Open Source Won: What That Means for the Future

In 2001, Steve Ballmer called Linux "a cancer." In 2024, Microsoft is one of the largest contributors to open source projects. Linux runs Azure. GitHub, owned by Microsoft, is where open source lives. The war is over, and open source won. But what does victory look like?

The Quiet Triumph

Look at the foundation of modern computing:

• Linux runs most servers, all Android phones, and most embedded systems
• Kubernetes orchestrates containers at most major companies
• React, Vue, Angular—the major frontend frameworks are all open source
• PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB—open source databases dominate
• TensorFlow, PyTorch—AI runs on open source foundations
• Git manages virtually all code

The entire cloud runs on open source. AWS, Google Cloud, Azure—they sell convenience on top of free software. The infrastructure of the digital economy is collectively owned.

How Did This Happen?

The open source triumph wasn't inevitable. Proprietary software had real advantages: paid developers, coordinated roadmaps, professional support. How did free software win?

Network effects favor open: The more people use open source, the more valuable it becomes. More users means more bug reports, more contributors, more documentation. Proprietary software can't tap this network.

Cloud changed the economics: When software was sold in boxes, open source was a threat. But cloud companies profit from running software, not selling it. Open source reduces their costs while letting them capture value at a different layer.

Developer influence grew: Developers increasingly choose their tools. They prefer open source because they can inspect it, modify it, and aren't locked in. Companies that ignored developer preferences lost talent.

Quality won: Linux is simply better than proprietary alternatives for server workloads. PostgreSQL rivals Oracle at a fraction of the cost. React is better than proprietary alternatives. When open source quality exceeds proprietary, the argument for paying disappears.

The New Landscape

Open source won the technical battle. But the economic reality is complex:

Cloud providers capture the value. Amazon offers managed PostgreSQL (RDS), managed Kubernetes (EKS), managed everything. They didn't build these tools, but they profit from them. The creators—often volunteers—see little financial benefit.

Maintainer burnout is real. Critical infrastructure is maintained by exhausted volunteers. Log4j was a dramatic example, but thousands of lesser-known projects face similar situations. The work is unpaid; the responsibility is enormous.

The open core tension. Many companies use "open core" models: core open source, premium features paid. This creates tension. Is the company genuinely contributing, or extracting value while giving back scraps?

License wars continue. Elastic, MongoDB, and others changed licenses to prevent cloud providers from monetizing their work. These new licenses (SSPL, BSL) aren't "open source" by traditional definitions. The community is fractured.

What Victory Looks Like

Open source won, but victories are complicated:

The code is free; the infrastructure isn't. You can run PostgreSQL for free. But running it reliably at scale requires expertise, monitoring, backups—things AWS happily charges for. Open source democratized code; it didn't democratize operations.

Developers are free; they might not be paid. You can build with React and PostgreSQL for free. You can also contribute to them for free. Whether you can make a living doing open source work is a different question.

Innovation continues. Open source didn't kill innovation—it accelerated it. When foundations are free, more people can experiment on top of them. The barrier to creating is lower than ever.

The Sustainability Challenge

The big unsolved problem: how do we sustain open source?

Current models include:

• Corporate sponsorship: Companies employ developers to work on open source (Google on Go, Facebook on React)
• Open core: Free core, paid enterprise features
• Support and consulting: Red Hat's model—sell expertise, not software
• Foundations: Linux Foundation, Apache Foundation provide governance and funding
• GitHub Sponsors, Open Collective: Direct contributions from users

None of these fully solve maintainer burnout or ensure critical projects are adequately funded. We're still figuring this out.

What It Means for You

If you're building: Use open source. You're not just getting free software; you're joining an ecosystem of knowledge, tools, and community. The ability to inspect source code, report bugs, and contribute fixes is valuable beyond the cost savings.

If you're hiring: Open source contributions reveal genuine skill. Someone who's shipped code to a popular project, handled code reviews, and navigated community dynamics has proven abilities that interviews can't assess.

If you can contribute: Do. Not just code—documentation, bug reports, answering questions, and funding all help. The software we depend on needs active participation to stay healthy.

Open source won the battle for how software is built. The battle for how it's sustained continues. Your participation shapes the outcome.