Both speakers make the point that open source’s strength lies not so much in its licensing model or lower cost as in the fundamentally different approach to development. Open source software must be modular to developed by a far-flung community and that modularity is what enables open source programs to be created and modified so quickly. In fact, Linus Torvalds has said that if he had to develop the Linux kernel in the closed, stratified environment typical of commercial software companies, he never would have delivered Linux quickly enough to be meaningful to the user community.

The development world has talked about making software modular going back to the days of 4GLs and, later, object-oriented programming. It’s a noble objective but the development processes of commercial software companies discouraged the practice because software was always delivered in one big clump – or release – that lived in the market until an update was due. There was basically no incentive to develop in a modular fashion.

Open source software is under constant development by thousands or even millions of programmers around the world. If the software isn’t designed to incorporate constantly slipstreamed improvements and fixes, the whole model breaks down. That’s the beauty of open source. It is designed for continuous improvement.

O’Reillyl refers to recent developments at Google, Amazon and others to support his point. Google’s news, maps, local and Froogle services are in seemingly constant beta test, undergoing refinements as they serve users. With Google Maps, Google published interfaces that allowed developers to extend the platform for new applications. For example, GasBuddy.com extends Google maps to allow users to search for cheap gas in their vicinity. Housingmaps.com combined CraigsList.com home and apartment listings with Google maps to help you pinpoint attractive properties in your area. Amazon’s Yellow Pages beta pinpoints nearby businesses and provides rich information about them.

It’s certainly a new approach to software development and one that promises exciting innovations. However, I’m not sure corporate IT organizations will be as enchanted with perpetually modified software as developers are. IT groups value consistency and management. Many would rather have a single version of a package deployed across the company – even if it’s an older version – than have different iterations springing up everywhere depending which fixes and enhancements users and administrators had downloaded.

It’ll be an interesting push/pull. There’s no doubt that modularity and open development increase the speed at which new ideas reach the market. But corporate IT isn’t usually as interested in innovation as dependability. The willingness of enterprises to embrace this new approach to development will have a lot to do with how effectively open source is assimilated into the enterprise.