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Open source, Linux set for unheralded coronation in 2010

Arguably the biggest prediction for 2010 around open source and Linux is that most end-users won't talk about it or even think about it. But that won't be a death knell; it's a coronation.

Experts say no more will open source and Linux be the scruffy-bearded outsider to dressed-up packaged software. Open source is working its way into everything, functioning behind the scenes as the brains for new client access devices such as smartphones, new applications built off existing open source technology and service-based applications that live in the cloud. The focus is function and not the underlying technology.

Perhaps Mike Olson, Sleepy Cat founder and now Cloudera CEO, said it best when he told Network World earlier this year, "At Sleepy Cat, we were proud to be an open source company. At Cloudera, I think of us as an enterprise software company that happens to be built on open source software."

In addition, governments and other IT organizations in 2010 will validate open source through adoption based on set policies and begin to bring it through the front door based on feature and functionality needs, rather than sneaking it in the backdoor.

It is that recognition of the capabilities rather than the development model that contributed to IDC leaving out the term "open source" when it discussed the technology as part of its predictions for 2010.

"I think the reason why is that open source has become a standard part of the industry and it's not necessarily something we raise an eyebrow toward," says Al Gillen, program vice president for system software at IDC. "The larger trends that are happening now are in part, or in a significant way, being assisted, driven or enabled by open source. Open source under the covers is very much a component of what we are predicting to happen in 2010."

Gillen says that fact is most prominent in cloud computing.

"For anybody building a cloud service that is not a derivative of an existing installed application, there is a pretty good probability that Linux and/or open source components are going to be part of the stack that gets deployed in that cloud. Today you don't have any other options. You can't build a Windows cloud."