Open source: risks and threats

El open source go through a sweet moment. There are many large companies that have embraced it, and more and better projects are being released under open licenses. In fact, this philosophy is even inspiring other sectors, where they are also betting on this collaborative way of working.

It has even been shown that make money with this philosophy, as companies such as Canonical, SuSE or Red Hat, among others, have shown. Despite all this, it is not free of threats and risks that must be taken into account and challenges that the community must face.

Among some of the risks Of the open source that could threaten your progress are:

• License incompatibility. We have already seen several cases of this type. Additionally, restrictive licenses are turning some companies that want to create a closed source derivative away from them towards permissive licenses. But of course, if everyone goes towards this type of licenses, you could see how many take advantage of these projects and finally what you have is a closed product ...
• Safety and quality. Despite the fact that there are many projects that have proven their quality and security, such as the case of Linux itself, there are still many companies and users who see open source projects as something of poor quality and low security. Something free that does not offer them the guarantees they need. It is a matter of making everyone who thinks so see that they are wrong.
• Fragmentation: It is true that diversity enriches, and that many projects and communities have remained cohesive. But having the maximum support is essential for a project to move forward. We must avoid by all means that a project is divided into different forks or forks simply because of the dispute of its members or because of a disagreement. This ends with two weaker projects usually incompatibilities and, on the other hand, confusing the end user.
• Patents and large corporations. Although some may say they "love" open source or collaborate, they are still companies that are simply looking out for their own benefit. And, just as he sees it with good eyes now, if it is a threat they will not be on his side. How do you say "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer«.
• Intellectual property issues. The fact that it is open source and accessible to all, in addition to the existence of some 200 types of licenses (and increasing), can make it more difficult to manage the IP issue.
• Insufficient supervision. In some open source projects, but not all, some teams tend to have somewhat insufficient or inefficient monitoring processes, lack of communication, scarce documentation, etc. It is possible that several computers are using different versions of the same component and that conflicts are generated.

Having said that, they are not insurmountable problems and they are not issues that affect each and every open source project. Many are doing really well.