Free software (and open source) license models have become the most influential force in business IT to date. The first part of this article presents a brief history of free software, combined with the findings from an analysis of the attitudes and expectations, across several hundred large and medium-sized businesses, relating to free software. The second part of this article presents Delphi Group’s vision for the next wave of commercial free software, where demand is driven not by cost alone, but foremost by quality of service and increased agility.

Free software 1.0—a brief history of free software

The first commercial computers came with “free” software, including the source code, which could be freely shared. It wasn’t until the 1970s that independent commercial software became widely available. By this time, competitive forces had lead to increasingly closed-source architectures and restrictions on redistribution.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that independent commercial software became widely available. By this time, competitive forces had lead to increasingly closed-source architectures and restrictions on redistribution

The decades that followed saw both explosive growth in software development and rapid declines in the cost of computing power.

Hardware moved rapidly toward commodity status, while software became increasingly proprietary and redistribution restrictions were enforced at an increasingly aggressive rate. This trend led to two sets of circumstances whose repercussions now hold the potential to redefine the software industry:

1. communities of programmers have ready access to hardware horsepower, but find the latest and greatest software tools out of reach;
2. commercial developers seeking to differentiate their applications developed increasingly closed and proprietary software.

By the late 1970s, the growing cost of software first inspired the early seeds of today’s free software movement, including the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation. For decades to follow, the free software movement grew within communities of hackers who viewed commercial software as a cultural anathema. Yet the innovations these communities produced were largely relegated to command line UNIX, with little impact on end user computing or commercial software sales.

In the 1990s however, the free software trend line hit an inflection point. As a result of maturing standards (such as HTML and XML), the open orientation of the internet, the evolution of Java and J2EE, and the success of initiatives such as Apache, Linux, and MySQL, the terms “open source” and “free software” have become part of the modern business vocabulary. Today, free software represents one of the greatest opportunities for both buyers and sellers of software, offering what is increasingly viewed as a viable exit strategy away from the trappings of the software oligarchy and the rising cost of proprietary licensing.

In the 1990s, however, the free software trend line hit an inflection point. As a result of maturing standards (such as HTML and XML), the open orientation of the internet, the evolution of Java and J2EE, and the success of initiatives such as _Apache, Linux_, and _MySQL_, the terms “open source” and “free software” have become part of the modern business vocabulary

Shifting sands across the software landscape

In a Delphi Group survey of several hundred software consumers, nearly half of respondents agreed with the statement that free software represented “an emerging area about to revolutionize the software industry,” while 10% cited free software as “already the best way to go for software development and procurement.” Interestingly, when the same questions were put to software developers, the responses proved even more favorable to free software.

In March of 2004, Delphi Group surveyed several hundred large and medium-sized businesses, as well as government agencies and large universities, regarding their use of and attitudes toward free software. The organizations examined included large consulting firms such as EDS, Accenture, and CSC; large medical services firms such as the Mayo Clinic and Carle Clinic; engineering and manufacturing firms such as Alcoa, CDM, and Elekta; firms in the energy sector such as SPL WorldGroup and Santos; United Stationers Supply Company, North America’s largest business products wholesaler; pharmaceutical firms including Lattelekom and Novartis; publisher Penton Media; as well as non-profit firms such as Mercy Ships. Also surveyed were several universities and government agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Congress, and the State of Nevada’s Department of IT. The responses presented in this article reflect only those of users and internal application developers (e.g., software consumers). Responses from commercial software developers, resellers, consultants, and integrators have not been included in the analysis illustrated in this article.

The free software licensing model allows software to be freely shared, shifting competitive differentiation among software publishers from proprietary code to the quality of support and services. By shifting the point of competitive differentiation from proprietary code to openness and adherence to standards, free software holds the potential to radically alter the economic equation that has defined the software industry for the last 3 decades. There are few, if any, developments in commercial computing, which have evolved as quickly as the adoption of free software. This is driven by a combination of internet-delivered software (i.e., downloadable code), maturing standards, and of course, a price point that is either free or virtually free compared to closed-source equivalents.

The stage of deployment for free software

The first wave of free software to impact commercial computing was at the server level, notably the explosive roll-out of Linux since the late 1990s, and the less visible but equally pervasive adoption of the Apache Web server family. It wasn’t, however, simply the low (or arguably nonexistent) price point that paved the way for these and subsequent free software initiates. It was the democratization of application development by J2EE and its constituent set of community-driven standards. For this reason, most commercial adoption of free software has been on the J2EE and/or Linux/UNIX platforms.

The most commonly deployed free software today includes the Apache Jakarta projects (Java-based server-side tools), the Apache Tomcat servlet engine, the Eclipse Java-based development environment, the JBoss J2EE application server, and tools such as the PHP scripting language and the Samba Windows-to-Linux integration software. The most widely deployed free software is Linux, which is today also the most widely installed UNIX variant and by far the one with the most rapidly growing market share.

The object-oriented, component-oriented, standards-based architecture of J2EE has hastened the development of multiple free software projects initiatives, such as those under the _Apache Software Foundation (ASF)_

The object-oriented, component-oriented, standards-based architecture of J2EE has hastened the development of multiple free software project initiatives, such as those under the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). The ASF community represents over 1,000 core developers and over 50 active projects. Organized as a nonprofit association, ASF is a meritocratic community governed by a core set of laws and principals (known as Foundation Bylaws ). Projects are vetted and approved through a peer-review process involving both users and developers, comparable to what would be found in the QA process of commercial software development.