11 programming trends to watch - 5

Programming trend No. 5: Openness retreats
For all the success of open source software, the ability to engage in pure tinkering is slipping away in many corners. The success of the iPhone has everyone looking to find ways to wall off the commons. Sure, the new car computer systems are built with Linux, but don't for a second think you'll be typing "make" and deploying to your car.
Even if we concede that it would be creepy and dangerous to reprogram your brake system, why can't we hack the nav system? The car companies are touting how their fancy computer systems integrate with your phone, but they're not open the way your desktop is open. Hardly anything is as open as the desktop used to be. Even desktop systems may be more locked down, with some wondering whether the new secure booting infrastructure for Windows 8 will make it impossible to run alternative OSes.
This is bound to limit innovation in the future. After the garage hackers and programmers finish building tools that put a smile on their faces, they turn around and create companies that do the same tasks for the average person. Slicing off the open source experiment in this area destroys the aftermarket. And it becomes harder for companies to hire the programmers they need because open source tinkering produces skilled programmers that can fill jobs.
There remain glittering exceptions, usually when the code is shared between programmers. Some projects like Apache still thrive and attract the kind of financial support they need to pay top talent. Github and Sourceforge continue to add more projects. Others work well for developers experimenting with the bleeding edge. But there are few examples of pure openness succeeding with the end consumer, who seems drawn to the siren call of proprietary gardens.