Open Source! The future!

The future is open source everything-  Linus Torvalds

The same is absolutely true in the world of data management and software. A code a developer develops, if made open, others can make changes in it according to the need and it results in a better version of the code. And by doing the same Facebook and Yahoo! spawned some billion dollar startups.

Facebook built Cassandra as it become difficult to handle data growing day by day. Avinash Lakshman and Prasanth Malik built Cassandra in 2008 to power Facebook’s Inbox searching. Later Facebook made it open software through Apache software foundation. Soon Apple switched to Apache Cassadra and apart from that now companies like Cloudkick, Soundcloud , Wikimedia, Reddit etc. use the software. The developers improved Cassandra in many ways and the benefit returned to Facebook!

Yahoo! did the same on Apache Hadoop and now many companies use this data management software. Now Google is launching the public beta for a hosted version of Bigtable, running in its cloud, backed by its engineering talent, and available to all.

Even Microsoft open sourced their programming framework .NET last year and Apple successfully used it in Mac Version.

Now you may wonder how these will start billion dollar startups. Let’s see some examples. Cloudera built its software on Hadoop and the Silicon Valley Company was the first to commercialize Hadoop, the open source computing framework that makes it easier for large corporations to manage large volumes of data that cannot be stored in a traditional database. In recent years, Hadoop has become synonymous with the term “big data”. And now it is a billion dollar startup. Also DataStax built its software on Cassandra is in top most range.

The open software does no harm and in fact multiplies the productivity. Any software developed by anyone can be improved according to specific needs and this is the most important advantage of open sourcing a program. Open sourcing a program in fact accelerates the growth of startups. In 2014 VCs invested in 37 open source based startups and the stats will grow high. This says it all!!

Yes! The future is open source everything!!

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