Future of Open Source CMS

(Twitter hashtag: #fosc)

Last December at the Janus Boye Geneva Intranet Group Xmas Party, Janus Boye challenged me regarding the real added value of an Open Source CMS in 2010 compared to proprietary or hybrid products offers. He wrote a blog post in January about it:

J.Boye – Janus Boye: http://www.jboye.com/blog/

• http://www.jboye.com/blogpost/open-source-what-does-it-mean-in-2010/ (January 10^th, 2010)

While not directly related to the CMS industry, criticism of the Open Source business model came to the fore at OSBC 2009, in a session between Canonical's Matt Asay and Brian Prentice of Gartner.

This discussion resulted in a series of very interesting blog posts:

Gartner – Brian Prentice :

• Open Source’s Reality Distortion Field (March 23^rd, 2010)
• Open-Core: The Emperor’s New Clothes  (March 31^st, 2010)
• Defining & Defending The Meaning Of “Community” – An Open Source Imperative (April 20^th, 2010)

451 Group - Matthew Aslett Caos Theory:

• Winning and losing with open core (March 25^th, 2010)
• Please break our open source business strategy model (March 25^th, 2010)
• Sales and marketing for open source – same difference (April 1^st, 2010)
• Let he who is without proprietary features cast the first stone (April 8^th, 2010)

CMS Vendors’ first feedbacks:

• Business of open source: my take on "open core" - Nuxeo – Eric Barroca  (1^st of April 2010)
• Open source business model - Hippo – Jeroen Verberg (11^th of April 2010)

We can assume that something is broken, or at least unclear, in the Open Source CMS world. This debate is clearly not over as we will have to defend the “Future of Open Source CMS” at the next GilbaneSF 2010 conference.

GilbaneSF 2010: Future of Open Source CMS

The future of CMS is already a hot topic of debate with various CMS experts presenting alternate visions of this burgeoning market niche. Nowadays content is omnipresent, produced by everyone employing a variety of devices. As a result, content management practices are rapidly evolving from traditional, that still many consider complex and elitist, ECM platforms to new generation of Web2.0-E2.0 tools aimed for “Milleniums” born with the web. Content consumption practices are also rapidly changing. Users are flooded by a deluge of information and the attention deficit does not stop to increase. This presents a growing challenge for the content management industry.

The future of Open Source is another hot topic. Everyone, including Microsoft, agrees that Open Source is here to stay. However,  like the notion of "green", the Open Source concepts have been muddled by marketers, VCs, and myriad of software providers who have latched on to the label. Dual Licensing, Open Core and Patron Models make analysts heads spin as they try to figure out what Open Source really is, let along measure its value against more traditional proprietary offerings. To add to the confusion, we are assisting to a convergence of prices among competing proprietary, hybrid, or fully open source solutions especially in the CMS industry that finally are all relying on the same Open Source bricks? So, above all, what added value does Open Source still bring to the table? How does Open Source business models will evolve and stand the best chance for future success?

When we combine both topics, we end up with an explosive mixture. Open Source CMS have the potential to significantly disrupt the market, but lots of new challenges lie ahead :

• Balancing the role of Open Source CMS communities in a world of paid professionals.
• Differentiating techies' needs for a flexible content platform from those of practitioners looking after content-enabled solutions.
• Determining the limits of code co-optition in an already overcrowded market.
  
• Dealing with the fast and disruptive rise of new Content Composites, Mashups or Social/E2.0 technologies.
• Finding the right Open Source Business Models and value propositions that will please all partie.

So, according to you, what is the Future of Open Source CMS? Is it just a late and low-cost follower, or can it significantly disrupt the CMS market, from both, the technological and market share points of view? Will the existing split between Community and Commercial Open Source wither away?