;)
What Constitutes an "Open" Platform
Posted by David Richards on 05 March 2020 2:50 PM SAST
Thoughts from a quarter century of working with open technology
There is no rigid, hard and fast definition for what constitutes an open platform or open technology. Rather, arriving at an answer for whether a solution is open versus proprietary (closed) is akin to the adage penned by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart when remarking as to what constitutes pornography — "You know it when you see it”.
The same is true here. "Openness" is not a binary determination. Rather, it's found along a continuum. The way we think about it is the more open the approach, the more it incorporates amounts of the following six elements:
Open Standards: Technology standards that are publicly available and have associated use rights. The IETF’s SMTP and TCP/IP are examples of global open standards. In most cases open standards are much narrower in scope/impact though no less important.
Open Source Software: This is software that falls under an OSI license and is generally free, always modifiable at the source code level, and can be broadly re-distributed. Linux is the poster child for such products.
Open Code Software: This is a less prescribed class of software. It’s characterized as free or inexpensive and modifiable at the source code level and redistributable under agreed upon parameters.
Open Programming Languages: The popular PHP and Python languages are entirely open source while Java, one of the world's most influential programming languages, is mostly open source. As contrast, a language like Salesforce’s Apex is proprietary.
Open APIs: Often referred to as public APIs, these are publicly available application programming interfaces that provide developers with programmatic access to proprietary software applications or web services.
“Open-Shoring”: This is a term we use internally. It's relevant because the cost, availability and quality of technology talent varies greatly across the globe. Open-Shoring (also referred to as "Right-Shoring") balances the use of domestic/onshore resources with offshore assets.
