The cloud era and open source

Everybody has a cloud these days. Google has a cloud. Microsoft has a cloud. Sun has a cloud. Now, you can have a cloud of your own.

These are cloudy days indeed. (This cloud screensaver lives at Stephen Brooks' Web site, and has been accessed 3.99 million times. Let's all push him over the 4 million mark)

Question is, what does this mean for open source?

Personally I think this is a very positive trend for open source. What is happening is that we are separating issues of hardware and software on what we used to call the server side.

You develop what you want, how you want, and then you toss it into the cloud to run. If you like Microsoft development tools you use 'em. If you prefer open source tools you use 'em.

Is it Windows? Is it Linux? Is it a bird or a plane? Who really cares?

The cloud computing trend levels the playing field for developers, and tools. Microsoft's community will compete with all the open source communities out there.

Questions of "server market share" will go away, replaced by market shares for applications and traffic. Or shares for whose cloud programs are living in. The answers may prove cloudy indeed.

What do you think the cloud era means? Give it some thought this lovely spring weekend and get back to me on it. Just look into the clouds over something frosty and cold.