What is the future of DevOps, open-source and money?

Like many buzzwords in the tech industry, DevOps is another which professionals and companies have heard of, but aren’t really sure what to make of it.

Open-source is a great way for developers to experiment with their capabilities and knowledge, but is it fair for the same developers to be donating so much free time? Once upon a time, open-source was (and probably still is) a major threat to large computing organisations—so why do people still expect developers to work for free?

April highlights the latest in developer news regarding the future of DevOps and funding.

What does the future of DevOps look like?

In recent developer news, we review the following questions: what is the future of DevOps? DevOps concerns everything in the IT development lifecycle and integrates the rest of the business’ goals and activities, so how do we define what it is? What are the outstanding methods that come together and drive DevOps advancement?

DevOps is a traditional undertaking that is usually a facilitator for co-operation between the roles of technology developers and IT operations.

These four major DevOps influencers guide our knowledge in what we can expect to see in the future of DevOps. This includes what the DevOps toolkit should contain and how experimentation is sometimes much more important than particular tools.

From JAXenter, the following three questions will be answered:

• If containers are revolutionising IT infrastructure and DevOps is transforming the modern IT landscape, would you say that they go well together?
• What are the anti-patterns of DevOps?
• Are there any tips on how we can eliminate obstacles to DevOps adoption?

Is DevOps a secret weapon?

For those organisations that are using it, DevOps is indeed working. But for some, many organisations haven’t actually heard of the concept.

A recent survey was conducted by development tools provider Atlassian and IT management solutions company xMatters. It found that 41% of the 2,000 respondents were doing DevOps and 65% specified that the initiatives were producing benefits.

Alarmingly, around 60% of these respondents claimed that they did now know what DevOps was or were not sure if their companies were practising it. This indicates that some companies still think of DevOps as just a ‘buzzword’.

Some people are still unsure about what DevOps is and does, but most technical people want to know about the details of continuous delivery. That is because it is difficult to achieve DevOps productivity gains without automation and improved workflows.

Why don’t more people in the industry know about DevOps and how can the industry make these people more familiar with a DevOps culture?

Who should fund open-source projects?

The next important question in developer news is how should open-source projects be funded? Open-source allows developers to break free from their usual routine and experiment with their own knowledge and capabilities. It is a side project on top of a full-time job but, for some, an open-source project is a full-time job.

For those that volunteer their time and experience to work on open-source projects, the community certainly thrives knowing development and potential groundbreaking revelations could be happening.

But, the big question remains, who benefits from this unpaid labour? And who foots the bill for all of these servers?

Open-source benefits all developers in their personal academia, but this was soon seen as a threat to large computing organisations. Software providers make big profits on licensing fees, copyrights, trademarks, and leasing contracts for their products. Therefore, they’d rather seek free open-source as an alternative.

Coding in your spare time can be a simple one hour job. But volunteering man-hours and effort for an open-source project can take up to 10-20 hours a week. Some developers receive some small perks from the community such as getting a coffee donated or a small ‘tip’. But it simply doesn’t pay the electricity bill at the end of the month.

What are the problems with coding in your spare time and can it be solved?

How is the internet changing the way we pay?

Last but not least in this roundup of developer news, have you ever thought how you pay for things? Most people like to have separate bank accounts knowing they have savings. But there is still that inconvenience of needing to take money from one bank and paying it into another bank.

Banks are legacy organisations and their technology echoes that. Most investment banks use Java or Linux but there are many different systems being used (some from previous mergers).

Banks find it difficult to adapt to new payment methods or be able to provide simple and inexpensive API’s. The smallest projects can cost millions in this type of environment. But the developers are the ones who are responsible for integrating several databases and systems.

The one thing to remember about payments and bank accounts is that these accounts aren’t exclusive to banks. These days, it is completely possible to survive very well without a bank account. In China, hundreds of millions of people are using AliPay, while people in Kenya are using M-Pesa and, of course, there is PayPal.

How we make payments won’t change overnight, but advancements in technology may soon change the personal control we have with our own money. Traditional banks may struggle to survive as Brexit is having a major impact on many of the UK banks that previously had the ability to count European holdings in the same pool.

What is and isn’t the solution to this?

How do you think the future of DevOps will unfold? Do you see open-source to be a long-lasting (free) experience for developers?

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