Databases are the backbone of Internet technology, providing the context for complicated websites and programs to actually function as intended. Without a database you wouldn’t be able to watch your satellite TV services, Netflix, browse Reddit, or all the fun things we like to do.
Some of the largest databases in the world are in areas such as healthcare. Take ‘The National Health Service’ or The NHS as it’s known. The NHS provides healthcare to over 70 million people.
That’s a lot of data.
Health professionals are able to access the data they need with a user interface, but it’s all held in complicated databases that store petabytes of information, which the database will present to the user without making it a mess. What they don’t know is how it does it.
In a thoroughly simplified way Postgres works like a well-staffed library. Every library has lots of books, on lots of shelves, in lots of places. What Postgres does is have librarians that watch every book that comes in, every book that goes out, and any places that a book has been put where it shouldn’t have been. The part that makes it so durable is that the librarian can leave and you’ll still know where the books are. You can’t ever damage it that bad that the relevancy of the shelves is lost.
Postgres has become one of the most prominent database solutions with an active and committed opensource community. It has after all been around 24 years and still maintains an active community that work on it and improve it. The Postgres community built Postgres in a way to be able to take a hit and still be left standing. Its longevity as a database solution shows how well that has done.
Companies have sprung up around opensource projects like Postgres, supporting enterprise clients who may look at ways to reduce their IT spend on legacy plans with Oracle by replacing them with opensource technology. One such business is EDB that offers data migration from legacy solutions into Postgres. CEO Ed Boyajian had this to say:
“Postgres is bigger than any one company. It’s a movement. Our new tagline, ‘Power to Postgres,’ captures both the spirit of that movement and our commitment to it,” says EDB president and CEO Ed Boyajian. “We’re database fanatics, and for our customers, a trusted partner with the energy and expertise to supercharge Postgres and help them overcome their challenges.”
Private enterprise’s involvement in opensource software and solutions is a logical step in the evolution of the opensource ecosystem, providing ancillary services to clients looking to take advantage of reduced overheads, leveraging a vibrant and diligent coding community, combined with a business that adds into the codebase for the opensource and free versions of Postgres themselves.
We’ve come a long way from IBM and Microsoft’s dominance in tech with Linux now running on 100% of the top 500 supercomputers, with AWS running on a Linux kernel, and Google Cloud providing instances with their own version of Linux.
Business is booming in enterprise opensource,
and the only way is up.