Got back from an interesting trip of Open Source India conference – OSI Days 2010. It was great to meet a lot of folks in and around the open source community here. I found the energy and enthusiasm quite high and enjoyed participating in two panels.
Cloud was a big topic at the conference and a lot of the discussion was on how open source ties into the cloud. Here are some of the more relevant audience questions and responses:
1. Why is opensource suitable for the Cloud?
One of the clear advantages of using opensource in the Cloud is elimination of vendor lockin. If there is a need to switch back to your datacenter or private cloud then using opensource in the cloud best enables that.
2. What is the benefit of cloud services for open source users?
For open source users, cloud based “open source as a service” enables reduced cost and faster updates and enhancements, since server and administration costs are eliminated, and maintenance is taken care of by the supplier.
3. Are opensource products moving to the cloud and will we see no more downloads?
We expect open source product companies will continue to use open source, downloads, open community participation and contributions to reduce costs and provide competitive service offerings to the clients. Cloud helps in shifting some of the user costs on servers and administration to cloud vendors that could enable further enhancements in the open source products.
4. What’s the best way to get involved with cloud services?
Open source users should understand their administration and infrastructure costs to see if a cloud service is a good option. If you are an open source solution provider, reselling or building on existing cloud services may be the quickest way to get started.
