The facts point squarely in one direction, as far as I can tell. Profitable SaaS companies are proprietary. Where are the billion dollar open source SaaS companies? I don't see them. Maybe the big companies occasionally release a component on github to get some goodwill, but nothing big.
It's only when you go all the way down to the "lifestyle" sized companies that I see real dedication to the open source ideals. They're willing to put their entire product on github. Props to those founders, but it's pretty insignificant because those businesses are so small.
Most people don't have the skills to run their own servers, and nor can we expect them to. Service based products are the future, but I hope that interoperability gets to the point where customers can switch painlessly between different providers. That would put a lot of leverage back in the hands of the end user. If I had to name one problem it would be lock-in, not proprietary code.
It's only when you go all the way down to the "lifestyle" sized companies that I see real dedication to the open source ideals. They're willing to put their entire product on github. Props to those founders, but it's pretty insignificant because those businesses are so small.
Most people don't have the skills to run their own servers, and nor can we expect them to. Service based products are the future, but I hope that interoperability gets to the point where customers can switch painlessly between different providers. That would put a lot of leverage back in the hands of the end user. If I had to name one problem it would be lock-in, not proprietary code.