It has been estimated 90 % of companies use some form of open source software, and if they needed to go and script it suddenly themselves, it would cost USD$ 9 trillion. This makes available cause a significant financial asset on a global scale.
However, some devices have shifted to industrial designs in recent times. After years of growth thanks to developer contributions and popular user adoption, they are now profiting from the final product, frequently to the detriment of developer communities and centered business users.
Thoughtworks, a global firm for systems, identified the pattern in its most current Technology Radar. According to Scott Shaw, the chief technology officer of Australia, it is largely driven by a greater emphasis on financials in recent years, and organizations need to ensure they tactic opened source with their eyes.
Some of the open source community’s favorite authors have switched to corporate licenses.
In April 2024, Thoughtworks noted a” attrition in the earlier beautiful environment” of available resource. ” Some well-known tools have recently received negative press, when their maintainers immediately transitioned from an open-source license to a commercial model,” it said.
The pattern has been building for some years, according to Shaw. There has been a growing “divergence” from that model, despite the tech industry having a typical set of principles and a number of well-known open source licenses governed by the Open Source Initiative.
Drastic changes to start source licences
The second instance is those businesses that have mid-stream changed the words of their open source license. There has been a shift to restrict that, frequently in relation to earnings, after developing a creator community and onboarding large numbers of people who have integrated the program into workflows under the permissive standards of open source licenses.
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Thoughtworks stated that” we have no problem paying for software and are good with the typical model of corporate licences for additional functionality,” but that” we find it problematic when core functionality of a widely used tool is immediately put behind a paywall, mainly when an ecosystem has developed around the tool.”
‘ Semantic diffusion’ in open source
There has also been a misunderstanding about what “open source” means, with Thoughtworks observing” software that claims to be open source, but fundamental capabilities only appear after customers pay subscriptions or other charges.” In some cases, an open source project may only distribute code, not builds, increasing the burden for organisations using it on premise.
One such example is the large language models that are loosely referred to as open source but are not, in some ways, open, and certainly not the way the OSI defines them, according to Shaw.
Docker, Terraform and Llama 3 diverge from pure open source
Thoughtworks noted that there have been numerous instances of “open-ish” or” shifts” to commercial licenses. Three examples are developer containerisation software Docker, Hashicorp’s Terraform, and Meta’s newly released LLM Lllama 3.
Docker
Developers use Docker, open source software, to automate the deployment of applications inside containers. With 55 % of developers using it every day, it became the foundation for the majority of application distribution and was a key component of software delivery. Additionally, Docker had a user-friendly Docker Desktop that allowed developers to run Docker locally on a machine to test.
In 2021, and effective in 2022, Docker changed its licensing. Larger businesses using it professionally needed to pay for a Pro, Team, or Business membership, meaning organisations were no longer in compliance if they did not pay fees to Docker. This is free for small businesses with fewer than 250 employees and less than USD$ 10 million in revenue.
Terraform
One of the most well-known and effective infrastructure as code tools for ensuring the security and predictability of any cloud infrastructure provisioning and management is Terraform from Hashicorp. Hashicorp’s decision to switch from a Mozilla Public Licence v2.0 to a Business Source Licence was met with outcry in the open source community because of its widespread use as an open source software that supports DevOps operations and businesses.
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The company explained its decision, primarily, as being to protect its interests from competitors using Terraform to compete with Hashicorp, who can now utilise commercial licences. This did not at ease the entire open source community; instead, some were inspired to launch OpenTofu, a community-driven project that aims to maintain Terraform as an open-source tool in accordance with the company’s earlier commitments to open source.
Llama 3
Meta’s Llama 3 is being received as a powerful LLM model, Shaw said. The model, however, has open weights in terms of its open source credentials, which do not adhere to other OSI guidelines, such as the ability to review source code and perform unrestricted redistribution. For the use of weights, Meta’s Llama 3 requires the payment of licensing fees based on user numbers.
” If you ask Meta, they call it an openly available model. That is true, but I think it’s important for people to understand that the term “open source” does n’t always imply that these things are open source. However, the term “open source” is used very loosely in these terms. I believe that this is occasionally missed because people do n’t fully comprehend how open-minded a particular model might be.
AI LLMs come in many degrees of openness
Thoughtworks argued that the” semantic diffusion” of open source badging is something that is particularly prevalent in the rapidly expanding AI market. The company wrote in its Technology Radar that “even though this business model has existed before, it seems to be exploited more with many of the brand-new AI tools, which offer amazing capabilities that are a little too obscure under the fine print.”
Shaw said that for LLMs, there’s a range of openness available in different models. They range from completely proprietary, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to models where the source code, training data, model structure and weights are all freely available and open for inspection and contribution. One recent example is Snowflake’s Arctic LLM, released on an Apache 2.0 licence.
There are two causes of companies reevaluate open source licenses.
According to Thoughtworks, some of the licensing decisions are based on revenue and IP protection.
Focus on financials
In recent years, the tech sector has become more cost-conscious as a result of economic woes, with chief financial officers gaining more and more authority over decision-making. According to Thomas ‘ Technology Radar,” a lot of blame has been placed on private equity and venture capital firms for putting more pressure on firms for revenue and profitability, especially as the tech industry has slowed.” Shaw claimed that some open source users have been re-examining their business models over the years.
IP protection
Another factor, noted by Hashicorp in its Terraform licensing decision, is the protection of IP. According to Thoughtworks, “others speculate that the open source vendors are only shielding themselves and their intellectual property from cloud vendors who would profit from the IP through hosted cloud services.”
Shaw claimed that in some cases, larger organizations, such as hyperscalers, had been using open source software to create extremely lucrative services without paying or licensing fees to the creator of the software. Although that is essentially the spirit of open source, the original vendors want to make sure they receive some form of financial benefit.
When open source licenses change, there are risks for businesses.
When the enterprise users of widely used open source software projects are changed to a more commercial model, Shaw claimed,” the transition causes a big headache.” Companies must ensure that the software — such as Docker Desktop, in the case of Docker — is removed from individual devices in order to remain compliant with licensing terms; in this case, they could be hit with licence fees or face audit risk, even if the software is still present unwittingly.
According to Shaw, organizations already invest a lot of time, money, and effort in auditing to make sure the software their employees use is being used in accordance with their licenses. It can be challenging to control abrupt changes in the deal-making process between open source providers. Boards, CEOs, and CFOs should be aware of this because they may be heavily reliant on open source software that has changed its licensing policies, according to Shaw.
Things IT should be aware of when utilizing open source software
Thoughtworks has advised IT industry stakeholders to conduct “particular diligence around license issues.” Make sure that all files in a repository are covered by the license at the highest level, according to the company’s Technology Radar. According to Shaw, businesses should “eyes open” when pursuing open source software.
Check the details of open source projects
One thing to consider is whether an open source project is actually supported by the general public or is reliant on a commercial interest without any other apparent business model, according to Shaw. In the latter instance, he advises checking if it is worthwhile to pay for the software’s enterprise version, so that the terms of the licensing are mutually agreed upon legally from the beginning.
Avoid data leakage to SaaS models.
Another factor to think about is whether the open source software is actually running on a desktop or is transferring some data to the cloud. According to Shaw, businesses should be aware of how data is being handled when it is being used as an online service and what kinds of safeguards are in place to prevent redistribution. According to Shaw, there is a chance of data leakage in some circumstances where organizations are not careful.
After changing licensing laws, new vendors and products are competing.
There are always competitors waiting in the wings to step in and offer competition, according to Shaw when an open source tool changes the terms of their licenses and users are required to pay. For example, in the firm’s Technology Radar where it flags tools to watch, alternatives to Docker Desktop include Colima. And while the state of the economy is bringing in more thorough scrutiny of business fundamentals, those driving forces that could lead to the transition to commercial licenses may be cyclical.
