In a webcast, Forrester principal analyst Jeffrey Hammond warned that enterprises that don’t embrace open source development and technologies could face extinction. He said that open source has allowed innovation to occur much more quickly than in the past, dropping the cost of software innovation by about 90 percent. “Open source more than anything else has dramatically reduced the cost of innovation …. it lets bright people stitch [open source alternatives] together and create a resulting [software]service that scales readily without additional licensing costs,” said Hammond.
He added, “We are seeing a shift in the center of gravity among development away from ISVs and corporations and to communities that form around open source projects. … [It’s the] GitHub generation, the Eclipse generation. Vendors are still important, but they’re moons encircling the planet, which is the community. They are not the center of gravity themselves.”
