One thing IBM has learned through all of this is that those communities that strive for inclusiveness and open governance tend to attract the largest ecosystems and most expansive markets. However, not all open source is created equal, and not all communities thrive.
There is a broad range of open source, and much of it is not truly open. Many open source projects are run by a single individual (or vendor) and are quite closed in their governance, severely limiting contributions from others. Other projects are more welcoming to outside contributions but are still closed when it comes to setting technical strategy and direction.
The key point is that once a project reaches a certain level of success, it usually reaches a tipping point. Without open governance, users realize there is a greater risk of vendor lock-in, or even project abandonment. Users and contributors alike want a voice in the decisions, and if they feel that their voice is not being heard, projects have been known to fail or fork. This typically has a detrimental effect on the ecosystem, which increases risk to users should the community around it collapse.
“We have worked hard over the years to establish a solid and respected reputation in open source circles, and especially in those communities where we invest strategically.
The reality is that open technology projects managed under open governance—the sort of open governance found in organizations such as Apache, Eclipse, Mozilla, and Linux—are demonstrably more successful (by an order of magnitude), have a longer life, and are less risky than those projects that are controlled by a single vendor, or are more restrictive in their governance.
While IBM often contributes to and consumes from open source projects that are not under open governance, when our clients or our offering teams feel that a project is important enough, we often work with the individual or vendor that controls the project to help them see the value of open governance, and to see the potential for even greater success. If we can effectively bring the project to open governance, we increase our investment considerably to help ensure that project’s success, and work to grow the community and ecosystem.
Many open source projects on GitHub and elsewhere could be described as “furniture left by the curbside for anyone to take.” The code is published with an open source license (or not!) but isn’t being actively maintained. Even in those cases where the code is actively maintained, it is likely that a single individual or company handles it. This is all well and good until that individual (or company) decides to pursue something more interesting or meets an unfortunate circumstance.
There are countless examples of the consequences of investing in open source projects with a single owner. A while back, Facebook declared that it was going to discontinue Parse (a popular mobile development platform), leaving thousands of developers stranded. There are many more cases where a developer released some cool capability as open source, and then, for whatever reason, abandoned or neglected it.
Now, some open source purists might say, “But you still have the software,” which is true. But here’s the rub: Are you really going to maintain a mobile app development platform or NoSQL database by yourself?
ref: https://developer.ibm.com/articles/cl-open-architecture-update/#not-all-open-source-is-created-equal