Linux Online - Behlendorf: Open source at a 'tipping point'

Behlendorf: Open source at a 'tipping point'


Publication:	Newsforge	Date:	Dec 17 2003
Reporter:	Chris Preimesberger

Brian Behlendorf, founder and CTO of CollabNet and president of the Apache Software Foundation, believes that open source is at -- or slightly past -- what he calls "the tipping point," with a bow to Malcolm Gladwell, author of a 1999 volume by the same name. Why? "Open source has been around for a while in various shapes and forms," Behlendorf said in a keynote address at the SD Forum's recent Open Source Summit, "but it didn't really start taking off until about five years ago, in 1998. It is an idea with an unstoppable course. For ideas like this to be unstoppable, they must reach critical mass and not have any restraints. Open source is one of these ideas."

Behlendorf believes that the open source movement is now at a major crossroads ("tipping point") because it has moved from being centered in far-flung, independent development shops or studios and is becoming more crucial to day-to-day work in the established business world. "Look at Apache," he said. "It's been running 60% of all the world's Web sites for six years now. I think it's now up to about 67%; it increases something like .2% per month. That's pretty amazing, when you think about it."