According to Andrea DiMaio, a member of the Gartner Blog Network, the increased use of cloud computing could be diminishing the use of open source. In this post, specifically looking at the government vertical, Andrea asserts that while cloud computing and open source are clearly linked, the hype and the political popularity surrounding cloud computing is turning attention away from the open source movement. Core to this issue is that the usage of both is driven around the cost advantages.
"Therefore some of the primary drivers to choose open source, i.e. cost and vendor independence, are just going away: In most cases cloud-based solution are going to be cheaper (and more elastic), and to use open source one has to go through a vendor anyhow. As a consequence I have seen a drop of interest in open source and corresponding surge of interest in cloud computing to solve pretty much the same problems (how do I reduce my dependence on Microsoft? how do I save on licensing costs?)," DiMaio wrote.
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I see the same trend in the marketplace as well. Typically, those who were advocates of open source technology are now turning to cloud computing, both inside the government and the Global 2000. They cite the following reasons:
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A zero sum game mentality will lead you astray. In terms of code execution world wide, OSS is still gaining ground for many many reasons. Whether and how many of those lines executed are in support of "cloud computing" is irrelevant.