Shouldn't it be "Twitter is building open source software"? Pointing out the obvious since most of the software companies are built on open source software but only a few build one.
I think close to 100% of the internet is built on/with open source software.
But it's a major headache to get your in house libraries/software released as open source. There's reservations because by default everything developed is considered proprietary and a trade secret. It's difficult to convince management to give stuff back and/or see a benefit, the larger the org the harder it gets. Then comes legal with the legal derp.
And finally you can't just put stuff on Github and expect it to thrive, you need resources to maintain your open source projects and again convince management beforehand that it's not just a liability.
I don't think it's anywhere near "close to 100%", like you're claiming.
IIS is still quite widely used for many web sites. Netcraft's latest survey results suggest just slightly under 30% of all web sites are served by it. So that's some closed-source software powering a significant portion of the web, at least.
And it's quite safe to say that those IIS installations are running on some variant of Windows, which is yet another generally closed-source software system. Then there are other non-web services (DNS, FTP, and so on) handled by such Windows systems.
There are still a surprising number of proprietary UNIX systems out there in production, on the public Internet. We're talking HP-UX, AIX, UnixWare, and even BSD/OS in some cases. There are many behind the scenes, indirectly supporting web sites and other publically-accessible services.
There is a lot of other networking gear that runs proprietary software, too.
Is open source software important to the Internet? Absolutely. Is it the "100%" you're claiming? Absolutely not.
moreentropy|12 years ago
I think close to 100% of the internet is built on/with open source software.
But it's a major headache to get your in house libraries/software released as open source. There's reservations because by default everything developed is considered proprietary and a trade secret. It's difficult to convince management to give stuff back and/or see a benefit, the larger the org the harder it gets. Then comes legal with the legal derp.
And finally you can't just put stuff on Github and expect it to thrive, you need resources to maintain your open source projects and again convince management beforehand that it's not just a liability.
Pacabel|12 years ago
IIS is still quite widely used for many web sites. Netcraft's latest survey results suggest just slightly under 30% of all web sites are served by it. So that's some closed-source software powering a significant portion of the web, at least.
And it's quite safe to say that those IIS installations are running on some variant of Windows, which is yet another generally closed-source software system. Then there are other non-web services (DNS, FTP, and so on) handled by such Windows systems.
There are still a surprising number of proprietary UNIX systems out there in production, on the public Internet. We're talking HP-UX, AIX, UnixWare, and even BSD/OS in some cases. There are many behind the scenes, indirectly supporting web sites and other publically-accessible services.
There is a lot of other networking gear that runs proprietary software, too.
Is open source software important to the Internet? Absolutely. Is it the "100%" you're claiming? Absolutely not.
blumkvist|12 years ago
The only one I can see is building culture/name for yourself (which I don't consider a trivial thing), but I can't think of anything else.
codyjames|12 years ago