Open vs. Closed in the Cloud
The impending announcement of Microsoft's cloud operating system at the company's Professional Developers Conference has me thinking about how the struggle between open source and proprietary software models will play out in the cloud. There's been much chatter about how the relocation of code from one's premises to the virtual skies might threaten, render irrelevant or somehow derail the growth of open-source software by upsetting its natural licensing boundaries and advantages. First, while most cloud offerings are currently built out of open-source pieces--chief among them the Xen hypervisor and Linux operating system--the fact that the open-source licenses that govern these and most other free components do not require cloud services providers to share their contributions could pose a challenge to open source from within. However, as projects such as Linux and Xen move forward and accrue improvements, the cost to proprietary extension-minded cloud providers of either forgoing community-driven improvements or of taking on the ever-larger integration load of synchronizing their changes with the mainline will work to keep most cloud implementations open. More interesting to consider is the way that licensing issues around proprietary software, especially those related to redistribution and usage metering, will fade in importance for end users once the software and hardware resources that host it come to be bundled into common utility services. For instance, by bundling its software with cloud-based hosting, Microsoft can offer its customers a much simpler licensing picture, in which the tricky pricing-by-projected-usage models now enforced awkwardly by Client Access Licenses and the like can shift to pricing based on actual usage. I imagine that Microsoft's proprietary cloud offerings will achieve their share of success, and they will play at every level of the cloud computing stack, from slices of space in the company's new data centers, to Hyper-V-powered virtualization, to a Windows Server-based platform, to higher-level stack layers such as SQL Server Data Services. However, these achievements will no more push open-source software out of the cloud than open source has pushed proprietary software out of its ancestral on-premises homes. In fact, the realities that prompted Amazon to build its cloud offerings out of Xen and Linux rather than, say, VMware and Windows, are as relevant today as they ever were. Namely, open-source software is available for the owning to whomever wishes to take it up, and it grows in value, rather than declines, with every new interested owner it accrues. For this reason, open source will continue to be a first option for building new platforms and services, whether they be cloud-based or not. |
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Comments (5)
First of all, you don't even know that Amazon will/does also offer Windows in their cloud offering. It was the biggest demand from customers.
Second, you don't know lot of IT divisions in government and private corporations provide data center services and charge their internal customers for hosting applications and providing basic services (Exchange, Sharepoint, Office Communication Server, etc). Consumers of those private datacenters don't care about whether their datacenter offers open or closed source infrastructure, so why do you think that enterprise customers will care about reviewing source code of these cloud vendors?
You also are pretty smart in using the term proprietary only while talking about Microsoft, and want your readers to assume that other vendors share source code of everything. Every vendor (Redhat, Ubuntu, Sun, Amazon, etc) that supposedly offers some free open source products use proprietary version of their open source software internally. Don't assume they share all the configuration, proprietary modules and optimization secrets with customers.
Finally OS is a pretty small piece of the cloud offering, and the interesting layers are above the OS. All the cloud vendors will compete on those layers, dev tools and overall integrated experience, and MS may have an edge over there.
Your articles are categorized under "Free Enterprise", and that is really funny. There is not a single enterprise offering free products/services, so why do you assume that the cloud vendors will offer everything free (or open source for that matter).
Wish you all the luck in your analysis of these cloud offerings (you need it)
Posted by TiredOfSoCalledJournalists | October 15, 2008 5:19 PM
Hi there, TiredOfSoCalledJournalists, if that *is* your real name. :)
I'm aware that Amazon plans to add Windows support to EC2, later this fall. That's great for them, and great for everyone who wishes to run Windows in the cloud.
I don't have anything against Windows or Microsoft's other products, but I do believe that we're better off with platform choices that aren't controlled by a single corporation.
Many organizations do find value in open source-based infrastructure. Vendors such as Red Hat, Ubuntu, Sun and Amazon do indeed contribute back to the open source communities in which they participate, because they derive value from it.
You, of course, are free to choose differently.
As for the title Free Enterprise, I'm of the opinion that free and open source software offers an arena in which vendors compete for customers based not on their portfolios of government-granted and enforced IP monopolies, but on the strength of these companies' execution -- free enterprise.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Posted by Jason Brooks | October 15, 2008 6:50 PM
Instead of addressing the key points in the first note, you focused too much on promoting some platform. Wish you had told the readers upfront that you are from Linux camp instead of pretending as an unbiased one.
You seem to be preaching your readers to blinding adopt open source or some platform. Pls don't assume the readers are dumb, and let them decide on their own.
You might want to partner with SJV (your eWeek colleague) and flag articles under "Linux Watch". Wonder what happened to him (Thank God, some of us don't miss his biased reports).
We will be pleased as soon as all the journalists have to share their real employers (like the way Financial reporters are required).
Posted by FinallyOutCameTruth | October 15, 2008 8:28 PM
Hi FinallyOutCameTruth, you can catch up with SJVN over here: http://blogs.computerworld.com/sjvn .
Thanks again for taking the time to comment. Civil or not, the feedback is helpful.
Posted by Jason Brooks | October 16, 2008 11:25 AM
Aren't IBM, Sun, Google, MSN and Yahoo all parts of a "cloud OS" now?
I am not certain just what a "cloud OS" would be beyond an ad-hoc wide area network offering various resources (that may come and go in a random appearing fashion) and a thin-client with a browser for the end user.
All of those things are either already available or appear to be fairly easy to implement with existing tools.
Maybe a node could simultaneously act as a client (i.e. display content for an end user, if desired) and contribute unused compute cycles as a server node... None of which looks feasible for my home dial-up access.
I would appreciate clarification of the concept.
Posted by NotSoSure | October 17, 2008 12:18 PM