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If the world of technology was built solely on proprietary technologies then it’s likely we’d still be using flip phones and years away from a useful internet, if any internet at all. Open Source Technology fundamentally powers most of the technology we use today. Android in itself is a fully open-source operating system for phones, and even Apple’s iOS has numerous OSS (Open Source Software) packages under the hood. The important part of understanding why Open Source is important to business begins with understanding why it’s important for the whole world.

Sharing is Caring

We’ve all heard the old adage that sharing is caring, but open source technology is much more than sharing. It’s less about encouraging someone to adopt a solution but rather encouraging collaboration over competition. Rather than try and build a competing platform, many developers and organizations will work collectively with an established platform to improve it or help bring its system more in alignment with their needs and the industry’s. This in turn leads to more collaborators and further sharing of the code and tools. Continuous collaboration also leads to better security measures, more hands on deck for critical issues, and a more stable product being released into the world. Though the solution is not always having more developers on a project, having a world wide consortium of developers looking at key elements of your code base is far better than just one.

Standards over Competitions

Competing technologies that decide on their own accord how they wish to integrate with other systems are often left in the cold, unless it’s mandatory that they are used. Developers will often shun these platforms as they don’t tend to play well with others and the learning curves often outweigh the benefits. The continuous growth of Open Source Technology around the world has led to the development of global standards on formats, integrations, building methods, etc. These standards have helped talent reach across the globe to service clients from anywhere. They also help developers adopt new technologies faster and therefore deliver quality results to their employers and customers faster. The standards are often governed by community members, meaning there is an avoidance of monolithic companies dictating the direction of these tool sets, allowing for more diverse opinions and therefore better quality code.

Collectively, the establishment of basic building blocks of technology has become crucial to business because it’s become crucial to a global economy. It has resulted in improved security measures, improved efficiency, more skilled workers, faster knowledge transfers and so much more. If your company is in a position to fund open source development, we at Grafite encourage you to consider it. There are numerous companies, from small businesses to Fortune 500s, that provide funding to open source developers around the world. It’s highly probable that your website or internal applications are running on open source code that was developed by a passionate engineer who just wanted to make the world a little better. Ensuring that organizations or developers who build these technologies are encouraged to continue is all of our responsibility. So, let’s continue working on and sharing our open source code, and continue to watch the world become a better place.