Website Theme for 2018: The coming disruption

-5 minute read-

Every year we create a new design and theme for the conference website, to keep things fresh and new. But this year the design is also intended to represent and convey a larger theme – that of a coming future disruption.

Twenty years ago, most people had difficulty believing open source software would disrupt anything significant. Fast forward to today, and it’s so obvious how much open source has disrupted the world in businesses and homes that those “in the know” generally assume the disruption is over with.

We disagree.

Yes, open source has shaken up the world, invading everything from enterprise business to mass market personal computing to home appliances. Nearly everyone on the planet is a user of open source software now whether they realize it or not. But this is a disruption of adoption. The real disruption, when huge numbers of people begin to actively contribute, is just beginning.

Github announced this year that 24 million individual developers contributed to projects hosted there in 2017. You might think that sounds like a big number – but you ought to think again; there are nearly five billion adults on the planet. It’s true that not everyone can (or even wants to) be a software developer – but 0.48% of the adult population on earth seems a bit low.

Part of that coming surge of contribution will be centered in what we typically think of as the community. And the developing world will make an even larger and more disruptive surge – people whose access to technology increases more rapidly than the local economy have very different wants and needs than those of people in more static and stable first world economies. As they make direct impacts on the course of software evolution, the rest of us will feel it in new and unpredictable ways.

The other, and perhaps even more influential surge, will most likely come from the small business sector, where real economic disruption usually does.

Currently, the majority of professional contribution to open source software comes from enterprise via software developers employed by the likes of IBM, Google, and Microsoft. We’re just now seeing that sector begin to broaden – Wal*Mart is a huge source of contributions now – but as time goes by, we feel it will deepen as well, with contributions starting to emerge from employees of mid-market and small businesses, being actively paid to contribute to relevant projects on company time.

All Things Open, and its companion conference series Open Source 101, are making every effort to lead and contribute to this disruption.

We’ve always structured All Things Open to educate all levels of technical and management professionals about the reach and power of open source projects, and Open Source 101 reaches tomorrow’s professionals early to do the same.

We feel there is tremendous value in being able to tell others “not only do I/we use [industry standard] software and technology but I/we develop and contribute to it also”, and as the wider recognition of this value increases the level of investment and participation will increase significantly along with it. This will result in new and interesting directional changes, as those most directly involved with software and technology’s application will become the creators as well.

We hope the 2018 design in some small way captured this overall and admittedly forward looking belief.

Have thoughts on the 2018 website design? Contact us directly at [email protected].