It was a privilege for OpenClinica to help with the “Future of Open Source” survey recently completed by Michael Skok of North Bridge Ventures, Black Duck and Forrester. The survey polled users and other stakeholders across the entire spectrum of OSS.
Recently published results from the survey substantiate the idea that open source is ‘eating the software world’s lunch’ (to borrow a phrase from Michael). OSS powers innovation, increases security, and enables a virtuous cycle of proliferation and participation across major sectors of our economy. This is even true in healthcare and life sciences, and we are seeing these trends within OpenClinica community. People are adopting OpenClinica and other open source research technologies because of the quality, flexibility, and security they provide, not just to save a buck or two.
What I find particularly significant in the results is the increased recognition of quality as a key driver of adopting open source. 8 out of 10 survey respondents indicate quality as a factor for increased OSS adoption. This has vaulted from the #5 factor in the 2011 survey to #1. In research, quality and integrity of data are paramount. OpenClinica’s active (and vocal!) community’s constant scrutiny of the code, and continuous improvements demonstrate the power of the open source model in producing quality software. Furthermore, working in a regulated environment means you need to do more than just have quality technology. You also must provide documented evidence of its quality and know how to implement it reliably. The transparent development practices of open source are huge contributors to achieving the quality and reliability that clinical trials platforms require. Knowing that feature requests and bug reports are all publicly reported, tracked, and commentable means nothing can hide under the rug. A public source code respository provides a history of all changes to a piece of code. And of course, it greatly helps that many of the key tools and infrastructure that power open source projects are open source themselves.
That’s just one set of factors driving us to a more open, participatory future:
“As a result of all this, Open Source is enjoying a grassroots-led proliferation that starts with a growing number of new developers and extends through the vendors and enterprises to the applications and services, industries and verticals, reaching more people and things in our everyday lives than ever before… there are now over 1 million open source projects with over 100 billion lines of code and 10 million people contributing.”
One thing I predict we’ll see a lot more of in the next year, especially for OpenClinica and life sciences as a whole, is greater interaction between projects and communities. OSS reduces traditional barriers and lets more people ‘get their hands dirty’ with tools and technologies. As OSS tools, libraries, and apps proliferate, innovation will increasingly come from the mashups of these projects.
Follow the survey findings and updates @FutureofOSS and #FutureOSS