Source: thenewstack.io
The True Meaning of ‘Open Cloud’Category: Business, Cloud, Infrastructure
In the modern software engineering world, there’s a tendency to value “openness” over all else, and sometimes we act as if the “open” in open source can be just as easily applied to other parts of the engineering stack.
Even if a cloud provider claims to have an open cloud, it should be obvious to everyone that the cloud infrastructure is not maintained by a global community of volunteers who do not monetize their efforts. Cloud “openness” is often misunderstood, sometimes because companies intentionally mislead us about what is and is not open, sometimes because as an industry we try to oversimplify very complex offerings and technology.
The linguistic similarities with “open source,” and the fact that “open” and “closed” are usually presented as binary options rather than a spectrum, make it easier to misconstrue the realities of an “open” cloud.
One of the problems with the term “open cloud” is that it encourages people to think of “openness” as a binary: either a cloud is open or it is closed.
Even if a cloud provider claims to have an open cloud, it should be obvious to everyone that the cloud infrastructure is not maintained by a global community of volunteers who do not monetize their efforts. Cloud “openness” is often misunderstood, sometimes because companies intentionally mislead us about what is and is not open, sometimes because as an industry we try to oversimplify very complex offerings and technology.
The linguistic similarities with “open source,” and the fact that “open” and “closed” are usually presented as binary options rather than a spectrum, make it easier to misconstrue the realities of an “open” cloud.
One of the problems with the term “open cloud” is that it encourages people to think of “openness” as a binary: either a cloud is open or it is closed.
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