Found an interesting article at “The C Suite” on the topic “CEO’s ignorance of open source software use places their business at risk“. While some of the article is a bit “FUDdy” – the author works for a company that sells risk management and mitigation, so there’s a greatest hits of open source vulnerabilities – there were also some eye-opening bits of data. To wit:
As much as 50 percent of the code found in most commercial software packages is open source. Most software engineers use open source components to expedite their work – but they do not track what they use, understand their legal obligations for using that code, or the software vulnerability risk it may contain.
We all know that developers use whatever’s available and don’t ask permission. That is not a surprise. What stood out to me was that the amount of open source code in commercial software was anywhere near 50%. Holy moly. That’s a lot of things to keep track of. When I first started this site, I had an inkling that pretty much all products consume some open source code, and I thought there should be some discussion around best practices for doing so, but I had no idea it was that pervasive. Even I, open source product person, am surprised sometimes by the near ubiquity of open source software in commercial products.
I think we’re moving beyond simply using open source software. I think we’ll see a marked shift towards optimization of usage and figuring out models to justify participation and collaboration. At least, that’s my hope. Look for more thoughts on this very subject coming up on this site soon.
