The Open Source Dilemma🤔
Photo by Steve Johnson @steve_j on Unsplash
Open-source software (OSS) is a promise that feels like it’s too good to be true.
Release some software into the world, and anyone can use it, improve it and share it. For developers this has been revolutionary as we help each other to produce excellent solutions to problems and create a community around the software.
Yet all that glistens isn’t gold. OSS comes with a collection of not-so-small drawbacks.
The Innovation Shortfall
By opening up OSS to the masses the hope is to create a thriving community of contributors who make the code better. What’s not to like?
I have to say it. Welcome to the real world, not the coding utopia you’d like to see.
In practice opening up codebases means that the quality deteriorates, the copy-paste merchants “borrow” code from elsewhere in the codebase and fail to enhance the project from a tech point of view. Tech debt picks up, and pretty soon it’s difficult to get features into the code.
The whole idea of OSS being a self-sustaining innovation engine hits a wall when people have the mindset of, “If it works, don’t touch it.”
Security Risks
When you open up your codebase (or even a portion of it), you’re introducing security risks.
Those of you who claim that more people working on something makes it safer I’ve a retort: Wikipedia is full of lies, and the volume of contributors has never changed that.
Remember the node-ipc scandal? Open source didn’t save things there, and I don’t think it will help in the future. Because let’s face it, while a larger community may help spot issues eventually, they often come too late.
Sure, closed-source software have security issues too. But when something goes wrong, you’re reliant on some companies' staff to fix it, motivated by their bottom line. They will get to it, if it’s important enough.
The Cost of Free
Junior developers might claim that “free software” democratizes technology.
But here’s the thing. The cost of software does indeed contain the up-front purchase price, but maintenance costs greatly outweigh that initial cost.
What starts as a money-saver quickly turns into a time-waster when the lack of dedicated support means you’re spending hours troubleshooting someone else’s code. The economics here don’t add up. OSS can lock companies into a patchwork of free, clunky solutions that hold them back from making larger technological leaps.
Then there’s the human cost. As you lean on free libraries and public tools, developers become less incentivized to create their own innovative solutions. And with tech giants still in control of the majority of tools and standards, smaller players are left patching things together with OSS that might not even fit their specific needs.
At least using commercial software, you know and understand the full price at the get-go. And that’s something.
The Solution: A Balanced Approach
This isn’t a call-to-arms to remove open source from our workflows. Git, after all, is a success story that we simply couldn’t have imagined thirty years ago and perhaps would never have happened without OSS>
But if we’re going to rely on OSS, we need to think about building systems to reward quality contributors, vet code more rigorously, and push companies to contribute back to the community meaningfully — not just in the form of code but maybe funding, tools, or infrastructure that supports a sustainable open-source ecosystem.
OSS shouldn’t be a crutch that developers lean on to avoid making truly innovative solutions. Maybe, just maybe, what we need is a hybrid approach where proprietary and open-source tools coexist, giving developers flexibility while incentivizing innovation and keeping security front and center.
Make your software development decisions with care, kids.
Conclusion
Open source is still the future, probably.
If you’re thinking of using it make sure you have considered the drawbacks as well as the benefits, then make the right choice for your project.
Much like any decision in software development, then.