2015: The Year That Open Source Software Became The 'New, Old Big Thing'
In 2015 the powerful tech companies Google and Apple as well as infamous entrepreneur Elon Musk decided to freely share the code from their latest technologies. Their decision was due to an innate understanding that 'one mind thinks better than none, and two minds think better than one.' In other words, open source software has a strong history of accelerating the progress of technology on a holistic and individual basis.
2015 was also the year that the Drupal project released its highly anticipated version 8 with the help, and strength of more contributors than ever before. According to the Founder of the Drupal Project, Dries Buytaert, "Open Source platforms with thriving developer communities like Drupal's have been keeping up, and are becoming essential building blocks [to creating the ideal web customer experience]." With the new release, Drupal continues to be at the forefront for open source innovations with everyone from small businesses to global enterprises leveraging the strengths of the open source content management platform.
Three Companies That Helped To Once Again Bring Open Source Software Into Prime Time
In order to propel open source software into the prime time spotlight, four companies opened their doors to enable more rapid advancement of technologies they previously kept proprietary.
- Apple followed Microsoft's suit for open sourcing its .NET framework, by allowing the Swift programming language to become open sourced. By open sourcing Swift, Apple has allowed the language to run on any device, including machines that are based on Linux, Android, and Microsoft Windows.
- Google open sourced TensorFlow. TensorFlow is the software engine that drives Google's Artificial Intelligence (AI) services. By freely sharing this technology, Google has opened the door for accelerated growth in a niche industry that is determined to be both innovative and supportive of consumer needs, while simultaneously providing the means needed to identify new talent within the AI field.
- Elon Musk and Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, unveiled OpenAI. The idea behind sharing the $1 billion nonprofit, which is dedicated to developing and advancing artificial intelligence in a manner similar to Google, is that no one can create an AI operation that is too powerful.
This powerful shift in 2015 paves the way for continued growth and acceptance of open source software. As the open source model continues to advance the aforementioned companies' technology, other businesses are bound to embrace open source.