Open source is the tech we trust

Published on the 21/03/2023 | Written by Heather Wright

Open source has come out on top as the ‘emerging’ technology developers most trust, with quantum computing, nanotechnology and low code/no code ranked least trusted and most experimental. 

And while AI-assisted technologies ranked around the middle of the 21 technologies covered in the Stack Overflow survey of developers and technologists, it was the clear winner when it came to the technologies respondents believe everyone will use. With 33 percent, it was well ahead of second-placed machine learning, on 10 percent, and even cloud computing, which managed just third place, on eight percent.  

“Technologists are willing to concede that AI isn’t a proven technology as of today, but seem to be very positive about the direction it’s going,” the report says.  

“It’s clear that most developers do not feel blockchain is positive or proven.”

Open source (seven percent), block-chain (five percent) and low code/no-code (four percent) rounded out the list of technologies respondents believe everyone is going to be ‘the next one’ everyone will use. 

Open source, machine learning and cloud computing were listed as the top ‘proven’ technologies in the pulse survey designed to see how developers feel about the technologies making headlines. 

A recent report from the Linux Foundation, found, unsurprisingly, that cost savings and faster development were key benefits cited by companies for using open source, with almost 21 percent of respondents – who included 430 companies including many of the Fortune 500 – said the benefits of using or contributing to open source software is rising faster than the costs.  

But while open source may have changed the way, and the speed with which companies can create software, concerns over flaws in code repositories continue.  

The Linux Foundation report notes the greatest perceived costs of using open source software are security gaps. Log4j, which left hundreds of millions of systems vulnerable and resulted in the head of the US government cybersecurity agency, CISA, referring to the vulnerability in the widely used logging library as ‘one of the most serious I’ve seen’ – is just one example.  

A US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs hearing last year heard how the Log4j weakness was just one example of how widespread software vulnerabilities, including those found in open source software, can present a serious threat to security.  

A Synopsys report found 84 percent of codebases contained at least one known open source vulnerability – an increase of almost four percent on the 2022 findings. Forty-eight percent contained high-risk vulnerabilities – deemed as those that have been actively exploited, already have documented proof-of-concept exploits or are classified as remote code execution vulnerabilities. 

Despite that, Stack Overflow dramatically proclaims: “Open source is clearly positioned as the north star to all other technologies, lighting the way to the chosen land of future technology prosperity.” 

It also came out on top in the positive impact score, ahead of sustainable technologies and machine learning. Low code/no code, Innersource and blockchain ranked lowest, though the report notes that in the case of low code/no code and blockchain that might make sense given both could be associated with questionable job security in certain developer careers. AI, however, doesn’t suffer the same fate, again ranking around the middle of the pack.  

When asked which technology will never be widely used in the future, both blockchain and low code/no code received more than 10 percent, making them the top choices in the category.  

“Post-FTX scandal, it’s clear that most developers do not feel blockchain is positive or proven, however there is still desire to learn as more respondents want training on blockchain than cloud computing,” the report notes. 

“There’s a reason to believe in the direct positive impact of a given technology when it pays the bills.” 

And while rapid prototyping tools, biometrics and serverless computing were fairly well rated as proven technologies by those surveyed, sentiment towards them was largely negative.