The Future Is (Selective) OpenThe Future Is (Selective) Open

Some would say proprietary / commercial software has a lifespan you could measure with a stopwatch. I don't think the sun has set on the Proprietary Empire yet, but it's getting dusky out -- and there are candles you can light up right now instead of cursing the dark.

The basic trope, as I've heard it repeated, goes something like this. The wealth of open source software out there is eclipsing proprietary products, and fast. You'd be a fool to even think about marketing software in a proprietary-only fashion right now, because some open source outfit's gonna come along and eat your lunch, dinner and dessert.

How true is this? For some things, it's all too true. If you're trying to launch a new product in a space that's already been solidly ruled by open source -- a content-management system, for instance -- you're going to augur into a wall, unless you're bringing something in that people are more than willing to pay for. But if you're out in an area where open source hasn't yet made inroads, you can probably do quite well. For now.

So what happens when time begins to run out on you? The answer: "selective open". This is my term for either providing an open core version of your product (basic functionality free; professional functions are for-pay) or an open extension version (core functions for-pay; add-ons are open source). Either way, you're at least getting one foot into the right water for the future. If your existing business model revolves around closed source right now, you don't have to ditch everything at once -- but it helps to start moving in the right direction.

Much of this thought was framed by a piece at the New York Times, "Staving Off a Spiral Toward Oblivion", in the Saturday Business section. That article talked about how embracing technological innovation drove companies to stay ahead of their competition -- but also how embracing said innovation often took a while to really catch on. It took years for photo-typesetting to fully replace hot lead, and years after that for digital typesetting to replace its analog counterparts -- not because of technical deficiencies, but because the legions of typesetters who used such systems were used to the old ones, and had to be retrained over time. Ditto the slow move to hybrid/electric transport: the tech is more "there" than we think, it's just that there's not much in the way of an infrastructure for electric cars as opposed to their gas-powered antecedents.

Here's the graf that got me thinking about how this applies to the above:

The "selective and intelligent innovation" mentioned here has a fine counterpart in selective open. There's no reason why closed source offerings have to be jettisoned immediately when they can be replaced gradually over time. And from everything I've seen that's exactly what's happening. The big question now is: who, and when, and in what form?

information Analytics has published an independent analysis of the next-generation Web applications. Download the report here (registration required).

Follow me and the rest of information on Twitter.