Tim Almond

"Nothing, not all the armies of the world can stop an idea whose time has come" Victor Hugo

Working from Victor Hugo’s quote, what do we actually mean by "an idea whose time has come"? What creates the situation where an idea’s time comes? Often it is technology.

William Tyndale was a  Baptist who translated the bible from Latin into language that the layman could read. He was a brave man to do this, as it was considered as heresy at the time (and Tyndale paid the ultimate price for it).

However, Tyndale was not the first person to attempt an english translation of the bible. In 1380, John Wycliffe did the same thing, creating an english translation of the bible. However, he did not have the benefit of Gutenberg’s printing press, and so creating multiple copies was an expensive manual process. Where Wycliffe may have had the idea and the will, the technology had not yet arrived that allowed them to reach fruition.

So, what does this have to do with open source software? Simply, that the technology is in place that allows the idea to reach a mass audience. The ideas behind Free Software have been bubbling around for about 20 years, but it is technology that is driving its growth.

When I first went on the internet 10 years ago, the idea of downloading an 88mb OpenOffice.org file "just to try it" was a large undertaking over my 33.6K modem. Now, it’s less than an hour.

We could also count that CD/DVD burning has gotten cheaper and quicker, and so, such software can be easily passed on to others.

This technological reason is why Open Source Software is not only here to stay but will grow still further. As we see technologies like 3G and Wifi become more like a national net, we will see more services shift to service-based models, and away from localised storage.  Most service-based models are web-service and browser based, making them friendly to many platforms, and therefore, allowing companies to have more choice in which systems they deploy.

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Tags: Technology //