Is Open Source Software the Future of Software Development?
Sohail Subhani, PhD

Abstract
Just a few years ago, it would have been difficult to envision that open source software applications could seriously threaten closed source or proprietary software industry. But as we look at the existing software development landscape, it becomes vividly clear that the open source software movement is gathering momentum and poses a serious challenge to the proprietary software industry. The infrastructure of the internet, such as mail servers, web servers, and FTP servers is largely based on open source applications. Apache servers, representing sixty percent of the web servers on the internet, is currently the number one web server; Send mail controls forty percent of the e-mail servers. My SQL’s market share is growing faster than Microsoft’s SQL server and Access databases. Even large technology companies such as IBM, Intel, and Sun have started to support open source development with the expectation of enhancing their hardware sales. In view of the evidence, it is hard to refute the fact that the open source philosophy will dominate the software development environment of the future. In order to assess the viability of the open source software development, this paper examines factors contributing to the growth of the open source movement and also looks at the adequacy of the open source business model.

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