Open Source Facing a Difficult Battle For Cloud Relevance

A recent eulogy for open source's relevance to cloud computing by Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady caught the attention of Matt Asay, who breaks down the difficulty of this David and Goliath problem. "In a world where horsepower matters more than the software feeding those 'horses,' in terms of the entry cost to compete, and where big vendors like Amazon and Google are already divvying up the market, the odds of a small-fry, open-source start-up challenging 'Goliath' are slim. It's not a new argument: Nick Carr has been suggesting for some time that only a few, big companies can afford relevance in this hardware-intensive business. Given this fact, O'Grady thinks the best we can hope for (and he thinks it's pretty important) is 'a loose coalition or confederation of [open-source] projects and vendors that will together comprise an increasingly viable top to bottom alternative to some of the cloud providers today.' He includes projects like Puppet (Reductive Labs) and Hadoop in this mix, but is careful to point out that he doesn't see a full-fledged, open-source alternative seriously challenging the closed platforms of Google, Amazon, Salesforce, and the other mega-clouds."

Re:Crybaby

[mjasay]

That's the point (read the full article). We keep expecting open source to topple old hegemonies, but the reality is that it's simply helping to create them (Google) and keep them in check (everyone, including Google). That's a very important role, but it's not the BigCo Destroyer role we too often assign to open source.

Re:Do we really need a cloud?

[Suiggy]

I think cloud computing will be forever stuck in the realm of casual consumers and enterprise. Someone who purchases a $100-$400 netbook and browses the web will probably be the primary demographic here. And for large businesses, they'll have their own enterprise-wide cloud computing solution. This is really just a web-savvy interface on top of the traditional mainframe infrastructure. For those of us who have been computing for some time now, or require absolute control over our privacy and security, we'll stick to the traditional modus operandi of desktops and laptops.

Wrong way round

[Archtech]

'In a world where horsepower matters more than the software feeding those "horses"...'

Wrong already! Software does the work - the "what" of solving problems. Hardware, while of course necessary too, is basically a fungible commodity - the "how". To use a counter-intuitive but revealing analogy, software is like the car while hardware plays the role of fuel.

Good software is still fairly rare, whereas state-of-the-market hardware can be cheaply and plentifully obtained from several alternative sources. So the article has it exactly the wrong way round: it's software that is important, and hardware that plays the supporting role.

Re:Crybaby

[SaDan]

This guy is right on the money.

Consider this as well: If you are with an organization that is scaling into the cloud, and needs to fire up a couple hundred server instances a few times a year to handle the load, would you rather fire up an open source operating system and related free applications (LAMP, or whatever), or would you rather fire up a couple hundred server instances that required licensing for the OS and software? Would you like to manage the additional overhead of the proprietary systems/software? Would you be willing to pay more to have your cloud service manage it for you?

FOSS is more relevant in the cloud than most folks realize, even on a proprietary/closed cloud infrastructure.