There’s a great deal of interest in open source software development these days. While the concept of open source (if not the name itself) is hardly new – people have been freely sharing source code since the beginning of the computer industry – the convergence of commercial interest in open source participation along with the maturation of open source development processes and governance models have greatly raised the visibility of open source development during the past several years.

Linux, at one time a hardcore developer’s toy box, has gathered support from major corporations. For example, IBM and independent Linux vendors such as Red Hat are growing at a healthy rate. The donation of the Eclipse code line to open source by IBM in late 2001 started a new chapter in commercial open source. These high-profile cases, along with the increasing awareness of core open source components that are widely deployed such as the Apache Web server, BIND, Sendmail, and Perl, have captured the attention of many, the media and venture firms included.

Is Open Source a Fad?
But isn’t “open source” just a fad – the latest hype in an industry that has shown a singular propensity for falling head over heels for the newest thing? After all, if you read the comments of the most zealous open source supporters, it’s easy to find claims and discussions that bear a striking resemblance to those made during the heyday of other fads. Maybe open source won’t last – software is hard to make, and great software is extremely demanding. Where are the incentives to produce high-quality software and innovate when it will just be given away for free? Maybe open source will collapse on itself, a victim of too much uncontrolled energy and false hope pumped into a small balloon.

An old saying warns us that making predictions, especially about the future, is tricky. Ultimately, no one knows what the fate of open source will be, but there are reasons to believe that it’s more than a hollow fad. Along with the hype and fantastic promises, open source has also attracted the attention of strident critics and careful scholars. These people have little interest in making outrageous claims about the future success of open source. In many cases, they represent perplexed economists, business theorists, technologists, and developers who are seeing open source succeed and grow, despite the fact that their intuition tells them that it shouldn’t.