The epidemic ushered in a major paradigm shift for many organisations, forcing them to figure out how to work remotely. As a result, the pace of digital transformation has accelerated dramatically, dramatically altering the cultural and technical contexts of organizations.
As a result, open source processes and technology have seen a massive increase in acceptance, with open source innovation now serving as a model for others in the sector. According to a recent analysis by the non-profit OpenUK, in 2021, 51% of UK enterprises would be actively looking for open source talents, with the UK ranking fifth in the world for open source contributions.
The State of Corporate Open Source study from Red Hat this year looked at some of the most important themes in the enterprise open source ecosystem at this time of transition and expansion. Here are a few important takeaways from our poll of IT executives that I especially like.
A higher demand for Kubernetes skills
Containers, Kubernetes, and a now-thriving ecosystem of cloud-native tools and apps all rose to prominence in the 2010s. Despite being one of open source’s largest success stories in recent years, Kubernetes’ adoption rate continues to be astounding. We discovered that 70% of respondents currently work for companies that utilise Kubernetes, which is an impressive adoption rate for a technology that is just eight years old.
However, the rapid adoption of Kubernetes has resulted in several issues. The demand for containers and Kubernetes outnumbers the availability of personnel, with 43% of respondents identifying a lack of familiarity or capabilities within their organisation as a major obstacle to adoption.
The container skills shortage is only set to worsen in the coming year, as a third of respondents intend to considerably increase their use of containers in the future year. Many organisations, on the other hand, are already executing strategic plans to close the Kubernetes skill gap, such as upskilling current IT personnel and forming centralised IT teams to facilitate knowledge cross-pollination across the organisation.
Security is an add on
Everyone who has worked in the IT sector over the last two decades recalls the days when public impressions about open source software’s security were overwhelmingly unfavourable. Many people would have labelled the use of open source in an enterprise’s IT stack as a potential security flaw even ten years ago.
Those days are no longer with us. Currently, 89 percent of IT executives polled believe that open source software is just as secure as proprietary software, if not more so. This move isn’t due to a “more eyes” approach to open source, which emphasises the numerous chances for proofreading open source code.
Rather, the fact that open source code is well-tested for in-house applications is the driving force behind open source’s security trust, with 55 percent of respondents indicating this as the primary reason for their confidence in its security. The fact that open source security fixes are well-documented and easy to obtain, which 52 percent of respondents identified as a reason they picked open source software, was a close second.
Community contributions is important
It has been observed for the first time that corporations view vendor and partner engagement with open source communities to be vital. This is summed up in the following statistic: Vendors who contribute to upstream open source communities are more likely to be chosen by 82 percent of IT leaders polled.
What is the reason for this? 49 percent of respondents say that such vendors are more knowledgeable with the underlying code and processes, and 49 percent believe that these vendors aid in the sustainability of the communities that develop their code.
The growth of this mindset is beneficial to both the corporation and the open source community. Recognizing the value of upstream communities results in a more robust ecosystem as well as enhanced communication between open source developers and end users.
Almost every organization’s IT department now requires both adaptable and reliable software as a result of the pandemic’s change. Finally, open source collaboration technologies are becoming increasingly important and dependable components of the enterprise IT stack. At the same time, the open source community’s contributions are being recognised as critical by businesses all over the world — to the advantage of both developers and users.
